Have you ever met “Anonymous Marketers”? If you are a webmaster, or
participate in newsgroups or discussion lists, you probably have. Who they
are? They are the ones sending you emails beginning with a sentence like,
“I got your email address from a list of people who are interested in …….
(business opportunities, health products, etc.), therefore this is not
spam.” Or they sometimes say, “You are receiving this email because we
belong to the same mailing list. Therefore, this is not spam.”
Sounds familiar?
I know a lot of people are receiving them, even though they should not. The
problem is that many so-called “Internet Marketers” collect emails from
newsgroups with a software and spam the people on this list. Then they
write a nice sentence at the beginning of the message like the one above,
thinking that you will think something like, “I guess I forgot I subscribed
to this mailing list”. I call these mailings “legal spam”, since they
trick people into thinking that they agreed to receive them.
BEWARE: “Anonymous Marketers” also use a nice legal scheme where they write
“To be removed from this list, hit the REPLY button and write REMOVE in the
subject line” and then they add something like, “According the bill
1234567890, since a way to be removed from the list is included in this
message, this is not spam.”
The fact is: it does not matter whether or not it is legal, it is still very
annoying, because they were unsolicited emails. And sometimes when you
reply with REMOVE in the subject line, you receive a nice email from you
ISP, saying that the message could not be delivered because the email
address does not exist.
Of course, it only takes a few seconds to start reading these emails and
delete them. However, if we want to have an internet that is a nice place
to be. These tactics (and the people using them) must be stop. This is why
we must try to stop these postings: to build a “high-quality internet.”
Some “anonymous marketers” will say that these emails are free and that
people receiving them should not complain. I have only one thing to say
about this, “I hate receiving unsolicited emails and I hate it even more
when there is no way to be removed from the mailing list.”
The bottom line is:
1) IF YOU RECEIVE THIS KIND OF EMAILS, be careful because it is probably
someone who “stole” your email address from a newsgroup, your website, etc
and who is trying to “get rich quick”. What they are advertising may be a
very good product or affiliate program, but there are legitimate ways to
advertise such as press releases, ffa pages, the classifieds, e-zine
advertisements, etc.
2) IF YOU ARE AN INTERNET MARKETER and that you actually built your mailing
list or bought it from a website, PLEASE include the COMPLETE source of your
list with a simple sentence like, “You are receiving this message because
your email address is in my mailing list, which you joined at my website,
located at http://www.yourwebsite.com.” or “ You are receiving this message
because your email address is in my mailing list, which I purchased at
http://www.websiteaddress.com”. This way, if people forgot that they joined
your mailing list or that they agreed to receive emails from strangers by
joining several mailing lists at a specialized website, they will be able to
visit these websites and remember that they subscribed.
3) IF YOU USE “LEGAL SPAM”, now you are warned, “We will not tolerate this
situation any more, stop using this marketing tactic.” If you really have a
good product, a press release is still the best way to get your product
known. Ever received an unsolicited email from IBM or Microsoft? Of course
not, because they use the media to receive publicity, and they are the ones
earning a lot of money, not the ones using spam.
So, don’t forget that a simple, yet complete sentence like the ones above,
since it clearly mentions where the marketer got his list, will help you
create and keep a relationship based on trust with your members. This way,
we will be able to know who are the “good” marketers and the
“should-think-about-another-way-to-earn-money” marketers.
About the Author
Patrick Caron
ezine@globetrotter.net
Earn at least $20 an hour, for FREE! This is NOT a joke!
http://www.bepaid.com/users.rhtml?REFID10255086