Seth's Blog : The reluctant spammer

The reluctant spammer

“I don’t want to send this pitch to a list of every single podcaster in the world, but we have to get the word out.”

“I don’t want to send an email to every one of our previous donors every three days until they unsubscribe, but our work is so important, it has to be done.”

“I don’t want to robocall every person in the district, but if I don’t, our campaign has no chance… the other guy is even more aggressive than we are.”

Except there’s an “except.”

Except that all the organizations before you that have reluctantly raced to the bottom aren’t happy that they did. They’re not thriving and they might not even be around any more.

The reason that our attention has been strip-mined is that the system that evolved seems to reward short-term players that take the direct, easy, and lazy way out. While it seems like we have no choice, in fact, we have a very obvious one.

It turns out that finding, connecting and respecting a small group of supporters and customers always outperforms the hustle for more. And that if you can create a remarkable story that’s worth spreading, it’ll spread. Not because you need it to, but because your customers do.

Reluctant or not, spam is still spam. If you can’t imagine wanting to receive it, don’t send it.