So I became a spammer today...

Shoseki

Shoseki

Shoseki

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Joined
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Location
Brighton
Or rather, I set up a "spamming" service for the company that I work for, newsletters etc. People sign up if they want details, can remove themselves automatically etc etc. Personally I don't like this sort of system, I've only ever signed up to a couple of mailing lists in my life and tbh they usually sit there unread.

So the question is, what are people's opinions of this, and would you set one up if your company ask you to? Do any of you actually actively subscribe / read mail from a mailing list?
 
To me it depends on how often the newsletters are sent out. If one arrived every day, or several times a week, then I wouldn't read it.
If it was a month or so between mails, then I might read them.

At least you are giving people the option of unsubscribing (make it easy ffs).
 
you are better off convincing them to buy in an existing service. This type of thing is a minefield, such as you can too many mails to one server in one becuase it will think it is being spammed and start dropping your mails. Also, free email providers and ISP spam filters are extremely agressive i doubt you could right a system to get through them
 
Shoseki said:
So the question is, what are people's opinions of this, and would you set one up if your company ask you to? Do any of you actually actively subscribe / read mail from a mailing list?
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Nothing wrong with it, as long as it's opt-in and the opt-in point is clearly indicated. Only times I have an issue is misleading checkboxes on checkout pages - "Please untick this box if you do don't want to not get our newsletter".

I find mailing lists provide a very useful service. I do have a dedicated email address for them, just to keep the noise level down as some can appear slighty too frequently. As El_Watcher said, monthly mailouts are usually a good option. I get everything from gig listings, security notices, mailouts from bands and labels (very good for getting tickets early), product updates, traditional 'discussion' lists for open-source projects etc and so on.
 
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I'm personally not a fan - I prefer to see RSS feeds in place of stuff like this as that's my preferred medium of syndicated information.

Having said that, I'm actually having to set up a scummy email campaign manager thing at the moment (I hate this type of thing) to allow tracking of when users open an email, which links they click out of emails, what they do when they've clicked links and all sorts of nasty stuff like that, so you could pretty much follow a user out of an email we've sent, and around our site. it makes me feel dirty, but sometimes you've just got to do it :(
 
Sic said:
I'm personally not a fan - I prefer to see RSS feeds in place of stuff like this as that's my preferred medium of syndicated information.

Having said that, I'm actually having to set up a scummy email campaign manager thing at the moment (I hate this type of thing) to allow tracking of when users open an email, which links they click out of emails, what they do when they've clicked links and all sorts of nasty stuff like that, so you could pretty much follow a user out of an email we've sent, and around our site. it makes me feel dirty, but sometimes you've just got to do it :(
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It's not dirty, it makes good business sense. If you're paying to send out 1/2 million emails a week to your subscribers (and if they're subscribers who have opted in, then it's not spam) then its only sensible to want to know how effective that advertising is, as you would with any other medium.

It also helps you refine parts of your site to be more user friendly and get people to what they're after quicker. So in general it's not a bad thing, you just have to be careful with the frequency so as not to annoy people.

Unsolicited post / email / phone calls are all forms of spam and I'm completely against that, but as Augmented mentioned above, if it's for a weekly new product listing or new gig events then it can be quite useful for the customer and an effective way of generating sales for the business.
 
I created an entire system which allows people to sign up and generate template-based emails (so no 2 paragraphs of courier emails) and broadcast their own emails for a few quid a month. At last count it had sent over 700,000 emails.

Now that may sound like spamming, but we don't provide mailing lists, people upload their own from their own CRM systems and we keep a close watch on our own spam listing for the servers we use to send from. Everything is done to the letter so that there are full op-in and opt-out services, and people can unsubscribe from all listings we hold with a single click.

Personally, I think so long as everything is kept above-board and users are dealt with on a permission based system (i.e. you only receive an email if you've filled out a form) I don't have a problem.
 
We have mailing lists for many of the companies we've done sites for. They all require the user to sign up and then confirm sign up via email and every newsletter contains an easy to see and fully working cancel link. Nothing wrong with it if it's done properly.
 
Sic said:
it's not technically solicited, that's the problem
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I'm not sure what you mean, if a user has to tick a box saying "please send me your weekly newsletter with up-to-date gig/product/service information" on the registration form, and they can easily unsubscribe using a facility on the website at any time, then surely they're making a concious choice to receive that email?

There could be an arguement that they're not signing up to be tracked, but the value in tracking comes from detecting trends, not from looking at what a particular individual is doing. The only personal information it would glean would be an IP, and that would probably only be used for GeoLocation.

I can see where you're coming from but I think it's a bit unfair to throw legitimate marketing in with every other v1agra / rolex / nigerian millions email.
 
well, it's not as bad as all that - but in some cases emails are being sent to people who aren't expecting them and haven't signed up for anything - it's just an email address that's been given to someone that's been given to someone at our company that's been thrown on the pile of people to send stuff to.

to be fair, it annoys me partly because I have to put the emails together from designs by someone who's not got a clue about the restrictions of email design. and I also hate html emails!
 
Sic said:
well, it's not as bad as all that - but in some cases emails are being sent to people who aren't expecting them and haven't signed up for anything - it's just an email address that's been given to someone that's been given to someone at our company that's been thrown on the pile of people to send stuff to.

to be fair, it annoys me partly because I have to put the emails together from designs by someone who's not got a clue about the restrictions of email design. and I also hate html emails!
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The question is, if you don't make an html email, how can you make it into a newsletter with images etc?
 
I had to setup one of these systems at work a year or so ago. It was a bit of a pain, but once it's running you don't have todo a lot. The only thing I'd say is make sure you send the emails out from a different IP than your usual day to day emails, the chances of getting blacklisted are reasonably high (no matter how fairly you run your list, someone will always report it as spam to a blacklist even if the unsubscribe works fine, and they opted-in in the first place).

akakjs
 
Sic said:
well, it's not as bad as all that - but in some cases emails are being sent to people who aren't expecting them and haven't signed up for anything - it's just an email address that's been given to someone that's been given to someone at our company that's been thrown on the pile of people to send stuff to.

to be fair, it annoys me partly because I have to put the emails together from designs by someone who's not got a clue about the restrictions of email design. and I also hate html emails!
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Sorry Sic, I was basing my replies on thinking you were talking about newsletters in general, not your specific case. Having re-read the thread it appears I made the wrong assumption.
 
Shoseki said:
The question is, if you don't make an html email, how can you make it into a newsletter with images etc?
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I think that's a rhetorical question, based on your experience with marketing, so I won't dignify it with a response
robmiller said:
Isn't that a textbook definition of spam?
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hence my displeasure with doing these silly things! it's industry related, but some people here get their information through less than desirable means!

LazyManc said:
Sorry Sic, I was basing my replies on thinking you were talking about newsletters in general, not your specific case. Having re-read the thread it appears I made the wrong assumption.
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heh, not at all - I've got plenty of time for newsletters as long as you can unsubscribe from them easily!
 
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