Chris Anderson, author of The Long Tail, posted a blog a couple days ago “outing” the PR professionals that spam him. One PR guy on Chris’ shit list pleaded his case, explaining that he (the spammer) had rented an email list that happened to have Chris’ name on it.
From the thread:
I spent $10,000 this year on lists, email software, promotional cards etc. to promote my business and my work. You’re on a list of people who buy creative work that is sold to photographers every day. If you don’t really buy photography, why not just hit the unsubscribe button? Why give out your email?
A response to this person’s comment:
You just admitted to taking the lazy way out of everything and spam people. If you are spending that kind of money you should be checking to see if the list(s) you are getting is even of value and not have people like Chris on it.
First, no marketer ever reads all the names on the lists s/he buys; what would you look for? How would you know that, based on an email address, Chris wasn’t a good potential buyer? Second, “If you don’t really buy photography, why not just hit the unsubscribe button?” Um, right… ever considered that Chris, or most of us who get unsolicited email, didn’t opt-in to the list… to that specific list? While content providers should always ask for permission to give your name out, they don’t. Far from it. If you’re a subscriber to a magazine or a corresponding website, odds are that your email address is being sold by someone without your knowledge.
I have tried email marketing many, many times, and 99% of the time it does not work. I have purchased lists from various list brokers, experimented with HTML and text email, offered different incentives and came to one conclusion: it doesn’t work. And yet, and yet, it’s still a huge business.
People like the photographer in the first quote do it because it’s cheaper than direct mail. So-called “clean” lists contain “good” email addresses insofar as the email doesn’t bounce. But that’s all that’s good.
Unless someone opts in to receive your email, they don’t want it. Really. The chance of you sending them email when someone is (1) in the market to buy your product or service and (2) actually has time to read spam is low. Not impossible, but low.
(So, just to contradict myself, I did respond to a writer who emailed me a few days ago to let me know about his freelance business, but I’ve deleted 100+ emails before responding to this one)
Better alternatives (in a random order):
- Cold calling. As time intensive and difficult as it is, it’s better. Maybe because people are used to getting solicitations from sales reps, but it feels less intrusive to me. And provided that the sales person is courteous and aware of my time and not pushy, I don’t mind taking the call.
- Word-of-mouth marketing. There’s a whole friggn association set up around this, plus many bloggers writing about techniques.
- Google Adwords
- Advertise in other people’s newsletters. Very likely, Chris opts-in to newsletters that have ads in them. He’s much more likely to open a newsletter that he subscribed to than an email from a stranger.
- Blog. And optimize it so it can be found.
- Talk to bloggers. This is one of Chris’ main points, too. If the PR folks would simply have read his blog, learned about him, contacted him through his blog (while being nice and courteous) and asked him “who should I contact,” likely he would have responded in kind.