Lets’ Learn from SPAM!

spam-popularity

I recently put out a tweet about how your blog is in the right track if you get more spammy comments. From what I see, you are seen by the bots, which means search engines and other kinds of bots should see you too. Its a good thing though not many followers agreed with me! What do you say?! 🙂

BUT, This post is not about spamming! This is about learning from a annoying marketing technique which has been existent since email came along. Spam emails! Everyone hates those nigerian bankers who want your help or those claiming to make your body organs bigger and even those promising you replicas of popular watch brands.

Companies have spent millions in developing firewalls and software to keep these people out of the system, yet they keep coming into your inbox everyday. Why? Simply because….

IT WORKS!

But as a responsible and ethical marketer, it was a learning experience for me to know what makes these spam messages click. I have been lurking in the depths of gmails spam folder trying to find out and here are some of the things I noticed.

The Headline

Spammers are ingenious copywriters! Each of their subject lines makes you want to open it and read that email.

No Fluff

Have you noticed how small those spam messages are? Most of them provide a problem and a link to the solution. You want this? Do this. Dead simple.

Persistence

I finally gave in a few years ago to a Nigerian Banker who told me that there is this dead guy who has ton of money stashed in an unclaimed account. I did it just for the heck of it, they are just too persistent with their messages!  (No, I was not duped by spam.)

Hit where it hurts

“Be the man she wants you to be…..” or “Get a diploma for a better job” helps the spam receiver to relate to his own fears and insecurities.

Cut the crap.

I have never seen a spam in the past month which starts with “We are so-and-so dealing with products like so-and-so and blah blah…”. The whole email is about me. Do I need a loan, do I need a better job? A bigger body part? or wades of cash? I don’t need to know about sender. In a weird way, it just works better!

Does your landing page have these qualities? By landing pages, I mean, every post in your blog, every marketing email you send out and every written communication you make.


Comments

5 responses to “Lets’ Learn from SPAM!”

  1. Good observations there. I read a lot of spam (sure I do, ask binny). But I have never observed such stuffs. But when I read this they all are true.

    Amazing!

  2. spaming has been a lucrative business and hence more and more money gets pumped into its development. It will not surprise me if they spend money on learning copywriting or creating better ad copies. Good observation though….

  3. It is pure foolishness if someone says…
    “More Disease you get. More resistant your body is”
    Use effective anti SPAM methods.

    Lets compare this case with Human-Disease. More you go outside and itneract with many people the chance if getting infected/ get disease is higher if you are a weak person.
    If you have many posts, and you are not secure.. the chance of getting more SPAM comments is higher…
    This doesn’t mean that you or your blog is popular on internet for that specific topic or whole…

    1. @Ben Jacob,

      It means the bots can find you! Thats wht it means! But this post is more about learning from the spam methods

  4. @Ben Jacob : You can’t compare a disease with spam . Spam mails are a used to increase your business or make your business popular . There are lots of guys getting the mail address from the websites and selling it bulk for $$ .

    I agree with this “If you have many posts, and you are not secure.. the chance of getting more SPAM comments is higher…
    This doesn’t mean that you or your blog is popular on internet for that specific topic or whole…”

    When you don’t have an effective filter like recaptcha or mollom , then getting spam will be higher . But one thing I am sure the bots find your site . So bots of google , bing , yahoo can find your site and you will be listed in the search pages . 🙂

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