On it’s website, CAUCE says that it’s mission

as an all-volunteer consumer advocacy organization, has moved beyond its original mission of encouraging the creation and adoption of anti-spam laws to a broader stance of defending the interests of the average Internet user.

I don’t know much about the group, other than that one of it’s board directors, works for Return Path, a company I pass everyday while driving to work (Return Path is also listed as one of CAUCE’s corporate sponsors).

Through CAUCE’s board of directors, it also seems to be affiliated with the The Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group, another anti-spamming organization.

All I can say is that I applaud their efforts and look forward to learning more about the issue.

First, let’s acknowledge that email marketing is really easy:

1. Buy a list of contacts from a vendor
2. Load them in an email marketing software package
3. Blast em, blast em, blast em,
4. Sort through the replies
5. Collect money from those who happend to need what you are selling at the time
6. Repeat.

Let’s also acknowledge that calling this  practice “email marketing” is misleading – it already has a name: it’s called SPAMMING.
Now, I’d like to make a few observations from having spammed in real life:

• It works. You blast 3,000 people with a sales pitch and 5 will turn up as a potential opportunity for your sales team.
  • Think about it, you didn’t have to really do any work. Just sit back, let the blasts happen and collect hot leads.
• It’s very obnoxious.
  • You just wasted the time of the other 2,995 people who did not appreciate getting your unsolicited email. Let’s assume that it took each of them (on average) 5 seconds to glanse at the email and recognize for what it is. 5 second multiplied by 2,995 people equals 14,975 seconds. That’s 4.1 hours. 4.1 hours of work that you took away from your potential customers. Let’s assume that you potential customers are Directors of IT (as it is in my case) who make $100,000/year or almost $50/hour. You know where I am going with this. 4 hours at $50/hour makes $200, that you just stole/wasted from your customers.
  • By this reasoning, blasting 3,000 people = wasting $200 of your potential customers money. But who sends out only 3,000 emails? What if you send out 100,000 emails? That’s almost $7,000 of damages that you inflicted on the people you should care about the most. And that’s not including the opportunity cost to them.
• Everyone does it
  • With the assumption that for every 3,000 blasted, 5 might buy, blasing 100,000 could result in almost 160 potentials deals. Which could result in significant revenue for your company.
• Most expect it.
  • This is perhaps the most disturbing aspect of spamming. The majority of the people that I’ve spoken with, who are on the receiving end of business spam, expect it, and treat as a normal part of life. Just a part of doing business.

Given that it works, and that the reciepients expect it, I still can’t seem to come to terms with it. I like to tell my co-workers that I feel like a part of me dies everytime we do a blast.

What do you think? What’s your experience with marketing this way, and do you see anything wrong with it?