Spamming

There is spam that comes from computers (spambots) not people.  That is evil, ugly, awful, etc and it is on my Internet Axis of Evil and always will be.

Then there is spam from people.  This is email that is sent by one person to a group of people, and even to just one person.  I'll call it personal spam.

But it is one sided.  There is no value in recieving the personal spam.  All value accrues to the sender.

I try very hard to avoid sending that kind of personal spam.  Because when you send it you use up valuable political capital with the recipient.

My suggestion to everyone who is tempted to send this kind of personal spam is to think about every email you send and ask the question if the recipient is going to get any value out of recieving it.  If the answer is no, then don't hit the send button.

Comments

[jackson]

I think somebody needs to come up with a deterrent, some sort of anti-spam bomb, that will destroy the senders computer.

[Zach Coelius]

Fred,
What do you think of things like mass updates? I find that as an entrepreneur lots of people I have come into contact with like to hear about the developments in my company every now and then. Moreover some of my best opportunities have come from very random people. But I just don’t have time to ping each person I meet and develop the relationship. So often times I will send the people at the edge of my contacts updates. Yet I can also understand how this might be annoying to people or put them off if they have no interest. I find it a very tough question. The entrepreneur in me wants to turn every stone and follow up, while the people person in me hates annoying people. The only conclusion I have come to be as careful as I can and try to add value like you suggest.

Any thoughts?
Zach

[Dylan Salisbury]

Zach, look at Fred's approach to that problem: He has a personal blog, and his company has an official blog. He can use either to send mass updates, but he's got to keep both full of content that has value to us readers. We are free to unsubscribe any time.

So, send just one more mass e-mail inviting people to subscribe to your blog or mailing list, then try to keep them subscribed :)