Spam addict...

I suppose I should be careful what I say here as I have been guilty of marketing email in the past - but how much spam flies around the world of Internal Communications?

I only mention it because I have just spent an hour of my Sunday tidying up some of my mail and realise that in the last week I got an average of four mails a day from people trying to get me to go on one of their IC courses or to read something about IC.

Clearly I'm not counting the real spam that tries to sell me stuff I don't need at all - like medication or the chance to launder the ill-gotten gains of a dead Nigerian politician.

I'm sure that much of the stuff aimed at me as a communicator is very good and of a high quality but does anyone read it all?

My problem though is that most of it is my own fault.  It comes mainly because it's generated by bodies of which I'm a member (the CIPR and the IABC) or from publishers like Ragan or Melcrum (and I can't face unsubscribing as I'm terrified I'll miss something!).

I remember once telling Victoria Mellor that people always comment about the volume of mail that Melcrum send and she pointed out that it works.  Whilst some people get irritated by their in-boxes getting a daily note, it seems that bulk mailings get results - without them some people wouldn't know about courses or products that are of use to them.

I've been talking to Marc about it and debating if Simply-Communicate will do a daily bulk mailing and I don't think we're going in that direction.

But could it be that there are more people than just me who take a strange delight in this sort of spam?  Could it be that internal communicators can't really object to receiving spam because we've all done it at one stage or another?

Perhaps I could start up Spamaholics Anonymous?

Liam

Comments

[Marc Wright]

Mark Ragan once explained to me the economics of spam. You see, whenever you send out a mass mailing you get people unsubscribing - and Mark claimed that 15 unsubscribes for one sale was about the right level. Or was it 10? I forget. The fact is that few of us respond immediately to an ad for a masterclass or a webinar or a conference. We might think - "I should go to that..." But then do nothing about it. It's only on the second (or third) email that we get round to it - usually when the earlybird discount is about to expire.
The irritation with spam is a complex formula that I believe goes something like this:
i = irr x fr divided by q

Where:
i is the level of irritation
irr is the irrelevance of the offer to me
fr is the frequesncy
and q is the quality of the offer in thefirst place

If irritation goes above 5 then I don't blame anyone for unsubscribing.