Tag: spam
The importance of de-duplicating your prospect database
Some nasty spammers are taking UPS’s name in vain to ridiculous levels at the moment, sending billions of bits of e-spam in their name. Poor UPS.
The only good thing? It’s easy to identify as scamming. Either the spammers haven’t done any database de-duplication or they’ve sent the list to hundreds of similar dick-brains, all of whom are using it to send out almost exactly the same message.
However they’ve managed it, the duplication means they’re even less likely to succeed than usual. At the moment I’m getting about fifty a day in clumps, all with practically the same subject line. You’re rumbled, my friends.
It reminds me of a vital direct marketing database tip: if you’re marketing to a bought-in prospect list, dump it into an Excel spreadsheet so you can remove any duplicate records first. Then you won’t irritate prospects with multiple, identical marketing offers.
Of course it goes without saying that it’s totally stupid to hand round the same mailing list to hundreds of other spammers so they can send out the same message as you. On the other hand we’re lucky they’re dim. Otherwise we’d be ripped off left, right and centre. Well done you spammers… keep up the bad work!
The link between online directories and spam
There’s a correlation between free directory entries and spam.
I notice an increase in spam – mostly knock-off watches, phishing scams and various unpleasant ‘personal’ products (!) – whenever I create a batch of online directory entries. It goes with the territory. It’s a risk you take. But does it matter?
A link to your site in a directory, from a page with a decent Google Page Rank, is well worth having. And spam is often a small price to pay. Especially when, as I’ve noticed, it usually dwindles to next to nothing after a couple of weeks.
As long as you recognise spam, delete it without opening it and have good virus protection, most of it is harmless rubbish.
So don’t let spam put you off directory links. In my experience they’re really useful for SEO.
Toxic marketing: Avoid flixter.com
Last night I got an email from a friend saying they’d left me a private message at flixter.com.
Because I trust my friend, I followed the link. And opened up a whole world of shady marketing practices.
Clicking the link took me to a registration screen. Fair enough. Ronnie had left me a private message after all. So I filled it in.
The next screen asked for a whole load of personal information, at which point I took a step back and became suspicious. Why do I need to give them all this info just to collect a message?
I skipped that page and went to the next, which involved waiting while they allegedly ‘created my account’. They advised me to click through a load of special offers ‘while you wait’. So I did. There are pages and pages of adverts. Not good. At this point I ducked out of the process because it felt so dodgy.
This morning I had another go, to see if it felt as nasty in the cold light of day. It did.
Not only that. I unsubscribed from any more contact with flixter, then tried to register under another email address to check the process out again as reference for this post. Aha… they say my second email address is already registered. As is the third email address I tried. Buggers… I don’t like this at all.
In my view there’s so much wrong with flixter from a marketing perspective that it’s hard to know where to start. So I won’t go into detail. But this is direct marketing without morals.
In fact it’s so piss poor that I can’t be certain flixter isn’t just a mechanism for harvesting personal data. Possibly for nefarious purposes. That’s the impression it gives. I also don’t believe my friend Ronnie really sent me a private message. I reckon flixter are spammers.
Flixter’s based in the US so they’ll probably sue my arse if they read this post. So be it. Go ahead and sue.
Watch out for flixter emails. They’re downright nasty. If I were you I wouldn’t touch flixter with a bargepole. Time to report them to Google…
