Spam Spammity Spam. It’s Well Worth Studying.

The Old Rules Still Apply—Really!

August 2007 By Denny Hatch

multipage

So far, more than 7 billion cans of spam have been sold. It fed the troops in WWII and is going strong today.

A Universe of Chumps.
“Never give a sucker an even break,” said W.C. Fields, “and never smarten up a chump.”

Check out the “IN THE NEWS” box at the start of this issue. The eight e-mails in my Yahoo! inbox are geared to suckers:

* I have won a $1.5 million prize in a lottery I never entered.

* Mrs. Mohammed, whose husband was a former aide to Saddam Hussein, wants to park $11.5 million in my bank account.

* A schoolmate, a neighbour and a family member have sent me e-cards.

* Melinda’s long, gibberish note instantly turned into a Viagra-Cialis ad.

* Darrel Sweet and Deanne Howard sent an ad for the “Cheapest Pharmacy.”

* Rosalia had no message; just click on the “request.pdf (15k)” attachment.

Spammers are all going after the same universe—the low end of the human food chain, the desperate, the broke, the deeply in-debt, the maxed out, the get-rich-quickers, the dumb and the lazy. Spammers and their targets are all sitting around in each other’s dirty bath water.

The Eight Spams: All Dishonest, Only One Was Emotional
Not only does spam violate the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003, it violates common sense direct marketing. Of the eight spams listed, only one was personal and emotional—that of Mrs. Mohammed with her variation of the Nigerian scam. (See the hyperlink below that describes the sad story of a renowned, senile psychiatrist who was scammed out of $3 million.) Mrs. Mohammed’s effort is a powerhouse—brilliantly written with mistakes in grammar and spelling that make it look and sound authentic. Easily 15 out of a million recipients will respond. Probably more.

Here is how I handle Yahoo! and AOL e-mail. I check the “ALL” box at the top, scan the senders’ names and subject lines and de-check only those that I want to see—roughly five out of every 100. The rest are deleted summarily. I only open correspondence from a known sender, a relevant subject line or one that is sufficiently intriguing to pique my interest.

Two new trends have emerged:

* The e-greeting card ploy. Look at what came to me: Cards from a “School Mate,” a “Neighbour” and a “Family Member.” I have been out of school for 50 years. The Brits have neighbours; I have neighbors. And no family member would send me a blind card. All the subject lines are lies. Since finishing this column, I have received a slew of birthday e-cards (72 yesterday) from unknown senders. I trust nobody and delete them immediately.

* The e-mail with no letter, but only a PDF attachment to click on. These are deleted immediately. I do not trust attachments from strangers. For example, one technique by cyber-criminals is to plant a zombie chip in your computer and turn it into a remote spam creator (see hyperlink below).

What I do trust is a literate, personal-sounding letter to me—one filled with emotion that is relevant to my business, my lifestyle and my interests—and persuades me of the benefits of responding to the offer.

The letter is the key missing ingredient in spam—the element that freelancer Malcolm Decker calls the “main salesman” in the direct mail sales team that makes up a direct mail package. And let’s face it, the Internet is direct mail on glass.

Ed McLean’s Masterpiece
In the 1960s, legendary freelance copywriter, the late Ed McLean, was hired to write a direct mail subscription letter for Newsweek. At the time he wrote it, McLean was new to the business and became fascinated with the whole concept of list selection while sitting in on meetings with Pat Gardner (later circulation director of the now-defunct Family Media) and the late Red Dembner, then Newsweek’s circulation director. McLean’s letter began:

Dear Reader,

If the list upon which I found your name is any indication, this is not the first—nor will it be the last—subscription letter you receive. Quite frankly, your education and income set you apart from the general population and make you a highly rated prospect for everything from magazines to mutual funds.

You’ve undoubtedly “heard everything” by now in the way of promises and premiums. I won’t try to top any of them.

McLean goes on to pitch the many benefits of Newsweek and makes a strong offer—14 cents a week with a guarantee of a refund on all unmailed copies if ever dissatisfied.

It was an offbeat approach—one that flattered the reader. Seattle guru Bob Hacker and the great direct mail expert Axel Andersson came up with the eight key copy drivers, the emotional hot buttons that cause people to act: Fear—Greed—Guilt—Anger—Exclusivity—Salvation—Flattery.

In analyzing his massive private archive of many thousands of direct mailings, Axel Andersson discovered that 42 percent of all controls—letters that had been mailed over and over again and were obviously successful—were pinned to flattery.

At the same time, McLean’s letter lets prospects in on how they came to receive the solicitation. Many people wrote in to ask what list they were on. A few complained. Many more responded by subscribing to the magazine. It was control for many years and was mailed in the tens of millions.

I submit that a spammer—or any direct marketer for that matter—who sends an e-mail with this lead would increase response exponentially. People would feel like they were on some kind of mass list—even though they were—but rather that the sender had sought them out as being special. Virtually none of them—with the exception of the Nigerian scam and its variations—contains a letter, that emotional, me-to-you message designed to encourage me to go further.

The Walter Weintz Lesson in Copy
“Three kinds of copy exist,” my late mentor and boss Walter Weintz once explained. “You copy, me copy and it copy.”

“You” copy is found in a letter, a highly emotional, personal message from the writer to the reader that translates the features of the product or service into the benefits to you, your family, your health, your wealth and your standing in the community and the world.

“It” copy is the brochure, press release or e-mail attachment that shows and describes “it”—the features of the product or service being offered.

The “me” copy is found in the order or reply device. (“Yes, send me the such and such under the terms and conditions described elsewhere in the mailing. I understand that I have two full weeks to make up my mind. ...”)

Spammers and a ton of ill-qualified e-marketers do not know the rules of effective communication. They omit the all-important “you” element—the letter.

It costs them dearly.

One Further Thought
This past Tuesday, one of my daily e-mail blasts announced that the average cost of consumer e-mail lists is $177 per thousand, down $5 from a year ago. If the average spammer can make money on 15 orders per million, clearly he is not renting lists at the prevailing rate. A million names would cost $177,000. At a response rate of 15 replies per million, breakeven would be $11,800 per order before cost of goods sold, overhead, reserve for returns and profit.

Call me silly, but why would anybody in their right mind spend that kind of money to rent e-mail names when apparently it’s possible to get the same names for next to nothing?

Put another way, give 1 million free e-mail names to a professional direct mail copywriter, and if he or she can’t get 200 responses, it’s time to get out of the business and flip hamburgers somewhere.