Saturday, April 12, 2008

A Case of Spamming the Wrong Sex!


We've all received emails advertising products that we are genuinely not interested in and I usually right click and send these to my blocked senders list. But today I was so amused by one spammers attempt to sell me a product I just had to share it with you. There are valuable marketing lessons we can learn from their attempt to get my attention and sell me a product.

Firstly, the basic rule of marketing is to know your target market and to pitch your campaign to their buying motives, needs and wants. This spammer obviously had no idea of his target market because I could not, would not and never would want the product that Greg was trying to sell me.

Secondly, another basic rule of marketing and customer service is to under promise and over deliver. I'm afraid that Greg could never deliver on the promises that he was making. It was absolutely impossible.

By now I guess you are dying to know what promises Greg made to me...go on, you know you're curious.

But before I reveal all, I have to tell you that i just wanted to laugh myself silly when I read his email, where he went into detail about how the product had helped him, how much his girlfriend appreciated it and how it could help me.

I even tried to contact Greg to let him know the error of his ways but the email bounced back, another faux paus in marketing! You should always be available to your potential customers to answer their questions!

So, I'll keep you in suspense no longer. This is the subject line of Greg's very "effective" marketing email to me...

"It will make your penis bigger and erection more intensive!"

Well, Greg, I don't think that is possible, given that I don't have a penis and have never experienced or intend to experience an erection.

You just have to laugh!

So I ask you...is spam an effective marketing tool? Probably not! And the really bad thing about Greg is that he is on blogspot, so he is one of us! It makes you wonder...

Oh, I forgot to mention. Greg also has a friend John who he thanks in the email for allowing him to show John's before and after photos on his website. Now there is a tantalising proposition!