Spam, Forgiveness Marketing, and the Social Connection

I recently received an email entitled "Investigative Services for your Company". They promised:

The fastest turnaround
Online order forms
Flat rate fees with no surprises
Our ... guarantee

There was a basic problem, though. They got our company name wrong.

"I hope things are going well for you at Next State Evolution and I just wanted to take a minute to contact you about our guarantee." (Emphasis mine, and in case you didn't know, we're NextStage Evolution.)

Okay, work with me on this one. You're contacting me because you have great investigative services, and you got the name of our company wrong?

Am I the only one or is there some kind of obvious logic error here?

The Spam Argument

The above mentioned email is an example of spam.

I've heard it said that if spam didn't work, it wouldn't exist. There's truth in that.

If I send out one million emails and it only costs me US$1,000 to do it and I get a 1 percent return I can retire tomorrow. Heck, I should be able to retire tomorrow with a 0.01 percent return (depending on price and availability. Certain taxes and surcharges may apply. Ask your parents before going online. Contact your dealer for more details).

Spam has a long and honorable (huh?) history. Flyers in newspapers (they use to be a Sunday newspaper staple), drop cards and pullouts in magazines, bulk mail packages, direct mail, ... these were the spam of their day. The 'net has made spamming increasingly sophisticated. Ever book a trip on a travel site? Shop online? Order something for home delivery?

They want your email address to confirm delivery, keep you posted on where your purchase is in shipping, update your travel details, yes?

They'll do that, sure, and they also want to add you to their email advertising (spam) campaigns.

And one person's spam is another person's lifeline. A friend has travel site emails go directly to his spam filter except from Jan-Mar of each year because his kids' school break is in April and January to March is when he's looking for cheap airfares to grandma and grandpa's house.

Forgiveness Marketing

The latest trend in spamming is Forgiveness Marketing. I'm not going to ask permission to do something, I'm simply going to do it and if -- IF! -- it upsets you, I'll ask for forgiveness.

Note that it doesn't include "...and I'll stop doing it"?

That email above is spam and an example of forgiveness marketing. Ever receive unsolicited email and buried somewhere is a link to "Change your email settings"?

Don't do it! You'll only be confirming that your email address is alive, active, and that there's a human at the end of it.

Let me state my prejudice clearly; I think this type of marketing is abusive pure and simple. It's what's categorized as power abuse, and the number of things that fall under power abuse is amazing. Power abuse is familiar to women, minorities, immigrants, bullying victims (see my Yale University's Sexual Harassment, Bullying and More on "Aggression" for my take on that subject), ... the list is quite large, and always takes the form "I'm bigger than you so I can do what I want and you can't stop me."

The Social Connection

The game-changer in this argument is the surge in use of social media and tools, and the increasing move away from traditional (traditional? Does that word have meaning anymore in marketing?) channels by younger audiences. Data transmission dominates the air and voice has been in decline for years.

And all that data is going to mobile devices. Mostly in the hands of 15-30 year olds.

The prevalence of social tools demands that companies practicing forgiveness marketing control the online conversations about their brands/products/services. One slip and the game is over. Consumers are increasingly dictating the rules and, having been denied real market power until the late 2000's, are claiming it with a vengeance. Nor are they being forgiving about it.

And that Brings Us Back to Spam

Now here's the interesting part in this game. Because air time and data transmission costs are decreasing and in some cases becoming low and fixed, we can expect to see the laws around mobile marketing changing. Mass marketers still can't call your cell (I believe that's still the case) but they can spam your mobile with more than TXT (or will soon be able to universally). More young households are going completely mobile, communication-wise. What's a marketer to do if they can't spam your mobile? TXTing simply isn't enough any more.

But because people (especially in the US) think of their mobile as part of their identity, and because part of people's mobile identity is their social network and tools, you can expect to see forgiveness marketing increasingly relegated to "spam" filters and perhaps even reversed on the companies that do it.

Many people have "spam" email accounts, something first observed widespread in the early 2000s. There's the email address you give to friends, the one for business, and the one you use when you sign up for something or buy something. It's only checked when specific situations arise and a specific email needs to be received.

Want to bet the next trend will be spam mobiles?

Please contact NextStage for information regarding presentations and trainings on this and other topics.

Upcoming Trainings:

Know How Someone Is Thinking in Ten Seconds or Less

Upcoming Conferences:

"ANALYTICS SCHMANALYTICS: How Neuromarketing Will Change the Future of Marketing Analytics" at the 1-3 May 2011 IIR Chicago Conference
"Case Study: Analyze The Mind Using Text" at the 17-18 May 2011 Text Analytics Conference, Boston, MA
"Audience Focused Optimization" at the 20 May 2011 Planning-Ness 2011, Minneapolis, MN
"Standardizing Emotional Response -- Attaching Dollars to Sentiment" at the 23 June 2011 CMA's Social Media Conference 2011, Toronto, ON

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