Marketing School: How To Be A Spammy Pants
Before we get into today’s lesson, I present you with Spam Of The Day:
Subject: Reach out and BONE someone
According to Wikipedia — which, as we are all aware, knows everything — spam as we know it today comes from the Monty Python sketch of the same name.
For your interest, Wikipedia also defines spam as:
A song by “Weird Al” Yankovic. It is a parody of R.E.M.’s song Stand. It is mostly an ode to the canned lunch meat SPAM.
The abuse of electronic messaging systems to indiscriminately send unsolicited bulk messages.
For the sake of argument, we’ll go with the latter.
There are two types of spam in the world. Spammy spam and not-so-spammy spam.
Spammy spam is, as the definition suggests, indiscriminate, unsolicited, and sent in bulk.
Not-so-spammy spam is more discriminate but less bulk. It is also mostly unsolicited.
The key to spamming for fun and profit is understanding what it is about spam that people hate and avoiding it. People do not hate unsolicited email. I get unsolicited email all the time. People hate stupid and untargeted unsolicited email.
When Jamie is messing around on StumbleUpon at three o’clock in the morning and sends me a link, it’s unsolicited. I didn’t ask him to send it. He didn’t send me a double opt-in letter several months ago asking if I gave him permission to send me stupid jokes every now and again. Sometimes what he sends is annoying, but I don’t hate him for it. I know that on some level, he thinks I’ll like it and I usually do. I still didn’t ask for it.
How To Spam
Personalize.
If you’re looking at all the email addresses that you have in WordPress and you want to send them all an email, use their actual names. I comment as “Naomi Dunford”. Do not address an email to “Dear Naomi Dunford”. You may as well say “Dear… ah, fuck it. You and I both know this is spam. Let’s cut to the chase, shall we?”
Personalize more.
Feel free to use standard body text, but tell me you hope my stomach flu is better. Mention this in the first line if you can. It shows you read my blog and then I like you. This is a very easy thing to do. Click link. Read most recent post. Read “About” page. Find something to say. Repeat with other lucky spam recipients.
Be human.
Write your home business spam like an email, not like a sales letter. If I’m selling, say, my new IttyBitty package, I write it to a friend. Then I send it out to a lot of people who are not my friends. I pretend that my good friend Melanie — who occasionally comments here and sent me a lovely email expressing her concern over the other day’s technical drama — has asked me about my package and I’m telling her. I try to say “shit” a little less than I would in an email to the actual Melanie, but you get the idea. If it’s too salesy for Mel, it’s too salesy for my email list.
Try not to sell.
If you can avoid selling anything altogether, that’s even better. If you can send an email that says, “Hey! What’s up? I haven’t seen you around in a while. We miss you” you will garner a lot more trust. And nobody will ever buy a damn thing from you if they don’t trust you.
Offer something at least marginally valuable.
When I say “offer”, I don’t mean sales offer. I mean honest-to-goodness offer. Offer your virtual friendship. Offer a funny story. Offer something you think they AS AN INDIVIDUAL might be interested in. For example, I write for Work It, Mom! If Nataly were to spam me, she should spam me with something like, “[somebody interesting] wrote a piece on how to get work done with kids in the house. I thought you might like it.” Frankly, she could send this to anybody in her database of members who works from home. But she shouldn’t send it out to everybody, because for only about 15 minutes more effort, she could send the work-outside-the-home moms something about child care or something and they would be delighted to receive a personalized email from the founder. They are happy. They love Nataly now. They are loyal.
Don’t be an asshole.
Email is not the place for hard sales. People get hard sales through email all the time and they ignore it completely. Do not bully. Do not cajole. Do not try and make me feel guilty. Do not make claims any intelligent person would know to be false.
Don’t use sales tactics.
I got an email from Teaching Sells the other day telling me that if I wasn’t one of the next 34 people who signed up, I wouldn’t get the introductory rate anymore. This wasn’t spam — I’m on the mailing list — but I wasn’t delighted. That may work on some people but it doesn’t work on someone in marketing. It just pisses me off. The worst thing was, I was going to sign up for it but now I’m tempted to drop an extra $200 to take it after the price increase purely so I can be stubborn about it and say “your sneaky sales tactics didn’t work.” Yes, I’m that stubborn.
Don’t use heavy graphics.
Heavy graphics removes the personal element and it forces me to click “display graphics”. I don’t want to. If you can’t say what you have to say using words — if you can’t get your point across adequately without big flashy pictures — it wasn’t worth saying and therefore isn’t worth reading.
Don’t use spammy text.
Do not use exclamation marks (points?). Do not use ALL CAPS. Do not use the word “free”. Do not use the word “cheap”. Do not use the word “discount”. Do not use any words that show up in the thesaurus under “free”, “cheap”, or “discount”.
This is for two reasons. One, they’ll get caught by the spam filters. If you have a thesaurus, odds are, so does their spam filter. Two, if they don’t get caught by the spam filters, they’ll get caught by the reader’s mental spam filter and the reader will mark you as spam, forever relegating you to spammer purgatory.
Put your opt-out at the bottom.
For the love of God, do not make your first line “You are receiving this newsletter because you signed up…”. Please don’t do this. You may as well just click unsubscribe for me. I barely have the time to read your email, let alone the administrative bullshit at the beginning. Everyone knows you can opt out at any time. You don’t need to beat them on the face with it.
Read it.
If someone sent YOU the email, would you read it? Would you click through? Would you buy? If not, CTRL-A Delete and start over.
Liked it? Loved it? Adored it? Click here to subscribe. It’s FREE!!!!!!! (Yes, that was irony. Poorly executed irony, but irony nonetheless.)
***
Think you need a micro-business marketing consultant? Click here to get started.
Next Post: Marketing School: Beginner’s Guide To Doing The Splits
[...] txbluiidbarbi wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptThat may work on some people but it doesn’t work on someone in marketing. It just pisses me off. The worst thing was, I was going to sign up for it but now I’m tempted to drop an extra $200 to take it after the price increase purely so … [...]
The minute I saw, “How to be a Spammy Pants,” I thought, “Oh shit. Great. Here we go, another mockery of my attempt to go forth and be friends with the world in a blatant attempt to boost my readership and loyal fans.”
I much preferred Comment King.
But no! I was regaled with a wonderful expose on how to write quality email and attract more potential customers to my business! (Except for the part about sending Naomi Stumbles in the middle of the night. That wasn’t me. I swear. It was another James. Like… the one she married. Which isn’t me either.)
Great article, and you’ve boosted my confidence that the spam I now receive, such as Jessica who offered me a link exchange for her site on designer purses as being relevant to my blog post on 20 resources for writers, will be of utmost quality from hereon out.
[...] post by IttyBiz Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and [...]
Thanks for the advice on this Naomi. I’ve got a new website that I’m making for a client (read: friend from school) who hasn’t put nearly enough thought into marketing so I’m going to send her your way. And of course I’m in the same situation as she is, except that I’m enough of a loser to have actually BOUGHT yourrockinsite.com after you mentioned your own loser-like abilities to merely check if it was available. It must be good for SEO or something, right? At least she has an idea for a business, while I remain out $15 until I can come up with the vaguest logistical ideas.
Thanks for the advice! It’s always tough to figure out how to contact people without coming off as spammy, so I’ll have to start trying your “not-so-spammy spam” tricks.
Naomi,
Great blog post. I will definitely be trying some of your tactics for creating less spammy e-mails. You have lots of great info here, am glad I was pointed in this direction by the lovely ladies at the creative switchboards (http://www.theswitchboards.com/forum/)
Thank go I never sent you a “special email” LOL, just kidding. It sucks getting those unsolicited messages. I actually got one the other day from a prominent blogger of where I commented often for several month.
The person never bothered to actually visit my blog in return and had the guts to enroll my help in promoting a new ebook to my readers.
As you can imagine, I wasn’t too happy and this person is now passe on my list of bloggers.
Monika
I never thought of the countless jokes and “forward this to 100 other friends or else meet with dire consequences” email from my friends as spam (or as my brother says Some Parts Are Meat), but yeah, I guess that’s what it is.
I especially liked what you said about not using heavy graphics and I hate them in my email. However, if everyone took to heart “If you can’t say what you have to say using words — if you can’t get your point across adequately without big flashy pictures — it wasn’t worth saying and therefore isn’t worth reading”, I’d be out of a job as a designer.
DEAR BRADFORD NAOMI:
YOU ARE RECEIVING THIS COMMENT BECAUSE YOU POSTED A BLOG ARTICLE.
KEEP POSTING GOOD ARTICLES LIKE THIS AND APLAWRENCE WILL SEND YOU MORE COMMENTS.
[insert large graphic here of me smiling]
DISCLAIMER: COMMENTS MAY NOT BE AS WITTY AS INTENDED. YOU MAY RECEIVE OTHER COMMENTS ON THIS AND OTHER SUBJECTS. WE CANNOT GUARANTEE THAT WE READ ALL RESPONSES TO OUR COMMENTS. WE SEND COMMENTS TO OTHER PEOPLE. SOMETIMES WE DON’T HAVE TIME TO SEND COMMENTS EVEN IF WE’D LIKE TO. SOME OF OUR COMMENTS ARE CONFUSED AND INAPPROPRIATE.
Hello Naomi, thanks for the insights. I completely agree with all your points, especially about being personable and avoid using spammy text. I’m totally on board.
I have used this logic to build my business and as a result, my company’s website looks completely different than any other in my field. In addition to spammy emails, I hate spammy websites. It’s the art of selling without a sales pitch and showing your customers / site visitors that you actually do care about them.
With that in mind, I’d like to add one other point . . . all those things you pointed out I feel are valid for websites (in addition to emails). I hate websites that look like a sales pitch and spam me when I visit their site. They show all their features but don’t really show me that they are interested in ME. Does that make any sense?
@John
(By the way - I like your site design a lot. It’s very “inviting”)
I have actually NOT purchased things I intended to buy because of the spamminess of the website.
Me too, Tony. And thanks for the nice comment. I’m “trying” to be different, LOL.
@ Naomi - I think they’re talking about you!!
AMAZING OFFER!!!! ACT NOW!111!!11111!!111one!11
Dear Naomi Dunford,
I hope the viruses in your stomach have gotten stronger, but I have news that you don’t want to miss.
I’m excited to give you this once in a lifetime offer. If you act now, you can read this comment absolutely free! That’s not all. For a limited time, you can also read my new post on Ron Paul for no additional charge. That’s a discount of over 1000%.
That’s not a typo. ONE THOUSAND PERCENT SAVINGS!!! Don’t hesitate. This offer ends soon.
Love always,
Fiar the starfucker
PS, Please explain to me why it is that I always try to include everything from your post into my comment. 500 words or more. This will be worth 50% of your grade.
I’ve been following you for a while. Your writing style is shall we say more “colourful” than most. There is however a lot of down to earth wisdom that illustrates how well you’ve thought things through. There are far to many empty suit writers on the Internet whose words are quickly lost in the endless digital sea. Your “spammy pants” post is a good example of writing that floats to the surface and compels us to read it. It gave me pause for thought and I tank you for it.
– George
In December I decided to sit down and read my emails. You know, the “bulk” emails that I was sending to people in my database. I mean I get so p*ssed off when I get emails from people I don’t know and what’s more, emails I DIDN’T ask for…
So I went through and called almost everyone who doesn’t reply to my emails to ask permission to continue sending them messages. In the process I learned that they were in fact reading my material but I also got feedback on how I might make things a bit more specific, oh and I got permission too.
Anyway, just thought I’d share…
@ RB - If you called people and asked them about permission and whatnot, I think you did a very, very smart thing. That’s strong customer service and gives you direct feedback while creating a personal bond with your clients. Well done.
Naomi,
How are you liking Teaching Sells?
Maya
Naomi, you didn’t tell me you jumped on the TS bandwagon. (Or, at least, that you were staying by the TS wayside glowering at the TS bandwagon.) Email me, we have a little group going.
Oh, wait, everyone is looking at us now.
did i misread this? you’re teaching peeps how to spam? that’s awesome. hey by the way are you tired of girls being attracted to men with large dicks, i have a solution for you.
PEACE!