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Loading ...I love the conversation over here at Marketing Conversation about SPAM, A Line in the Spam. I love the conversation and I want to have this conversation and I want all of us at Abraham Harrison to freely blog about marketing, advertising, and spamming. I want to deal with it directly.
I also want to boldly and shamelessly address the issue as to whether AHLLC SPAMs, is a SPAMMER, and if Online Outreach is SPAMMING. What makes what we do at Abraham Harrison not spam is as follows:
- We only collect emails from people who are already out there blogging
- We only harvest emails that are freely available and accessible: public
- We only outreach topically and only once-per-pitch, per campaign
- We always send an email merged personalized email directly from me
- Any personal reply arrives directly into my main personal INBOX
- Any personal email reply is responded to directly from me and by me
- I include my personal cell phone, URL, and email in my signature file
- In many cases, I am really charming and give a gift: info, truth, corrections, assets, etc.
- We, Abraham Harrison and I, are always open and clear as to our intention and agenda
- We aspire to being transparent and never double-blind or disguise
- To the best of our ability, we intend not to misrepresent our intentions
- We honestly try to give more than we take in the marketing free market: net-gain, win-win
Did I cover everything? I think these are super important questions. I come from a background with companies that were way more careful and way more guarded — in many cases heavily anonymized and aliased – and I don’t want AHLLC to play it like that. As a direct result, I have told our team to keep me honest and to make our interpretation and rigorously transparent as possible. Totally Open Kimono, to quote my buzzword-addled business partner.
Any questions or reservations? Please, don’t hesitate to ask. The comments are unmoderated so please, we welcome your comments and participations.
Filed under: Blogger Ethics, Blogger Outreach, Spamming
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The idea of SPAM to me, is not only unsolicited, but untargeted and impersonal mass advertising. SPAMMERs are playing a numbers game: if I send out 10,000 emails, 500 will gain traction or at least the recipient will pursue the message 1 click or more. Spam also often comes from an email that will not accept messages, so never mind getting a personal response from the person or persons who sent the message.
What sets us apart, in my mind, is that we target such a specific audience for each campaign and send a personal, tailored message to ONLY the people who we think, as relatively intelligent human beings, will be interested in what we are promoting, based upon our own assessment of the person’s interests based on their preexisting online persona and activity.
There is certainly a fine line between targeted advertising and SPAM, but I think with our concerted efforts to reach out ONLY to parties with an inclination to be interested in our promotion combined with our outright transparency (your own CELL number…) we safely keep out selves out of the realm of “spammers.”
Interesting. As someone who’s name is on several thousand emails a week lately, I think about it a lot. I think most of your points are how I justify sending out the mail I send officially for my company. I put my phone number on there, have every shred of info on there, and I do my best to make the emails a true conversation starter.
I think that’s the difference.
Thanks for this post.
(unrelated: are you making lots of money on the ads? Otherwise, they’re kind of distracting and annoying).
Thanks, Chris.
(No, no money at all, really, just being distracting an annoying. I am morally opposed to no monetizing. Even though this is a corporate blog, I had the template intentionally designed to have a column devoted to ads. I am simply compelled — I can’t help myself. Mea monetize culpa. You should see my personal blog — it is simply appalling, actually. I offend myself.)
But we all have to understand that the concept of ’spam’ was defined likely by absolutists over a decade ago. Marketing practices had not been developed.
Absolutists felt that any type of unsolicited email was spam. And that has often as an anvil tied around the legs of marketers as they try to wade into the online arena.
The initial definition, along with the type of people that send out what Taylor described above is what poisons the water. Not what AH does.
Let me take a contrary point of view. I receive hundreds of emails daily. Any one email, in and of itself, seems too small to complain about. But cumulatively, at 30 seconds average per email (some can be dealt with in 5, others require 5 minutes), it can take four hours to process 250 “real” incoming emails.
SPAM, for me, is anything that isn’t (a) a personal note from a friend, or (b) someone wanting to give me money (as opposed to the other way around). Even helpful targeted ads that address a real need, yada yada yada, have gotten to the point where they’re annoying. I don’t want another product, service, newsletter, trend, cutting-edge idea, etc. I want to spend less time at my computer, and more time in person (*not* Second Life) with friends.
Twitter is a nice compromise. I enjoy your Twitters, and sometimes even follow the links you send (hard to do on a Bberry), and I can turn them off when they get to be too much. But I control the spigot with Twitter. Others control the trigger with marketing-email.
Maybe it’s about personal space.
My best of friends is highly offended by the actions of others that invade her personal space. On the subway in New York there are numerous culprits: Mariachi bands, those annoying chirping phones that double as mini-radios, et cetera.
These two things, although tastefully suspect, become offensive when one has no choice but to endure their wrath.
Outside, I can choose to cross to the opposite side of the street when the guy in front of me is ‘chirping’ and playing Akon. But, trapped inside: pure horror.
I feel like what we do with AH, is highly and respectibly transparent and not even in the same category as SPAM. We are out there listening and communicating - rather than singing loudly in their ears.
Es del corazón, mis amigos. Es. Del. Corazón.
I think that the whole social networking, blogosphere, myspace etc is a product of our society that likes to promote. But, not only do we like to promote we like to find, to discover to explore. It is this that marketing capitalizes on.
Sure, you can say that all marketing is bad - or we can be more nuanced and say advertising that uses sex to sell the product is bad. Except that it works!! Why does it work if we think it is bad? Why do we purchase products, look for the newest trends, find the newest technology and then complain because a product is promoted and the promoter happens to target you?
I don’t think that what AHLLC does is spam. I don’t think that it is done in any underhanded and sneaky way - I see it as no different then my friend telling me about the “triple play package” from Comcast during our conversation on needing to find a better home phone package.
You see, for me it is as Chris has aptly says, “conversational marketing”. We are starting a conversation - take it or leave it! But, it is a conversation that you may enjoy - it just happens that you have been sought out rather then being the seeker.
Perhaps it is a control thing? or a personal space thing? In the end I think one can make far bigger criticisms of our society as a whole using marketing as an entry point. But, I think what AHLLC does is not spamming - we are after all willing participants in this global online phenomenon (well maybe it is not a phenomenon anymore!!)
I agree with the general point being made. Since AH is personlizing its message it can’t be lumped in withthe spammers that send me bulk e mail about how to enlarge my inexistant penis. However (just to get it out there) what happens if this new, more personlized, “conversational marketing” becomes more prevalent? Will it be just as invasive?
Personally, I’m thinking it won’t be. I like to think that AH is providing a service to its target audiences, but could I be wrong?
The Line Between Marketing and Spamming is Nuanced
“I love the conversation over here at Marketing Conversation about SPAM, A Line in the Spam. I love the conversation and I want to have this conversation and I want all of us at Abraham Harrison to freely blog about…