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Posts Tagged ‘Spam’

Do These Spam Emails Look Familiar?

Posted by Dave McCue on September 30th, 2009

Spam in mailboxIf you take pride in your email marketing, you wouldn’t think your messages would contain elements found in some of the most Spam-tastic emails out there, right? Well, you might be surprised. To illustrate, I’ll be using a collection of the SPAM-iest emails I’ve received lately. If these characteristics sound familiar, it’d be a good idea to make some changes to your messages—the less you have in common with these bottom-feeders the better.

What’s the problem: (click to enlarge the sample message
The absence of a “To” address or any type of personalization leads me to believe that I did not actually win $2.5M dollars from Asia Power Ball Online Lottery Promo. This is also commonly found in emails sent by organizations who do all of their email marketing in-house, and often enter an entire mailing list of addresses entered into the “Bcc” field. The risk of accidentally using the “Cc” field instead of “Bcc” field is one possibly embarrassing reason to avoid this practice. Another is that seeing a blank “To” field can make recipients immediately suspicious as to the validity of your message, regardless of how legitimate you may think it is.

Using generic subject lines is another bad practice. You may not have content as enticing as a multi-million dollar prize, but it’s your responsibility to make it as enticing and informative as possible. And take care to avoid too much fine print or legal copy at the bottom of your messages—it can give recipients the impression that things aren’t what they appear, or that some “catch” is involved. If extensive Terms & Conditions apply, list them on a web page and link to it the way you would your Privacy Policy.

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Watch Out For YAM!

Posted by George Palatine on December 24th, 2008

Jordan Ayan coined a phrase the other day called “RAM” which made reference to Retail SPAM. I have another one to add to the list. “YAM”, standing for Yard SPAM. (Seems fitting for the holidays)

Yesterday in the Chicago area we experienced a fairly significant snowfall of around 7 inches. After a grueling commute I had the pleasure of clearing the driveway. Having purchased a snow blower last season the task did not seem too daunting. One pass down, one pass up then suddenly “BAM”, or should I say “YAM”, the snow blower locked up. Upon review I discovered I sucked up a newspaper! This was a free publication that I did not request and have never read in all the years I have lived here. This particular piece of “YAM” lodged itself squarely in the snow blower’s impeller and locked it in place.

After a utility knife, chisel, hacksaw blade, pliers, WD40, a propane torch, multiple jokes from my neighbors and 2.5 hours of additional character building (remember the commute) I was finally able to free the “YAM”.

Being an internet marketing professional I could not help but reflect on the fact that we are so careful to ask for permission before sending an email. Yet in the real world advertisers have little problem littering my front yard with anything they feel like throwing out of a moving car. Where is the opt-out or unsubscribe for that?

It made me think just how easy it would have been to simply click delete had this been SPAM and not “YAM”.

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