NONE: Re: Junk email or quality information?
Re: Junk email or quality information?
Walt Boyes (wboyes_at_ix.netcom.com)
Sat, 06 Jul 1996 08:13:02 -0700
Donna Dolezal Zelzer wrote:
>
>
> The less than a second depends.. on the length of the message and on the
> speed of your modem/connection. A message that takes a second at 28.8 is
> going to take somewhat longer at 2400. Multiply that by how many you get a
> month and it can add up in time. And if you don't have a flat rate provider
> that time could add up in money, as well.
Untargeted bulk email, better known as "spam" should not be done at all.
Many people have been arguing that it isn't as bad as paper junk mail, or
that it only takes a second to delete it, or that we permit paper junk
mail so what's the difference.
There are significant differences, IMHO.
1. Most people are charged for their connection based on time. Even
those people whose connect-time is "unlimited" are actually being charged
based on their ISP's charged connect time to the telephone network.
Imagine what the "unlimited" rate might be if the telephone companies
decided to raise the connection charges to ISP's based on increased
traffic. Now imagine how many people would send large numbers of spam
email messages if it wasn't vigorously contended with. Rob Raisch of The
Internet Company calls this "Postage Due Marketing" and his argument is
very compelling.
2. The Direct Marketing Association has issued rules for email bulk
advertising which specifically prohibit untargeted spamming. What the
spam emailers do is untargeted marketing. Untargeted marketing is, as
everybody knows, bad marketing. Just how great are you as a marketer if
your major technique as an internet marketing expert is to p*ss everybody
you market to off? The very little information I've been able to get
indicates response rates of 0.01% are normal. You are pretty well
limiting your market if only 1 out of every 1000 mailings is a response
and the rest are "neutral-to-enraged." Think about the quality of your
message, and the "signal-to-noise" ratio of it, submerged in a "coupon
mailer" spam format.
3. There _is_ a bandwidth crisis. The internet was not intended to
carry the volume of traffic it is carrying. It was created to survive a
nuclear attack and still get the messages through. Yes, people are
making improvements to the backbone, but the net is seriously under
strain. Do the numbers. If even 1000 spammers (pretty small number,
eh?) send out 30,000 spams (estimated from CyberPromo's court brief in
the case of CyberPromo vs AOL) daily, that is 30,000,000 additional
messages clogging the net... and you wonder why your business email takes
hours now not minutes!
4. Spam violates the Terms of Service Agreements of every major public
ISP. This was done for a reason. Spam isn't new. Years ago, it
threatened to swamp BBS's and CompuServe, and the "oldguard internet
attitude" about spam was formed in self defence.
5. There _are_ ways to market on the internet which don't require spam,
and which work. Cliff Kurtzman kindly posted on another list (IMARCOM) a
description of his tennis list... a targeted, solicited email list which
works. What it amounts to is that the sort of bulk untargeted email
we're all complaining about is lousy marketing done by bad marketers and
quick buck artists... not professional direct mail marketers, who use
demographic and psychographic data to fine-tune and target their mailings
so their response rates are high and their negatives are low.
So, what do we do?
1. Don't participate in spam.
2. If you get spammed, spend the time necessary to complain. If you
complain, something usually gets done. If the spammer supplies "get off
my list" instructions, use them.
3. Use some variation of Christopher Kohler's contract, or my Virtual
Brick to assist recalcitrant spammers to leave you alone.
4. Do market on the internet correctly: internet marketing is a classic
example of integrated marketing... you must get your message out not only
on the internet but off it. Join mailing lists where your products
might be discussed. Include what you do in your .sig (short ones only
please). Monitor USENET newsgroups and post helpful replies. If you
can, bring up your products... but only where they really are germane to
the discussion. Publicize your website... on the net and off the net.
If you have letterhead and business cards, put email and URL on them.
Solicit people who want to receive email from you, and give them a chance
to say no. Net.goddess Mary Morris has made a useful suggestion. When
considering whether or not to contact somebody you don't know for a
commercial purpose, run their email address through AltaVista. If you
get 100 or more responses, _don't_ send them unsolicited commercial
email. Ever.
Done properly, internet marketing makes money. There _are_ people making
money besides the spammers (if in fact they are making money, which I
doubt). We can all make money for a long time if we don't foul our own
nest with spam.
Walt Boyes
SeaMetrics Inc.
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Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and
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