I’ve been doing some lead generation promotions recently with folks who are HUGE publishers.
Businesses that are dealing with email lists in the hundreds and hundreds of thousands.
They treat email marketing just a bit differently than your average joe online.
Because when you sign-for their LIST… you’re really signing up for their LISTS.
And that means that the offers start flying from many directions. From people who you never even asked to receive information from.
Now talk to your average internet marketer and they’d call the SPAM police. After all, isn’t that spamming?
I certainly thought it was.
But as far as I can tell, the CAN SPAM act apparently doesn’t outlaw what most people call SPAM, in fact, it defines the rules for how to send unsolicited email legally.
Here’s the link to the FTC’s Compliance Guide for Business to see for yourself.
I was pretty surprised the first time I read through that as well as the act itself.
And I quickly realized that just because I don’t do something doesn’t mean it’s wrong that someone else does it.
So here’s what I learned:
1. Never assume anything. Just because you aren’t used to doing things a certain way doesn’t mean they’re wrong.
2. Always have your toes dipped in many different ponds. That’s how you keep your world (and beliefs about what’s possible) from shrinking in around you. Just look at the internet marketing world. That’s why it’s collapsing… everyone started looking at each other and new ideas stopped being created. Old ideas just got recycled… and puffed up larger than life.
3. Try new things on your own. You’ll learn more by doing that than by going through another marketing course.
Of course you can argue that, “Well how effective could a sales email be when it’s sent to someone who didn’t ask for it?”
The fact is, I don’t know. Probably not effective at all.
But that’s not the point here. Because this post really isn’t about email at all.
It’s about taking other people’s ideas and adopting them as your own without applying some of your own critical thinking.
In my experience, critical thinking is where the money is.
Related posts: