Re: Is it spam if it's targeted?

From: Rob Frankel <rob_at_robfrankel.com>
Date: Tue 31 Oct 2000 15:39:24 -0500

HEATHER ASHLEY WONDERFUL <nitsug953_at_n2trouble.com> WROTE:
> I know we talked about this for a bit, but I will sum
> up for you what we previously said in the last round of
> SPAM talk.
>
> It's SPAM because even though these were "targeted"
> they didn't voluntarily join your mailing list. I
> also have the belief that if it was "targeted" that
> most of the people would have took a glance at your
> site.

Okay, here's a twist on that:

A few days ago, I received one of those forwarded
notices from a woman I know who was trying to
publicize the NFL Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Fund
Raising event. The deal was that for one day, if you
clicked on the NFL site button, the NFL would donate $5
to the organization, up to a limit of $50K.

I thought that was a great idea. Pretty cheap on the
NFL's part, but hey, I'm not complaining. In fact, I
thought it was worthwhile enough that I replied to the
list and offered to donate $5 of the purchase price of
my book when they ordered it through my site (no plug
here, just explaining it: if you want to do it, you
have to enter "SGK" in the special instructions box
when you order BEFORE November 15th).

So I guess that reply went out to a few hundred people.

Okay, so it's getting DANGEROUSLY close to spamming you
say? Perhaps. But in this case, I didn't feel it was
spam. It's a good faith effort, directed in a timely
fashion to people who were obviously already
interested in the cause.

For the record, we got no complaints (that I'm aware
of) and quite a few complimentary responses. As yet,
I have no idea if we sold more books or not.

Rob Frankel

Rob Frankel, consultant and author of "The Revenge of
Brand X: How to build a Big Time Brand on the web or
anywhere else." on sale at http://www.therevengeofbrandx.com
Big Time Branding (SM) http://www.robfrankel.com
AIM: ROBFRANKEL * 818-990-8623 or 1-888-ROBFRANKEL
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Received on Tue Oct 31 2000 - 14:39:24 CST