Spam Not by Mari Peckham

Spam Not by Mari Peckham

"Spam not, lest ye be spammed." ~Mari Peckham

Just yesterday, I received over 40,000 emails from a person
who had harvested a contact email address from one of my
websites. The person may or may not have personally secured
my email address, but since I use it only to receive email
feedback from my website and never to send mail, I know that
it was a harvested address. Because of the nature of my use
of this email address, I also have a "Thank you for
contacting us." autoresponder message in place there.

My server was mad at me. My entire system was mad at me. I
couldn't conduct my normal business and send out email that
needed to be sent out, because my computer was hard at work
downloading email upon email.

How can something like this happen?

Simple enough, really. My email was picked up off of my
website and added to an autoresponder. If it had been a
regular email account, I would have received an unsolicited
message that I would have easily deleted, no big deal. But
since my email address was attached to an autoresponder, it
started a vicious cycle of email autoresponse.

The person who had sent me the email - well, they ended up
with 40,000 "Thank you for contacting us." emails in their
box from me.

I'm sure that that wasn't very pleasant for them, either.
And the fact of the matter is that they may have not even
realized that they had done anything wrong.

Spam is bad. Not all spammers are bad people, though. Some
of them are just misinformed or inexperienced Internet
marketers.

I'm the first to admit that marketing can be frustrating.
Just when you've hit the wall and can't think of another
fresh marketing idea to get new people to your site, along
comes a company that offers you a list of 100,000 email
addresses for just $24.95 or some other unbelievable deal.
Wow! What an opportunity! Affordable, even! It's hard not
to jump all over an offer like that.

But beware! It's hard to say where those email addresses
are coming from.

Many unscrupulous companies use "harvesting" software that
spiders the Internet and lifts email address off of
websites. They then compile lists of these email addresses
and sell them as "opt-in safelists" for profit.

As a marketer, using these lists can get you in tons of
trouble. Once labeled as a Spammer, it is hard to rid
yourself of that reputation, whether you were spamming on
purpose, or you were a victim of a bad "list". You can be
dropped from your hosting service or ISP. Companies that
you are promoting using Spam will cancel your accounts.

Bottom line: If you are not sure that it is NOT Spam, then
don't do it. Develop your own list of opt-in subscribers by
offering a newsletter, free information, or something else
that will get people to take notice of you. Both
YahooGroups (http://groups.yahoo.com/) and Topica
(http://www.topica.com) offer free, easy-to-use service that
will manage your subscribers for you. You can find other
similar services on the Internet. This is one of the most
responsive forms of advertising, because you have the
opportunity to develop a relationship with your list
members.

You can also use a mailing list building service, such as
Free Mailer 2000 (http://www.freemailer2000.com), although
you will need to advertise your mailing list builder site in
order to build your mailing list.

Safelists can be another safe way to get the word out about
your business, but vary in responsiveness. I recommend the
services of SafeListBoys (http://www.safelistboys.com) to
help you find lists and easily manage your safelist activity
for a small monthly fee. You can also find new safelists by
entering "safelists" in any search engine, but watch out for
those "BULK" mailing list services that may fall in the
unscrupulous SPAM category. Rule of thumb, if you aren't a
member yourself and know for a fact that the list is opt-in,
don't use it!

If you are choosing to spam, stop immediately. It may be
getting you a handful of responses right now, but the
painful consequences of your actions can cancel out any
benefits that you may find.

If we, as an Internet marketing community, would all agree
to market responsibly, the Internet would soon be a better
place to work and live. What comes around goes around.
Spam not, lest ye be spammed.
About the Author
Mari is the author of MarketingPitbull, a truly step-by-step
guide to creating exponential traffic flow and a residual
income online, with or without your own product. Find out
more about MarketingPitbull at:
http://www.marketingpitbull.com

"Where is My Spam" by Wonder Wyant

"Where is My Spam" by Wonder Wyant

Boy, I must be really new to the Internet! Everyone keeps
talking about all the canned meat they're getting and I'm
hardly getting fed over here.

I do get some, but I'm sure not getting fat on it. I
receive a couple of hundred or so emails a day so I'm not
surprised that I get a few offers for credit cards I don't
need and junk I'm not going to buy.

Although I probably average only a dozen or so letters a day
in the big metal box at the end of the drive,some days more
that half of that mail is junkmail.

While I find basically none of this junkmail useful to me,
the electronic spam is much easier to deal with. I'm
brand new to email and I still know at least three ways to
hit delete! And, if need be, I can let my ISP gobble it up.

Since I live in the country and I no longer have to pay the
garbage man to haul away the paper junkmail, I don't even
resent that as I once did. In fact, I hear that I have a
neighbor who actually solicits the stuff as he heats his
house with it. An idea, I suppose?

I can almost hear you saying "Wait a minute! You said you
get hundreds of emails a day." Yes, indeed I do. I would
say that 96% of them are from ezines that I've subcribed to,
offers I asked for more information about or email courses I
wanted.

In my 3 months on the Internet, I've subscribed to over 400
ezines. Am I nuts, as an ezine editor friend of mine
implied? No, I'm out here to get information. The only way
to do that is to go to where the source is. Many ezines are
wonderful sources of a wide variety of information.

Unfortunately, I've found that not all ezines are
entertaining or informative. Do I read them all?
Yes, I do, to a point. I use an automatic 'shelving' system
in Outlook Express for my ezines.

I have a folder named 'Ezines' and inside that I have many
subfolders.

When I read my first issue of an ezine, if I am instantly
totally impressed, I set up a subfolder for that ezine and
a message rule that puts every issue in that folder. I
generally eagerly read them as soon as I see I have unopened
mail in that folder. If I find later that I am not enjoying
that ezine as much, I move the whole folder to another
catagory or I unsubscribe and delete the folder.

I also have a subfolder called 'Checking Out'. If I am not
totally enamored with the ezine, it goes into a subfolder in
that file. I have these labeled: 'Daily's", 'Weekly's' and
'Monthly's. I add the from address to the appropriate
message rule and those ezines go to their folders.

I read the 'Checking Out' ezines as time allows. Very often,
by the second or third issue, the ezine has graduated it its
own folder. I sort by name and read the 'Daily's' more
often that the others but I do at least scan them all.

If I have received 5 or 6 issues of an ezine and it still
remains in my just looking folder, I am not very interested
in that ezine. I unsubscribe. Ezine editors might want to
note that, when they send me 4 or more 'solos' in a day, I
am probably only seeing one real issue of their ezine when
I'm trying to decide if I want to remain subscribed.

I have to admit that I've recently added a new subfolder
called 'Free Ad Subs'. Yep, you guessed it, stuff I don't
read unless have extra time or I need an ad code. I will
stay subscribed though until I figure out a better way to
market.

I don't know, maybe I'm just too new out here to know what
canned meat is.

If you'd like some helpful hints on how to manage 400+
ezines in your mailbox, send for my free helpful article
"Manage Your E-mail" mailto:wonderclass1@GetResponse.com.
About the Author
Wonder Wyant is a retired carny and the editor of "Geeks,
Freaks and Bamboozles" a new ezine about both the carnival
she retired from and the one she retired to. To get in
prelaunch, mailto:wonderwyant@hotmail.com. You can check out
her newest 'teddybear' at http://100PercentProfit.cjb.net.

Good Spam or Bad Spam - What's the Difference? by Sara Hardy

Good Spam or Bad Spam - What's the Difference? by Sara Hardy

"Are you good spam or bad spam?"
This is the question I find echoing in my head sometimes when
I am going through my email, as if it is part of some electronic
Wizard of Oz. Have you ever given any thought to the fact that
there really is a difference in spam? Not that I am defending
anyone, but let me make my point and then you can decide for
yourself.

Spam is such a hot issue and no one knows the "right" view of
spam that fits everyone. You either:
- will take all measures to prevent people from sending it to you
- don't mind it at all and happily delete, delete, delete every day
- OR hate it sometimes and ignore it other times.

I think I fall in the last category, which is what started me thinking
about good and bad spam. My point of view has now developed
into this:

BAD Spam-
-It is bad spam when you reply to it to be removed and it is
returned to you because the address is made up.
-It is bad spam when the removal link does not open a real url.
-It is bad spam when you paste the message source into Spam
Cop and the info you get back before clicking the "Send spam
report" shows tons of dead ends and made up domains, etc.

This means that this "Cowardly Lion" harvested your address,
and went to great lengths to cover their tracks in order not to
get caught sending spam.

GOOD Spam-
-It is good spam when there is an actual person on the other
end, apologizing for inconveniencing you.

What made it good spam? Because here is spam that you
most likely will not get again, because it is more legit then the
bad spam. These people are not out to break any rules, upset
anyone, or ruin your day. 9 times out of 10 they really don't
know any better and will learn, very quickly I might add.

Also, keep in mind that the Scarecrow in us does not ALWAYS
remember every email we sign up for. It is possible to have
signed up for something and a week later be flipping out
because you are getting email from some unknown. If we only
had a brain sometimes (Speaking for myself, of course).

It is also highly possible that someone is having fun
subscribing you to things. Never count that one out, it happens
all of the time.

GOOD vs BAD
Personally, I would much rather get NO spam, however if I had
to choose, I would have to go with good spam. Bad spam
demonstrates that the sender KNOWS what is NOT acceptable
and went to all of this trouble and expense to hide behind this
long trail of fake addresses. These are malicious acts, and
down right dirty. Do they really think that what they are trying to
sell in this manner is actually worth it? These are the people we
should be upset with. These are the people that we need to be
telling, "I'll get you my pretty, and your little server too!"

So, whether you agree or disagree, just try to keep in mind that
-1. The whole world is not out to get you.
-2. Not every piece of spam is sent with the same intent. And...
-3. As the world around us continues to change,
we will be seeing more and more companies resorting to
sending their junk mail through email rather then the post office.
(I think this is becoming a more desirable thing to us all, as it
would be much safer, take less effort to get rid of, & is better
for the environment.)

Now is the time to try to adjust our view and approach the issue
with a level head. If we don't we will drive ourselves mad, and
for what purpose? The changes in our world cause the internet
to change. Soon you probably will find yourself saying, "I don't
think we're in Kansas anymore".
About the Author
Sara Hardy
Publisher of The OnLine Exchange Ezine.
We have been in circulation for over 3 years,
with over 28,000 faithful subscribers. Go here to subscribe:
http://marketingtrendz.com and start your FREE Membership
to our Profit Zone, giving you unlimited access to FREE
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