I was talking with a friend last week who was sending out “email blasts” to clients for a part-time job.
He asked for insight about a certain way of following up with someone, so for background, I asked how he got the names of the clients.
“Our company buys lists of email addresses and then we ’email blast’ them and ask if they need help with social media”
“Oh yeah, how successful is that?”
“Not very. We get a few out of every hundred to reply, even less than that are interested.”
“What type of research are you doing–are you googling them to see what social media they are already using?”
“No, no. We’re ’email blasting’. I don’t waste my time on that.”
“How successful did you say it was?”
Email blasting is a fancy word for spamming. Not only are you spamming, but you don’t even have anything to make your spam enticing like “I saw you just got started on Twitter…” or “I was looking at your Facebook Fan Page and…”
Don’t think that you have to be buying email lists to be spamming people. Any time you’re interrupting someone who didn’t ask for it, whether or not you’re adding value, you’re spamming. If you’re wasting someones time because you’re not delivering what you promised, you’re spamming.
In fact, if you are…
interrupting someone who didn’t ask for it
wasting someone’s time because you’re not delivering what you promised
distracting someone from their work
giving a lecture that doesn’t connect with your audience
not adding value
emailing without permission
sending a resume without a phone call
contacting someone without a required action follow up or providing useful information
…you’re spamming.
Don’t believe the lie that you’re just doing your job. Refuse to spam. Insist on adding value.