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I'm having trouble getting past the fact that this guy was, basically, running a spam business. Email marketing is spam, to a first approximation, and while th

by etfb 13y ago

I'm having trouble getting past the fact that this guy was, basically, running a spam business. Email marketing is spam, to a first approximation, and while there are ethical email marketers out there, I don't know enough to be sure that this guy was one of them. Which means I'm getting good advice from someone whose ethics are under a cloud; it colours my view of the whole article.

nickreese 13y ago
ETFB -- Hey man, author here. I'll admit, starting out (back in 2006) the business was a little shady with regards to can-spam, but for the specific MLS area my business served, it was the norm for realtors to send eblasts to each other. (the MLS sold the email list on the basis of "prior business relationship" because all the realtors were apart of the same area board.) That said, in 2007 I sent out a double optin request, and nuked my list from ~40K to ~5k to really make sure things were above board. This crushed my business, so I spent ~$15k in Adwords building a double opt-in list of customers that wanted email updates about luxury properties. That was the REAL value and how I was able to scale the business past 6 figures and sell it in 2010. I appreciate your concern even though I despise ad hominem arguments. ;)
- etfb 13y ago
  Reply to all but the last clause of the last sentence: good for you! I was going to add to my original comment that nothing else about your site felt shady or unethical, so the chances were very good that you were one of the non-shonky email marketers. I've got a couple of your other pages open in tabs now because I suspect you have some good advice for me. I'm please to have it confirmed that you considered those issues of ethics and put your money where your mouth is. Reply to the final clause: to be employing an ad hominem argument I'd need to be bringing up something about you that's irrelevant: "I won't read an article by a guy with blond hair, because a blond guy once ate my cat" would be classic ad hominem. But I think your history as a (suspected) spammer is definitely relevant when the matter in question is your eligibility to give advice about customer relations, so I stand by it as valid, and not ad hominem. And on the flipside, your explanation of where you went with your pseudo-spamming career makes your articles more credible, don't you agree? It works both ways, which an ad hominem argument doesn't.
iambateman 13y ago
Why do you say that "email marketing is spam"? I get email from marketers that I would miss if it was gone.
- etfb 13y ago
  Only to a first approximation. The exceptions are increasing as more people realise that ethics and marketing are not incompatible. But I believe it's reasonable to be suspicious of email marketing by default, and look for reasons to be forgiving, rather than the other way round.

by etfb 13y ago

nickreese 13y ago

ETFB -- Hey man, author here. I'll admit, starting out (back in 2006) the business was a little shady with regards to can-spam, but for the specific MLS area my business served, it was the norm for realtors to send eblasts to each other. (the MLS sold the email list on the basis of "prior business relationship" because all the realtors were apart of the same area board.) That said, in 2007 I sent out a double optin request, and nuked my list from ~40K to ~5k to really make sure things were above board. This crushed my business, so I spent ~$15k in Adwords building a double opt-in list of customers that wanted email updates about luxury properties. That was the REAL value and how I was able to scale the business past 6 figures and sell it in 2010. I appreciate your concern even though I despise ad hominem arguments. ;)

etfb 13y ago
Reply to all but the last clause of the last sentence: good for you! I was going to add to my original comment that nothing else about your site felt shady or unethical, so the chances were very good that you were one of the non-shonky email marketers. I've got a couple of your other pages open in tabs now because I suspect you have some good advice for me. I'm please to have it confirmed that you considered those issues of ethics and put your money where your mouth is. Reply to the final clause: to be employing an ad hominem argument I'd need to be bringing up something about you that's irrelevant: "I won't read an article by a guy with blond hair, because a blond guy once ate my cat" would be classic ad hominem. But I think your history as a (suspected) spammer is definitely relevant when the matter in question is your eligibility to give advice about customer relations, so I stand by it as valid, and not ad hominem. And on the flipside, your explanation of where you went with your pseudo-spamming career makes your articles more credible, don't you agree? It works both ways, which an ad hominem argument doesn't.

iambateman 13y ago

Why do you say that "email marketing is spam"? I get email from marketers that I would miss if it was gone.

etfb 13y ago
Only to a first approximation. The exceptions are increasing as more people realise that ethics and marketing are not incompatible. But I believe it's reasonable to be suspicious of email marketing by default, and look for reasons to be forgiving, rather than the other way round.