NONE: Re: ONLINE ADS>> Controlled emailing
Re: ONLINE ADS>> Controlled emailing
Ryan Scott (rscott_at_netcreations.com)
Wed, 26 Mar 1997 15:09:00 +0000
kbajura_at_pride-vitamins.com wrote:
>I think the
> point that needs to be made is no matter what we do there are going
> to be people who are going to yell SPAM.
that's exactly right. whether or not our lists are 100% opt-in or
not. That is my point exactly.
Keith, if we are going to spam people, why do we have such small
lists? We'd have millions. I'm not sure how you can 'all be in
agreement' about the content of our list. That doesn't change the
content or how we gather them. *WE* gather these names, you do not.
Even though we send out confirmation emails to every single person
who signs up, we still get people claiming we are spamming them.
They are either blind, stupid, or just not paying attention (hey,
people are busy). The only other option is that someone else signed
them up AND *broke into their email account and erased the
confirmation email*
We have never put people onto our lists without receiving a request
to have that mail sent. The only case where someone could have
received mail they did not request is if someone else signed them up
via the web, but then STILL, they would get a confirmation email to
make sure that the email address owner himself is notified of the
signup and given a chance to remove himself before receiving any
commercial messages. We are doing everything we can to keep everyone
off the list unless they specifically requested it, and there is no
way, short of visiting them at their home addresses and verifying two
forms of ID, that we can be any more politically correct.
Still, people a) forget b) don't read c) don't understand
instructions d) are so virulently anti-spam that they get rabid
everytime they receive a piece of mail they think they didn't
request.
We've been building these lists for over 2 years. We've had people
flame our clients who later *remembered* they signed up for the
list. (a little late once they've flamed a client) We've had people
who were on lists for *months*, having signed themselves up and
received the confirmation email, having received several dozen
clearly marked commercial messages during that time, decide one day
that they were being spammed by us, though *clearly* they were not!
The only other situation that can cause flames is that the
subscriber attempts to unsubscribe by replying to the message (which
comes from the advertiser) instead of forwarding it to the
deletion address, which is clearly marked at the very top of every
single message. They get upset when they receive more mail, because
they didn't unsubscribe correctly. Ask Richard Hoy, the moderator of
this list. I am sure that when people cannot figure out how to
unsubscribe from this list (which is considerably harder than
unsubbing from ours, btw), he gets flamed. I'm sure of it. All list
owners do. Many times the person trying to unsubscribe sends the
request to the list, sometimes its quite nasty. I'm on several
discussion lists, several times a week we see 'get me off this
f***ing list!'. What do YOU say about those postings? Do you blame
the list owner or the person who can't get it together and unsub
himself?
You have implied above that some of our names are unsolicited. Why
put *some* unsolicited email addresses on our lists? If we're
dealing in unsolicited email, why not go all out like the spammers
and grab millions? Our clients biggest complaint is we do not have
enough names (NOT that they were being flamed). So why do we spend
months forming list management deals with major publications, online
services, etc, to build more opt-in lists when we could just use
Floodgate?
Keith: I guarantee you, that as your internal list grows, you will
absolutely get people on that list (somehow) who will claim you are
spamming them. Even though you will know absolutely that you are
not. Guaranteed. And it will be a small amount, you'll reason,
because it will be, in relation to the size of the list. Then you'll
understand.
______________________________________________________________________
Ryan Scott - rscott_at_netcreations.com - 718 522 1531
- Reinventing Direct Marketing on the Net -
NetCreations, Inc - http://www.netcreations.com/
- Targeted 100% OPT IN Email -
PostMaster Direct Response - http://www.postmasterdirect.com/
*be sure to quote me in your reply*
