About a month or so ago, I received an eMail from one of the lists I am on about a video that promised some information that sounded interesting. To view the video, I had to join another marketer’s list. So, I did.
The video was a long meandering video that failed to deliver what was promised. It was a complete waste of my time.
Still, I stayed on the list, hoping at some point I might learn something useful.
Well, this particular marketer largely uses video marketing, so the vast majority of the eMails are nothing more than links to a video I can’t or mustn’t miss and so on.
So, a little over a week ago, after receiving the umpteenth link to a pointless video, I decided to unsubscribe from the list. I realized I am not learning anything from the guy’s marketing techniques nor am I likely to buy from him and, seeing that he is using a list service that he has to pay for, my being on the list is costing him money, while wasting my time, so neither one of us was benefiting from it.
I unsubscribed.
In what I hope is a coincidence, within about 1-2 days of unsubscribing, the amount of spam I’ve been getting has increased dramatically. I’d estimate I am getting at least 50 (and perhaps closer to 100) more spam messages per day than I usually get. Many of them are duplicates of one another.
And, this new plethora of spam is only coming in on that one eMail that I used to subscribe to the list.
In Internet marketing circles, we’re often taught here to stay on lists and learn from how others handle their lists. But, just because a marketer has a list doesn’t necessarily mean that they are making any money. You could fall into the trap of trying to learn from someone who isn’t making money selling the products he is promoting. This is much more so the case when dealing with someone you’ve never heard of before versus someone who is well-known.
If the guy’s not making money selling products to his list, maybe he makes money selling the eMail addresses of unsubscribers to spammers. Maybe that’s where he’s making his money.
Of course, it is probably coincidence. It would be a lot of work to put together videos and such in order to get people to subscribe to your list with the intent of driving them off your list and then selling their eMail address to spammers when they unsubscribe. It just wouldn’t make a lot of sense (or cents). It could be a “revenge” thing too, as in “I’ll show you for unsubscribing to my list!” But, who really has time for that sort of thing? Better to focus on the subscribers you do have and on getting new ones and generating sales rather than fooling around with trying to take “revenge” out on unsubscribers.
So, I am going to tend to believe it was coincidence, albeit a biggie.
Here, however, are the keypoints.
- First, the initial video, which required an opt-in, failed to deliver on what was promised.
- Subsequent videos and messages also failed to deliver on what was promised.
- The bottom line is that subscribing to the list offered me nothing of value.
- As such, I leave with not the best view of that marketer.
- Shortly after leaving the list, I start getting hammered with spam.
In other words, something coincidental happened after unsubscribing from a “bad” marketer’s list. And, because of that negative view of the marketer, one adds one and one together and has to wonder…
Now, as I’ve said, probably just a coincidence, but that’s only because we know that it just doesn’t make a lot of business sense to do something like this to a former subscriber.
But, how many of your former subscribers would think that through?
Imagine that someone unsubscribes from your list and then something coincidental happens. They get hit with a phishing eMail. They get hammered with spam. Their Facebook account gets hacked. Whatever.
The key thing here is that the marketer was not delivering what they were promising. If you say your video will reveal some great tip or secret, it better reveal that great tip or secret and just not be a sales pitch to buy the product that will reveal the secret. Reveal the secret and then promote the product because it has more secrets, or whatever. Just make sure that you deliver what you promise. After all, if your video doesn’t deliver what you promised it would, how can I trust that the product will deliver what you promise it would?
If I had left the list with a more positive view of the marketer, it is less likely that I would have linked him in my mind to the sudden spike in spam. Remember, I left the list because it wasn’t offering me anything of value. It wasn’t because the information the list offered were things I already knew or things that weren’t applicable to me or anything along those lines. It was because the list wasn’t offering me what it promised.
And that leaves a bad taste in your virtual mouth.
If it were a case of, hey, there’s nothing wrong with this guy but he’s just not teaching me anything I don’t already know, then the idea that he might sell my eMail address may never have popped into my mind.
As it was, the marketer left me with a bad impression and when something bad happened shortly thereafter, it wasn’t a stretch for my mind to form a connection.
As I’ve said, it is probably entirely coincidental. The problem is that a lot of people don’t think things through like this. They see a simple cause and effect. Thus, it is important to leave everyone—at least to the extent that you can—with a positive impression of you and your business. You can start by delivering what you promise.
Otherwise, what is coincidental may be viewed as causative.
