Avoid SPAM

Created on 2001-09-17 by Rainer Gerhards.

It is a misconception to think of SPAM as a email marketing tool. Sending commercial EMail to people that didn't ask for it is not only a bad habit, it is also forbidden in most countries. Besides being illegal, SPAM will also not help you promote your products and services in any way.

In the best case, people will simply delete and ignore your message. In the worst case, people will remember you as a "spammer". Many individuals and organizations made it a habit to not purchase from spammers. So, yes, you can get brand awareness by spamming, but you will probably not get the kind of awareness you are hoping for.

You might say, "But I have been told SPAM works...". Of course, companies offering spamming products and services (yes, there are!) will tell you that. It is also true that some markets (e.g. the adult industry) might have some small SPAM success stories. BUT: even these are short lived.

So, be clever: build a prosperous business without spamming! Be sure to collect email addresses from your customers yourself and always offer them a way to end their subscription. You will keep your subscribers with quality content - not with making unsubscribing impossible. If you follow this route, you'll end up with happy subscribers that are really interested in your online publication. Isn't that a much better basis for selling? This applies no matter if you sell products or services or your point of view (e.g. in political or hobby newsletters)!

For more information on SPAM and the SPAM problem please see www.cauce.org. There you'll also learn why spammers are so much hated in the Internet world.

Be sure to visit our web promotion blog - it contains a lot of valuable extra information.