Join us for the San Francisco Net Tuesday on September 9:
Involver: How Nonprofits Can Create Video Campaigns for Social Networks.
NetSquared is an initiative of TechSoup
NetSquared enables social benefit organizations to leverage the tools of the social web.
- Home
- Blogs
- CoreyP's blog
- Spam vs Email Introductions
Spam vs Email Introductions
I've been thinking about beginning to more aggressively email people and organizations that I find on the web who I think might be interested in my podcast. The conceived email would just include a short introduction and invitation to check out the show.
I'm sensitive about the unsolicited emails that I receive and this has me thinking, what is spam? If I take the time to find people that I think might be interested in something that I am doing, and send an email to the person, should that exclude me from junk mail category? What if I personalize each email? What if I don't and just bcc every address? If the email is readily available on the web, does that mean that the person is open to receive solicitations?
As nonprofits use email more for prospect cultivation and solicitation, these type of concerns and questions are going to warrant more discussion. Will email solicitations follow the same path that snail mail appeals now use? Constantly trying to one up each other and broaden their reach through the purchasing of lists and subscriptions? Or will we find smarter ways to find and grow relationships with people who are interested in our missions?
Subscribe to Net2News
Latest Comments
- Awesome
1 day 3 hours ago - Many thanks Laura
2 days 11 hours ago - Great list of resources Beth
2 days 11 hours ago
Comments
getting coverge instead
For some reason I feel like a better way to get people feeling positive about checking out your podcast would be to get coverage in print or online news sources they already read. People may then email their friends about it, but those emails would feel less tainted by self interest than emails you send out yourself. I could be 100% wrong about this, though, it's a tough call.
Here's a couple things that could help with online promotion:
1. I've tagged the best articles I've found on "pitching bloggers" for coverage of any given project in del.icio.us with the tag "pitchingbloggers" (http://del.icio.us/tag/pitchingbloggers) People with blogs are doing media and can expect to be emailed for coverage of a variety of things. I know I get pitched for coverage about 3 times a month right now and I only blog about around 10% of what I get emailed about. But most of those are just random new web tools. Your podcast is awesome and will get a much better response, I'll bet.
2. If you haven't done this already, subscribing to the RSS feeds of searches for links to your podcast can help you engage with and extend the conversation. Searching for key terms related to your upcoming show and posting comments on blogs discovered to be dissussing those topics could be a good idea too. For search-to-RSS in the blogosphere I use Google Blogsearch, Technorati, Pubsub and IceRocket. Searching for inbound links to your site with those search engines can help build relationships, but you'll want to subscribe to the searches and not perform them manually all the time.
Those are my thoughts on podcast promotion and email. Whatever you do, I hope you'll write about what worked and what didn't. I'll make a post to my blog, http://marshallk.com, about your awesome podcast! In fact I think I'll go post our back and forth here and see if I can get folks to come this direction to post their thoughts.
Great Suggestions
Marshall - Thanks for the feeback, kind encouragement, and follow-up post on your own blog! All three have given me some food for thought and energy. I definitely want to avoid projecting an air of self-interest and shameless promotion and emails could carry that connotation. Using blogs and social networks to spread word about the 501c3cast would definitely be a more desirable angle than push promotion.
Specifically with my podcast, I believe that one of the challenges is that many individuals who would enjoy the content aren’t plugged in enough to know that it exists or how to find it. Educating nonprofit professionals about the resources that can be found on blogs, podcasts, and other net resources is still a necessary challenge that we face.
In a broader sense, I am interested in more conversation about how nonprofits use email to find new supporters. On side of me thinks, if it worked, we would see more organizations using email to reach out. I also fear that the potential for damage is greater than the possibility of catching someone’s attention. I reminded throughout this discussion of Michael Gilbert’s email manifesto and trying to figure out how/if it applies.
Thanks again for the resources, I will definitely check them out.
Yes, that would be spam
That would be pure spam. Everybody could easily rationalize their actions the way you do.
If you do that, you become a major part of the problem that's the net #1 annoyance right now.
to be fair...
I think that to be fair, "pure spam" is sending commercial solicitations to people with no relation to the product or service, just because they have an email adress. "Targeted Advertising" is a step less pernicious than that, and promotion of a truly unique non-profit venture to people in the field, even if unsolicited, is a far cry from the net's #1 problem. I think some people might find it obnoxious, and that's why I suggested things that I thought might be more effective, but I don't think it's a clear cut question at all.
Using Gmail for my email inbox, I get almost zero spam in my inbox. And I post my email adress all over the web. If you send out these promo emails with lots of recipients, people in the bcc field or too many links in the email - all those increase the likelihood that they will get caught in spam filters and thus be truly ineffective. But otherwise and anyway I'd say the net's #1 problem might be ineffective spam filters!
I can't imagine much greater contrast than on one hand this person sending out one email at a time respectfully promoting his podcast, to people with a high likelihood of interest and on the other hand some one who, say, hires an army of zombified PCs to run mass mailer programs spewing phishing emails all over the web seeking to snag your online banking passwords!
You should get a variety of peoples' perspectives on this issue, perhaps ask listeners on your podcast about it.
Emails and Spam
In the initial post it was suggested that you felt uncomfortable receiving unsolicited emails. I suspect that this is how the majority of us feel and although you have something fantastic to promote, I don't think it's a great idea to do it via email to all and sundry. In the past I have tried this for an equally good cause and yes, some NFP recipients did reply and remind me it was not the right thing to do in their opinion.
There are new laws against Spam recently introduced in Australia and the penalties are quite harsh. I would never assume that it was OK to send unsolicited email to people who you cannot be sure of. It only takes one dobber and you get in trouble no matter what.
Some of the ideas posted in reply to your initial post are very constructitive and give me some great ideas to work on. I am very new to this and quite excited by it all. I would love to find a really easy way to gain the immediate attention of the whole world at the snap of a finger. If I knew I could I would be posting like crazy as we have some great stories to tell. Patience and continued participation is the word I think.
Vince Holt - Western Australia
Personal Blog http://spaces.msn.com/members/vinceholt/