5 Lessons Porn Spammers Have Taught Me About Email Marketing

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I routinely check my spam folder for email incorrectly caught as junk. (It’s getting rarer these days, but you never know.) I usually have a good time reading the subject headlines because they are so creative, yet so tacky. The off-target techniques they use to entice me to open their junk are so desperate, you just have to laugh. I give them credit for their determination, even if it’s wholly wasted.

Today I decided to analyze a few of these emails to try and figure out the common threads of what they do right and, more often, wrong which cause them to die unread. I wanted to find techniques I could use to improve my own marketing skills as a result.

It turns out there are indeed some lessons I can apply to my own email marketing to improve the quality of my mailing lists.

Try To Tittilate

This is something porn spammers excel at. But, unfortunately for them, most filters are triggered by the very same keywords they use to entice. Their headlines all have a very similar and singular goal, to lure you into opening the email. Obviously this is normal. No one wants their email to go unread.

But if you are a legitimate person or business offering something valid, you surely can do some of these same things to entice your list subscribers to read your mail.  Offer them exclusive access, free downloads, helpful tips, or anything else your potential market deems useful, just don’t mention the Viagra!

Give ‘Em Benefits and Give ‘Em Fast!

People get bored fast. You do, I do. Consequently, you don’t have a lot of time to keep people’s attention, so give them a reason to click right away.

If you want to write a novel, go do that, but keep marketing email messages short and to the point. The subject line is the most visible and obvious place to do this because this is what most of us use to determine what to read and what to trash.  Write something which stands out and you stand a chance of being read—give a summary of what’s in the body of the email, but do it in a way that leads them to open it.

Don’t Generalize, Personalize

This is where the spammers are particularly bad and at a disadvantage. Since their mailing lists are either bought, stolen or computer generated, they usually omit this or get it so wrong as to be hilarious. The spammers don’t care if they have your correct name, they’re doing things in bulk. But you shouldn’t avoid this opportunity to continue relationship-building within your own mailing list. If you request subscriber names on sign-up, including the subscribers first name in the email subject does two things: 1) shows the reader that you already know them, and 2) increases trust that the email sender is someone they know already.  This will help you to avoid the junk bin and reduce your unsubscribes when sent randomly.

Be On Target

Is your message about soap-making techniques going out to someone who is interested in house-breaking their siberian husky? If so, you may want to rethink that list strategy, because it’s unlikely to receive much attention.

Again the spammers don’t care if 999,995 of 1,000,000 email recipients aren’t interested in Viagra, credit reports, or male baldness. For them blasting out a junk-mail offer to a list of random people is their modus operandi. If one or two hapless email recipients happen to bite, they’ve won.

So make sure your list is laser-targeted to your ideal market. This can become tricky if you have several email subscriptions going. Careful organization is the key to keeping the mail-targeting focus from getting sloppy.  If you run cross-offers or things like that, plan carefully and keep your subscribers happy and hopefully interested.

A Trusted (Re)Source

Hmm, I see another email from “me” or “montgomeryandrew139dd9″? I’m pretty sure I don’t know either of these folks.  Even internet neophytes are way more sophisticated than they were in 2002 with regards to whom to trust with email.  The spam filters catch the obvious stuff and cautious users get most of the rest.

Double opt-in is helpful to get your account white-listed and reduce complaints, but it shouldn’t stop there. Personalizing your email sign-up process with custom web pages with visible branding, not default AWeber series, will help build a relationship from the start. If you control the flow, you can let potential subscribers know they will receive opt-in emails which they need to act on in order to be subscribed properly. This can reduce the number of incomplete sign-ups and abandoned subscriptions.

A Bonus Tip

If you’ve read this far, then you deserve another great tip. This one is what the spammers promise, but fail to deliver every time. That is: valuable content.

What the spammers forget is that there’s a human being on the end of that email address. If you value your list subscribers, then you shouldn’t blast them with ads, offers and launch announcements without at least providing them with a justification for them joining your list.

Providing them a tangible goody for subscribing, and not just some PLR junk, shows your appreciation for their effort and trust.  Offering good content from day one and providing something every day that they can use in their subject of interest can help build trust and long-term subscribers.

Peruse your spam folder and let me know if you learn anything else interesting, aside from offers for amazing medical products which are guaranteed to please your spouse.

Tagged as: email marketing, internet marketing, list building

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