NONE: Re: Junk email or quality information?
Re: Junk email or quality information?
Donna Dolezal Zelzer (djz_at_efn.org)
Sat, 6 Jul 1996 11:10:32 -0700
Walt Boyes <wboyes_at_ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> 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.
I just want to make clear that I agree with this completely. I never have
and never would use spam in my own marketing, and do what I can to educate
others and to stop existing spammers.
> 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.
>
Yes yes!! It's the lazy-person's way of marketing, possible since the
"marketer" passes the costs on to the receivers, rather than paying them
himself.
>
> 3. Use some variation of Christopher Kohler's contract, or my Virtual
> Brick to assist recalcitrant spammers to leave you alone.
Could you explain this and where/how to do it?
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.
Maybe it's just because I just got up (well, it's Saturday and i;m not a
morning person, anyway), but I can't follow the logic of this. Could you
explain?
I have now and then sent unsolicited commercial, but highly targeted,
e-mail. For example, the small company where i work as marketing director
(actually, the whole marketing and circulation departments!) has a book
about educational opportunities for midwives. If I read a message in a
mailing list or newsgroup from someone who's looking for the kind of info
this book has, I may write to them personally with a very brief message
(2-3 sentences) telling them where the book exists and the web page where
they can find more info. If appropriate from the content of their message,
I may add a personal note of some kind.
Now this is very time intensive, which is why I don't do it often. But some
companies spend a lot of money on telemarketing to make one-to-one calls to
customers and potential customers, which I personally find the most
offensive, irritating and invasive form of marketing. Why not spend the
money on hiring people to do this personalized e-mail approach? Done badly,
it could be just as irritating as telemarketing and another form of spam.
Done well, it could be another story. Now, I'm not at all sure this is a
good idea or not, but it might be worth discussing.
(Hmmmm.. maybe another reason e-mail junk mail is so irritating is that it
comes in on the phone lines so we subconsciously put it in the same class
as telemarketing? )
Donna
---------------------
Donna Dolezal Zelzer (djz_at_efn.org)
Starlady's Home Page: http://www.efn.org/~djz/index.html
----
The Online Birth Center (pregnancy, birth, midwifery, breastfeeding)
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