Now 'that's' how to SPAM

If he had not asked my permission, his email would have been deleted immediately and his domain added to my junk mail filters.

So I'm sat infront of my Mac yesterday and at about 4.30, the phone rang. Now I've written before about telephone salesmen, but this was a call with a difference.

(I've changed the names so various reasons.)

Caller : Hi, my name is Roger Daltrey from Who's Better Software. I'm calling to ask if it will be OK to send you an email about our web monitoring software?

Now I'm impressed so far. Not only did Roger identify himself upfront to save me the job of interogating him, he actually asked, and very politely I should add, if it was OK to contact me. My defences came down and, Holy smokes, I even asked him right there what his software did.

Roger asked for my email address, of which I have several (one of which is designed to be read only when Jupiter is in conjunction with Uranus and it's also a full moon.)

Malarkey : That depends, how often will you be sending me information and will I be added to your database?

Caller : I will only send you one, and if you don't reply you won't receive any more communications from us.

So I gave him my email, this guy has class.

Now, here is the odd thing

For the next two hours I was actively waiting for this guy to email me! Two hours in which I was wondering about his software. Maybe it will be really good and I can use it myself? Maybe I can recommend it to my clients? For two hours I am thinking about his product. When was the last time that happened from a cold call? And all because he was polite, respectful and was not so arrogant as to think that it was OK just to waste my time by spamming me.

At the end of the call, I asked Roger where he found my details. On your web site he replied. Now my web sites list my email address, it was there for Roger to see. He could have spammed me without asking. But he did ask, and in doing that he made me think about his product and about the experience of dealing with him (hell, I'm even blogging about it).

Things could have worked out very differently

1. If he had immediately launched into a sales pitch for his product on the phone, I would have cut him off at the knees and got on with my day.

2. If he had not asked my permission, his email would have been deleted immediately and his domain added to my junk mail filters.

But he didn't do either of these things. I wanted to receive his email and...

... when it arrived I read it.

Now 'that's' how to SPAM.

Replies