There’s PR. And there’s Dumb PR. And there’s Even Dumber PR. And No CRM System Can Save Them.
Marketing / PR August 4th, 2010
The best CRM system can’t help you if your sales / marketing team is clueless. Here’s a ridiculous email I’ve just received. Name removed to protect the (not-so) innocent
X. Y. kindly requests a meeting
Hi Zoli,
In celebrating our 40th anniversary, I’ve been given the privilege to manage the relationship between your organization and Communispond. When you have a moment, please take a look at the information below. Kindly let me know if it’s out of date, and the best way to reach you. I wish to be respectful of your time and patience.
Is your organization prepared with the communication tools and behaviors (presenting, selling, coaching, persuading, etc) to achieve greater success in 2010? I would like to hear your thoughts and ideas on any communication challenges you anticipate, and see if we can help. Please let me know if you’d be willing to meet with me – either conference call or face to face. l greatly appreciate your consideration.
Warm Regards,
X. Y.
What’s wrong with this email campaign? A few things… where should I even start?
Obsolete data: we all know this is a disease that plagues many (CRM) systems, but this one is extreme. The data shown on this business card never existed in such combination, but bits and pieces did. Yes, I participated in SAP’s International Consultant Training – 20 years ago, in Vienna, Austria (that’s in Europe, just in case…), so they must have picked it up from a very-very ancient resume. (It also means I understand Charlie’s joke…). Yes, I did work at SAP America, when they were a tiny outfit with 70+ employees, and the Newton Square HQ listed above was not even a dream.
Data errors do happen – but how on Earth could they dump 20-year old, pre-CRM, pre-ERP, pre-everything data into a CRM system?
Now let’s focus on content. The title, specifically. That’s the marketer’s opportunity to grab attention – or lose it. Time is money, and most of us don’t have a lot to waste – why on Earth would I want to meet a stranger without any previous contact or knowing the intent?
You just don’t send out an initial contact request asking for a purpose-less meeting.
Anyway – this email is in its well-deserved place in my Spam folder and Communispond is flagged as mindless marketers. But hey, it was good for a rant. In return, free advice to them: you don’t need Salesforce.com. It won’t help you.
Update: This post originally appeared almost a year ago . The reason I am republishing it is that so did they. They just resent the same dumb junk mail, verbatim, without the slightest change, despite my previous post and response to them. How dumb is that? Oh one more thing: through how many years can they be celebrating their 40th anniversary? (hint: it was indeed last year).
(Cross-posted @ CloudAve)
Tags: communispond, crm, email campaign, rant, salesforce.com, sap, spam
Some analysts (?) spammers just won’t learn. I ridiculed this “research report” a few months ago (quoting old post below):
The Care and Feeding of Industry Analysts
The Top 10 Questions The Care and Feeding of Industry Analysts Will Answer For You Include:
1. What are the ten deadly sins NOT to commit when working with an industry analyst firm?
2. What are the typical characteristics of an industry analyst that will enable you to more effectively work with them?
3. As a vendor, when should you be humble and when should you position yourself as an expert?
4. Does subscribing to an analyst’s research improve coverage of your products or company?
5. How is a research briefs created and what impact can a vendor have on its content?
6. What are the three highest-level benefits you can enjoy from an effective analyst relations approach?
7. How can you best capitalize on industry analyst ‘rules of engagement?’
8. Precisely what homework must you do before you brief an analyst?
9. How do vision and ability to execute relate to how an analyst sees your company?
10. During a briefing, how do CEOs, VPs of sales, PR firms and VPs of marketing impact how an analyst sees your company?The actual report (PDF) costs EUR 316. Is it worth? I leave it up to you … but I promised entertainment. Look at the other “research” this paper is associated with:
Customers who bought this item also bought
Chinese Markets for Baby Care Products
Toilet Care Products – United Kingdom
Surface Care – United Kingdom
Chinese Markets for Laundry Care Products
Hair Care in the US
Laundry Care – United States
Long-Term Care Market Review 2006
The Future Of Personal Care OccasionsWow.. .I especially love the pairing of Toilet, Laundry and Analysts
I thought I had originally made it quite clear I wasn’t exactly a fan of this puff piece. Apparently one person did not quite “get it” – today I received an email offer from the original sender to buy the same study, for the same price.
Fuhgeddaboudit. And stop spamming me, Amy Cole.
Tags: analysts, CloudAve, Humor, industry research, research report, spam
The Care and Feeding of Industry Analysts
Humor, Marketing / PR March 4th, 2010
Some of my email spam is actually quite entertaining, like this offer for a “research report”:
The Care and Feeding of Industry Analysts
The Top 10 Questions The Care and Feeding of Industry Analysts Will Answer For You Include:
1. What are the ten deadly sins NOT to commit when working with an industry analyst firm?
2. What are the typical characteristics of an industry analyst that will enable you to more effectively work with them?
3. As a vendor, when should you be humble and when should you position yourself as an expert?
4. Does subscribing to an analyst’s research improve coverage of your products or company?
5. How is a research briefs created and what impact can a vendor have on its content?
6. What are the three highest-level benefits you can enjoy from an effective analyst relations approach?
7. How can you best capitalize on industry analyst ‘rules of engagement?’
8. Precisely what homework must you do before you brief an analyst?
9. How do vision and ability to execute relate to how an analyst sees your company?
10. During a briefing, how do CEOs, VPs of sales, PR firms and VPs of marketing impact how an analyst sees your company?
The actual report (PDF) costs EUR 316. Is it worth? I leave it up to you … but I promised entertainment. Look at the other “research” this paper is associated with:
Customers who bought this item also bought
Chinese Markets for Baby Care Products
Toilet Care Products – United Kingdom
Surface Care – United Kingdom
Chinese Markets for Laundry Care Products
Hair Care in the US
Laundry Care – United States
Long-Term Care Market Review 2006
The Future Of Personal Care Occasions
Wow.. .I especially love the pairing of Toilet, Laundry and Analysts
Tags: analysts, CloudAve, Humor, industry research, research report, spam
Skype Spam
Software June 22nd, 2009
The last place I expect to receive spam is on Skype, and so far it has remained clean, I assume due to my privacy settings:
So how on earth could this have popped up on my screen:
[12:05:42 PM] Zora Giannoni: hi! i’m briannahh from http://www.slutsdating.com are we still on for saturday?
No, Zora, or Briannah or whoever you are: we’re not on. Anyone with similar experience? Are we seeing major trouble with Skype?
Is There a New Twitter to Blog Spam Bot?
Blogging January 14th, 2009
An older post, If Scoble Thinks He Found Bad Startup Marketing, He Ain’t Seen Nothing received several comments, all showing the same structure, pointing back to Twitter accounts – some are clearly spam accounts with only this one update, but others appear to be real users, although I am not following any of them.
lbfd (LBFD) | January 13th, 2009 at 6:58 pm e
This is a test.
(This appears to be a spam account with no real content.)
aleslie2 (Art Leslie) | January 13th, 2009 at 7:59 pm e
Hmmm … tweet completely disappeared. This is a test.
(This appears to be a real account.)
bisfourbritt (bisfourbritt) | January 13th, 2009 at 9:52 pm e
This is a test. Nd it ends with no friends. We will go on…..untl it hurts
Zonin with loud shit tonightt hah
(This appears to be a real account.)
radiomanmic (Michael Grider) | January 13th, 2009 at 11:28 pm e
This is a test. Don’t mind me, I’m just passing through.
(This appears to be a real account.)
deborahgtaylor (deborahgtaylor) | January 14th, 2009 at 6:10 am e
Is going to Brenham for a quilting lesson. This is a test.
(This appears to be a real account.)
This is a test.
(This appears to be a spam account with no real content.)
Is there some new Twitter-to-Blog spam bot that I am not aware of?
Update: There’s more now, on another post:
lbfd (LBFD) | January 13th, 2009 at 6:58 pm e
This is a test.
Hmmm … tweet completely disappeared. This is a test.
This is a test. Nd it ends with no friends. We will go on…..untl it hurts
Zonin with loud shit tonightt hah
This is a test. Don’t mind me, I’m just passing through.
Is going to Brenham for a quilting lesson. This is a test.
This is a test.
sztelzer (Rodrigo Sztelzer) | January 14th, 2009 at 11:18 am e
Só bebo tequila. This is a test.This is a test.
http://tinyurl.com/7jww4a Só beberei tequila.
In the meantime I disabled the Tweetbacks WordPress Plugin, which had not properly installed anyway, to see if it has anything to do with the attack.
Update: Follow-up thoughts @ CloudAve.
Related posts:
Tags: Blogging, spam, tweetbacks, Twitter, wordpress
Will Google Pull a Plaxo?
SaaS, Social Networking December 29th, 2007
Google Operating System speculates that Gmail will soon display status updates from your contacts:
It’s not very clear what kind of updates you will receive, but they’re probably the latest important actions of your contacts from different Google services.
Ionut says based on reading some Google code that users will be able to delete updates – now word whether there will be a “Big Switch” to opt out globally. The functionality itself would be closer to Facebook’s newsfeed, the reason I am comparing it to Plaxo is that Plaxo became a metaphor for spam in its early years, and it is back at it now, with all the unwanted Plaxo Pulse notifications.
The contact updates, especially if it’s not easy to opt-out once and for all would be nothing but spam. What makes it even worse is that Gmail Contacts are really not contacts: anybody you answer automatically gets added to your Address Book, whether you like it or not. And guess what: there is no way to turn this off. (In fact, in the new version of Gmail -not yet available for Google Apps accounts- you can’t even delete more than 20 contacts at any given time.)
I really hope it does not happen. Gmail is the Crown Jewel of Google services, and as such, more productivity-oriented for most of us, then say Orkut or Picasa are. They can’t seriously think of clobbering the screen with garbage like that. Can they? 
- Related posts: mathewingram.com/work, TechCrunch, Googling Google, The Last Podcast.
Tags: facebook, gmail, gmail contacts, Google, plaxo, plaxo pulse, spam
When Captcha is Really, Really Bad
Blogging, Software December 13th, 2007
I confess: I also had a captcha on my blog, in my “prior life” on blogware. In fact my defenses were so developed (or primitive?) that Zvents CEO Ethan Stock rightfully called it an obstacle course.
Thankfully I have a better life (OK, just a platform) now, on WordPress, where the combination of Akismet and Spam Karma 2. provides sufficient enough spam protection so I don’t have to torture readers with such obstacle courses anymore. But I guess not all blog platforms are created equal.
Today I tried to leave a comment on Vinnie’s post, which is protected by a captcha. That would be OK (well, sort of) if only I knew it upfront. But what typically happens – and I am not picking on Vinnie, seen this on several other Typepad blogs – is that I review the comment, hit “post”, then move on to another Firefox tab (hey, even I can multitask). Later, when I come back to review the comment/close the tab, I find the captcha screen still waiting for my input. The damn thing was so slow, it did not reveal the captcha screen in when I was here before.
How to improve the captcha? Well, displaying it right on the comment entry page would be a good start… but even better, remove it entirely, replace it with some more intelligent background process (like, if I am a repeat approved commenter on this blog, chances are I am not a spammer … but I am not trying to re-invent Spam Karma logic here).
The absolute irony of the situation: you can read it all right here, on Vinnie’s blog: UI again …don’t pretty up, destroy!
P.S. Vinnie, my friend, I am not picking on you … just your platform.
Update (2/28): A hilarious collection of the 10 worst captchas.
Update (3/5): CAPTCHA is Dead, Long Live CAPTCHA! @ Coding Horror.
Tags: akismet, blogware, captcha, spam, spam filters, spam karma, typepad, ui, user interface, wordpress
Bloglines Has Become a SPAM Engine
Blogging, Software November 17th, 2007
“Hello, Fellow Bloglines user … has recommended the following blogs. You can choose to add some or all of these blogs to your Bloglines account“
Does this email look like spam to you? It certainly does to me. Oh, well, let’s quickly check my Bloglines profile to turn recommendations off… oops.. I can’t. This is definitely SPAM.
In my two years of using Bloglines I’ve never seen this before. In fact all I have there is a dormant account that I haven’t logged into for a long time – so I certainly could not have opted in to this program. I guess Bloglines “volunteered me”.
Is Bloglines so fed up losing market share to Google Reader that they think spamming will win users back? This can only backfire – btw, Gmail’s spam filter is pretty good, so this is the last junk mail I received from Bloglines. But so far I haven’t activeley disliked Bloglines – now I do. Not a good deal for Bloglines, if you ask me.
Oh, and while I’m at it: all those Plaxo Pulse invitations from unknown people are also spam. They just don’t learn.
Update (11/18): It’s worse than I thought: I received the same spam to another email account which Bloglines should not even be aware of – not unless they deep scan old blog posts for buried mailto links.
Update (12/4): Tom Raftery is also fed up with Plaxo spam.
Tags: bloglines, gmail, Google, plaxo, plaxo pulse, reader, spam, spamming
Startups: Challenge the Market Leader, or Ride With It?
Blogging, Startups, Technology November 7th, 2007
“A new spam blocker called Defensio is attempting to improve on the standard set by Automattic’s Akismet, the default blocker for WordPress” – reports TechCrunch.
But they are planning to do more than improve… they want to replace Akismet. From Defensio’s FAQ:
- Is Defensio a replacement for Akismet?
Yes… - Will Defensio outperform Akismet?
-We can’t make any promises (sorry), but our early testing suggests that Defensio’s performance is very, very good. As with any adaptive filter, it will only improve with time. - My accuracy is not satisfactory. Why?
-If you have recently installed Defensio, then try to be patient. The filter’s learning algorithms take some time (usually no more than a couple weeks) to become very effective… - Does Defensio work in conjunction with other spam filtering plugins?
Not really. We highly recommend that you use Defensio as your stand alone spam filtering solution.
And therein lies the rub. Other plugins, like Spam Karma 2 may also outperform Akismet at times, but they don’t replace it; instead, they work together quite well. A status change in either takes effect in the other. Now, I don’t know how good Defensio will be, but it takes a huge leap of faith to give up the proven standard (i.e. Akismet) and replace it with something that may need weeks of learning, as we’re warned by the FAQ. They lost me as an early user right away.
The bigger question here, for software startups: should you start challenging the market leader right at launch, or ride with it, grow as part of the “ecosystem”, then perhaps declare you’re better and no longer need them after you got traction?
Related posts: Weblog Tools Collection…
Tags: akismet, Blogging, competition, defensio, ecosystem, spam, spam filters, spam karma, startup strategy, Startups, wordpress
Zoli Erdos
