Hi,

Recently I sent an email to a website I browsed when searching for something (completly unrelated to work). It is a FrontPage 4 template website etc, so I emailed the webmaster saying basically:

"Hi, I browsed your site today and I think I may be able to aide your presence on the web, say webhosting and/or a re-design of your site. If your interested please just shout " etc...

Now it turns out the webmaster of this site runs his own webdesign company...in return he replies in a disgraceful tone , taking the piss out of my nationality*/professionalism/'cheekyness' and accusations spamming him.

Now my question/general point to debate is when does emailing offers 'cold' to a website become spam, and when do they not?

I didnt think I was partaking an a 'dodgy buissiness practise', but was I ?

I look forward to your views,

Rob Taylor
Studio 51 Internet Solutions

*I am welsh, I am sure you can do the sheep jokes ;)

Aloha

well I do not do hosting other than for my clients so I am a design house with marketing.

by the way your site sucks so if ya want some real pro design work let me know ;)



now this is a bit more direct but ya get the point ??

at least from my view I hate this kind of crap I get from amature companies and idiots sending me stuff like that ??
If I did not ask you for it do not send me stuff on how you can improve.

you did not even know he had a design co
now if you research the company and understand what they do and how you can improve them then maybe.
so since you can improve his site and get him more biz you say ??

how much does he make now ??
how much did his current design cost ??
what is his budget ?
his marketing campaign ?
does he have a goal ?

if you contacted him not knowing these things you can not help him.

man I hate it when people do this to me

do you enjoy getting email like this ?

people like you steam my twinkies
so learn from your mistake and quit spamming

Spam is often defined as "unsolicited bulk email," and many people argue that both the "bulk" and the "unsolicited" components must be present to meet the definition. I've tried to make the point in past discussions, though, that from the recipient's point of view the "bulk" component is irrelevant. If I get something that reads like spam, how could I know -- and why should I care -- whether anyone else got it?

Have you sent this kind of email before, offering such services to a site operator out of the blue? Has it ever worked?

It's not unreasonable for any webmaster these days to have little patience left for such things. I get a few emails, obviously spam, every week offering design or hosting. Was there anything different about yours that would make it seem not to be spam? Doesn't sound like it from your description.

If I received something like that, I'd delete it without a moment's consideration. But maybe it would strike some interest if it were obvious that it was specifically sent to me... and just mentioning a name or url doesn't do that. Say if somebody sent a small .jpg image of their view of what my site could look like. I suppose that would get my attention, and would show that they were interested in communicating with me as the operator of that specific site, not just in sending out thousands of emails hoping that somebody would bite.

Well.I definately have to agree with Honu :D

If I built a website and you, not taking the time to know that I was a designer, (or even if you did) wrote me to tell me you could do it better. I'm sure I would call your unsolicited comments a lot more than spam (if you get my drift);)

Well firstly, in my opinion, you didn't spam. I'm one of these people that JayC mentions that argues spam must be both bulk and unsolicited. In fact, people whining about every unsolicited e-mail they get annoy me just as much as spammers. If no one ever contacts you without your permission, how can you ever hope to grab opportunity and expand your business?

Unsolicited is one thing. It can be annoying if you get a lot of it, but businesses can thrive on the sort of networking that it can entail ("can" being very operative there!)

However, JayC has a very valid point that from the recipients perspective, bulk doesn't really matter. As far as I'm concerned, there's no way that what you did was spamming. However, because "bulk" doesn't matter to the recipient, as JayC points out, it's understandable that they'd be just as annoyed whether it's technically spam or not - it makes no difference to them after all. It's when they start screaming "SPAM!" that I get really annoyed.

Actually, it always reminds me of this movie "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes". The movie suffers from chronic stupidity, but it's sort of funny. Anyway, there's all these mutant tomatoes killing people. There's a bunch of students in a classroom, and this one guy's sitting at his desk. He looks around with a cheeky grin and says in a nasal voice "Tom-aye-toe". Everyone starts screaming and runs out the room :D. I can just imagine that guy yelling "SPAM!".

If I received that e-mail, I would have replied to it saying "Thanks but no thanks". When I get targetted messages, where the person has obviously visited our site, I almost always reply, even if it's obviously be sent to a lot of people. I must admit to not receiving nearly as much spam as other people though. There must be a point where it just gets too much and you break into spam paranoia.

The thing that probably annoyed him most is that you offered to redesign his site. That's a bit of a slap in the face. What you did is not "dirty" business practice, but it is a very aggressive form of marketing.

Since the email that was sent was so genetic I would take it as spam, but if you included in the message the name of my site, the url and a brief 25 - 50 word description of what you could do for me, specifically than it is not spam. To me that is the difference between the two. :smokin:

Aloha

well this could be a good thread

here are some thoughts

if you are going to do some of these cold calls
do your research before hand

find out how many domains they have do a search on the interenet for them and what field they cover
find some competitors in there field
(I also think it should be in there field
(try a bunch of urls to try to find there stats program if they have one)
so now you have some ammo

I am going to be doing this for soem Maui sites with activites and some aviation sites
as these are my main fields I have expertise in
so I will start off with
a Quick Aloha and saw your site
thensomething about some of the sites I have worked with and what I have done for them and some contacts at those companies as referals (make sure these people know that you are doing this)
now I can state some stats about my network of Maui sites and traffic I can push to them how I could help them out.

now this may piss off some people but at least they can have some solid info on how I can help them

also I am going to tip one or two small items I know that will help them out
maybe some linking driving traffic to them etc...
this way I & they can say monitor this and see what happens
also ask them if they feel it might be worth it get ahold of me or if I may have permission to contact you back in a month blah blah...

now they will be able to have solid proof of the fact you can help them
sell them this is small stuff wait untill you get in with me fully ;)

by the way my englis is not so good so I have someone read all my letters etc.. adn wrewrite them
I am a verbal comunicator not a written one ;)

Putting an e-mail address up on your web site, is no different then having a door to your business. You will get cold calls. You argue that the e-mails are for customers, well then put a form up with a few fields. Spammers don't like to fill out forms. Cold callers still might hit, but then you can just put a "No Soliciting" sign up. ;)

I hate Spammers with a passion. They are as bad as the people in the rest rooms who offer gum and towels. But when you have something available to the public, like a web site or office, then cold calls are a way of life.

As a side note. Sometimes when I am bored, I will reverse solicit from another web site just for fun. 99% of the time, the company who just cold called me, returns with "Quit Spaming me!." :)

I think Honu has interpreted this slightly wrong, due to my crap explaination :)

I surfed to a website on a subject that interests me, and looked around. It is complelty unrelated to webdesign/hosting/etc and no 'hosted by XXX' or 'Designed by XXX' link on it. I have now checked the Whois and it comes up a personal name (for the bloke) and no company details. Over all , I hadnt a clue, and still wouldnt after abit of digging, have any idea this bloke was into webdesign.

The email was specifically sent to him, for him ,about his site etc. It was addressed to the webmaster, and stated in the first line I was talking about his site, with the address in brackets.

I agree I am a total arse, and it would have been taken really pretentiously by infering a page is bad - but just as my site looks bad to you (;) ) this one looked, well it was a template from frontpage.

Lawrence made the point I was thinking about, if it is purely subjective to the reciver what is/isnt spam, then:

1. How do you get new customers? - 'Hi I would like to host with you' 'sod off, I didnt want an email from you' ;)

and

2. What really defines spam?!

It must have been a bad day for him as he wrote 700 words on what a moron I was etc, I have declined the flame war with him choosing to apologise for taking up his time etc.

Today I recieved a reply to this, another long email having ago at me and everything associated with me, which has found its way to my trash. I dont think it would be constructive to contiune, if an apology gets flamed!

I stick with my belief it wasnt spam, but it has made me re-think any future 'cold emails' to webmasters.

Aloha

true it is not spam
just so ya know was not trying to attack ya ;)
sorry if it came out wrong

I guess maybe that is what I would refer to as junk mail ;)

not spam
spam is suposed to have faked headers etc...

my other reply on how to maybe soften the wording and make it more directed toward how you could help

its a tough line to draw if I get a letter that says

you need help we can do it
OR
I have this experience and thought I might share it

the later comes across better

and again even ifyou are soft there are people out ther who hate anything and everything
and true you do have to knock on hte door to get let in
so do not give up