» uk-netmarketing: roundup: 11-08-2000

Spam, spam, spam, spam, spam...
UK-Netmarketing Weekly Round-up - August 11, 2000

Monty Python would be proud. If there's one thing that gets blood boiling it's spam or direct email marketing or even unsolicited commercial email. To promote is divine, to spam is asking for trouble, but it's a fine line to tread. Aren't most marketers fed up with emails titled, "Buy 1 million emails for $50", deluging their own Inbox?

A. Gray asked, "Oh wise company of friends, I need your assistance on the SPAM issue. My creative department have produced a personalised agency credentials message (micro-site), which can be viewed by clicking on a link. The link will be delivered by personalised email. All email addresses will be obtained from industry intelligence publications e.g. AMMO where there is an indication that the target business may look to obtain agency services. Is this SPAM?"

As you can imagine, the response was quick and prolific. Sam Carrington got in first with, "Its unsolicited, its bulk, its spam by the sound of it ...d-d-d-don't, baby."

Jonathan Peterson added, "Yes, this EXACTLY what SPAM is. Don't do it. If it's personalised it's even worse. SPAM that starts "Hi Jonathan Peterson! You recently expressed an interest in....." fills me with greater than usual ire and loathing..."

Not everyone saw this as such a clear-cut issue. Will Rowan emailed, "Tough call...The names are in the public domain, and it's a relevant, personal and timely communication (if you're using sources like AMMO). If the message were distributed by any other medium, would you be asking our advice? And, if you wouldn't run it in any other medium, then don't use the web either If you can answer yes to these questions, I'd go for it: Is the e mail/ micro site a demonstration of the skills you're selling? Does the micro site also explain how you acquired the recipient's name? Does the recipient have a one-click opt out i.e. 'click this link and we won't send you another e mail' ...If the recipient tells you in any other medium that they don't want to receive e mail promotions, that you've got a process in place to make sure their request is acted on.

Justine Koder wrote, "it's not requested, it goes out in bulk from a bought-in list - it's SPAM, how could it be anything else? ... I get contacted ... by agencies wanting to work with me - the ones who stand out are those who understand my business and have put some thought into the issues I might face ... Can't be done with a one-way communication, I'm afraid. Done right e-marketing can be a killer marketing tool, done wrong it can just be a killer."

Paul Shalet continued on this theme, suggesting an approach to get the best response, "yep, you are missing the very essence of getting the role of the web within the marketing mix, of how the web audience interacts with the medium and critically what the word 'permission' means, entails and delivers in terms of response rates."

Michelle Davies enquired this approach should be an issue. She wrote, "On tell me it's not SPAM - hey guys isn't this a marketing site. Effectively you are sending out a 'brochure' outlining your services. Nothing deceptive or criminal going on here - it's simply a case of targeting. List brokers wouldn't be in business if there weren't a need for soliciting mail addresses. So what's so bad about soliciting email addresses and marketing your services online? Direct mail - why not direct email. As with direct mail the receiver has two choices - read it - or bin it! On DPA regulations - provided you give them the option to be removed from your database - fine! Perhaps I'm missing something here?!"

Piers Beckley explained, "The main difference between traditional direct marketing and email direct marketing is this: With [traditional direct mail], the sender pays for printing and postage costs. With [email direct marketing], the recipient pays for disk storage & connection costs. If someone sends me direct mail that's rubbish, I haven't wasted time, money or effort (apart from those few seconds to bin it). With email, it is entirely the other way around."

As an aside, Piers suggested an experiment to test the much-lauded targeting abilities of the direct email marketing industry: "Ring up one of the companies whose mailing lists you're going to buy, and get them to add your email address to it. Give them as much demographic information as you want, to ensure that all-important targeting. Then sit back and wait for those oh-so-rare offers that exactly match your interests and desires. I would advise that you don't utilise any email address you intend to continue using for this experiment."

It seems to be a gloomy time for dotcoms with companies going bust and laying off staff, despite the frenzied activity in the market. Fiona Campbell-Howes emailed the list asking for some success stories for a column she writes, "... all I generally find to write about is doom and gloom punctuated with a few quirky bits. This month I'm determined to root out some success stories. So...are there any dotcoms out there in profit, hiring high-profile staff (preferably top execs from old economy behemoths), signing up millions of customers, getting tons of funding, trashing the competition?"

Tim Hayward replied, "Um........ No....No....No....and No. Unless you want to write about my start-up which will auction off Aeron chairs, Repossessed short lease Vaios, those fucking irritating Microscooters, lightly preused WAP phones and goatee beard trimmers."

Paul Carty posed some further questions, writing, "How you measure success and what you define a dotcom to be? There is a whole lot of negativity around at the moment, due mainly to people not actually making millions of quid and retiring to dotcoms tax h(e)aven. ... Sure success can be measured financially, but surely it should be about take up, usage, usability and whether the service (if any) is valid or remotely useful to anyone. Build something that's useful and offers something to people that they want and can't get easily elsewhere and you've got yourself a success story, whether you make bucks deluxe or not."

Tony Newland, from RainbowNetwork, added a brighter note, "We broke even 3 months ago ... and increased our full time journalists to 16 up from 3 when we started 11 months ago just through advertising revenue, amazing as that may seem. We provide a wide range of advertising, not just banners and I always back advertising up (no matter how short or long the campaign) by assigning an editorial team member to liase with the client's PR to establish and increase synergy."

Paul Shalet spotted some good news amongst the gloom. He emailed, "I commend your direction, whilst one can all learn a great deal from others mistakes we should remember that some 40% of all new ventures fail in the first 5 years. In America as a whole, more than 70,000 companies went bust last year. Looking at the Internet space The Industry Standards' 'dot.com flop tracker' lists only 21 such companies, Dotcomfailures.com lists 20 and fuckedcompany.com has collected 600 reports of 'ill health' which is not flatliner country. The Economist pointed out recently that 1) layoffs and failures will rise dramatically if for no other reason then to reach the norms of other businesses 2) after all the Dot com mania, business as usual with all the failures that implies, ought to be welcomed, not feared."

Robin Edwards suggested that the recent gloom was just adding a touch of realism into a marketplace that had been getting out of control. He concluded, "The real winners will take time to show through. How many offline businesses have gone from zero to global market dominance in the space of a couple of years? Probably very few. Think about it - there are more people online than ever before, spending more time online than ever before and spending more money online than ever before. It would take a total plonker, or national newspaper, to regard that as a bad marketplace to do business! Ok so your niche portals are not economically viable, your business exchange idea was also thought of by 1,000 other people, and your auction site has marginally fewer items for sale than the local newspaper, so go for something else that the market actually wants!"

receive uk-netmarketing-roundup by email, every week
Just pop your email address in the form below and receive the uk-netmarketing roundup via email each week. You'll receive an email with details on how to confirm your subscription.

return to top