Overhype

Overhype

by Mike Masnick




Moron Marketers Rationalize Guessing Your Email Address

from the wake-up-already dept

And people wonder why marketers have a bad name. The Direct Marketing Association, which still hasn't figured out that annoying and intrusive marketing is bad marketing continues to try to rationalize why it endorses techniques that only help lazy marketers do a bad job. The point of good marketing is to find out what people want, and then provide it to them. The point of bad marketing is to push products people don't want on as many people as possible. Now, the Direct Marketing Association is saying it's okay for companies you buy from to try to figure out your email address and spam you, even if you didn't give them your address. They say it's okay for companies to buy lists or to even guess your email address, because they believe that you'd obviously want to hear from them, despite not giving them your contact info. When people point out that this is information that wasn't given to the companies, the DMA responds by saying the response rates when they ask for information is very low. Most normal thinkers would realize this probably means people don't want the companies to have their info. A good marketer, in fact, would realize exactly that (because the good marketer's job is to understand what people want and don't want). Instead, the bad marketers at the DMA believe that low response rates mean they have to figure out some other way to spam you.

4 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 
 

Reader Comments

(Flattened / Threaded)

    Mar 1st, 2004 @ 7:17pm
  • No Subject Given

    by w.h.

    The problem is they get it wrong. Often.

    Somehow, my mother's identify maps to my email address.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

    • Mar 2nd, 2004 @ 6:11am
    • Re: No Subject Given

      by thecaptain

      Often?

      There is very little most marketers get right, much less right often.

      I mean, they think we WANT this kind of crap.

      I'm thinking I want a piece of the drug concession to those guys...because it seems to me most marketers and reality haven't collided in a LONG time.

      (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

    Mar 2nd, 2004 @ 10:51am
  • No Subject Given

    by Anonymous Coward

    if they weren't selling the products, they would stop the spam

    it is not a huge margin, but people do reply to these spam emails, and until they stop.. the spam will continue

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  • Mar 2nd, 2004 @ 6:04pm
  • SPAM news IS SPAM!!!

    by Rajpaul

    Attend to this: SPAM news is SPAM!!! I waste more time dealing with SPAM news (SPAMEWS) than with actual SPAM.

    SPAM news is spam and should be stopped. I am working on a a program that will filter out SPAMEWS

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

Add Your Comment

Have a Techdirt Account? Sign in now.
Get Techdirt’s Daily Email
Plain Text HTML
Save me a cookie
  • Plain Text: A CRLF will be replaced by break <br> tag, all other allowable HTML is intact
  • HTML: No formatting of any kind is done without explicitly being written in
  • Allowed HTML Tags: <b> <i> <p> <a> <em> <br> <strong> <blockquote> <hr> <tt>
Close
Have a Techdirt Account? Sign in now.
Get Techdirt’s Daily Email
Plain Text HTML Save me a cookie

Search Techdirt
And now, a word from our Sponsors..



Subscribe to Techdirt's Daily Email Newsletter

Techdirt's Daily Email Newsletter

Related Stories
Close
E-mail It