Using Dirty Marketing Tricks

The lengths that people will go to in order to get you to open their marketing emails never ceases to amaze me.

I sometimes dabble with interesting and seductive subject lines to try and entice you into opening these emails, but that’s not terribly unreasonable and I really don’t mind when other people do it to me.  In fact, I quite enjoy a well crafted subject line in an email.

Today though, I got an email from a marketer with a reasonably good business and quite a big email list from what I know.  Unfortunately he started his email with “re: ” in the the subject line.

The Fake Reply

When this email came through this afternoon, I was busy and I just clicked on it on my phone because I saw the “re:”.  I then realized who it was from and knew that I’d never sent this person an email.  That just made me grind my teeth.

Being a bit of a masochist I read on. The email was all about him and how he was having great success and how he had all these amazing opportunities… blah, blah, blah.

Then came the pitch for a grubby affiliate product that had nothing at all to do with the whole gist of the email.  If you’re such a baller, why are you pitching me rubbish?  That’s a topic for a whole other time I guess.

Flushing Spammers

Anyway, I immediately hit the “Spam” button on my Gmail app.  I really wish that button had the sound of a toilet flushing – note to self, let Google know about this stroke of genius idea.

After relegating him to the spam box forever, I sat there and shook my head thinking about the damage this clown had done to himself and his email list.

Let me explain:

First, that’s just a really dumb way to manage your email list.  All of the major email service providers look for that and it damages your sender reputation which is very critical now.  That sender reputation is the thing that determines whether your email hits the spam folder or the inbox.

If your business values its email list, why would you run the risk of damaging your sender reputation for a small bump in open rates?  That’s just bad business.

Don’t Piss Off Your Audience Needlessly

Second, it frustrates people.  The reason why the email service providers punish this behaviour is because their users over the years have voted with the “spam” button on subject lines like this.  When people see the “re:” in a subject line, they instinctively open it.  If it’s marketing email and not someone they know replying to them, people tend to flag it as spam, just like I did.

And finally, it makes you look bad.  You don’t want to the person who is tricking their subscribers into stuff.  Put aside the damage it does to your sender reputation with the email service providers and think about the personal reputation damage when you’re being perceived of as one of those dodgy email people.

Lazy People Take Dangerous Shortcuts

The thing is, lazy people take shortcuts.  They lack the persistence to keep doing the right things over the long haul.  It also says something about the character of a person when they try and use a dirty trick like that.  If you focus on delivering stuff of value consistently and you’re transparent about the fact that you’re making people an offer, then your customers will respect you and you don’t need to resort to tactics like that.

Speaking about being transparent with making an offer.  The March issue of the Casual Marketer Monthly Newsletter came back from the printers over the weekend and will go out on Wednesday.  The entire issue talks about persistence, doing the right things and not taking shortcuts.

To get your copy, click the link below and sign up today!

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