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September 6, 1999

InternetView:
Stop Industry Spam

Jason Levitt -mail is still the least common denominator for Internet communications. It's also the easiest way to communicate your needs and ideas via the growing variety of Internet-connected devices, from cell phones to personal digital assistants to desktop PCs. Public relations agencies and industry vendors are keenly aware of this fact.

I receive anywhere from 40 to 100 E-mails a day proposing product reviews and meetings with vendors, as well as assorted press releases and announcements. While many of these E-mails are appropriate for my in-box, a sizable portion are what I call "industry spam"--usually unsolicited, generally well-intentioned, but often mistargeted or poorly designed E-mail that is sent by PR agencies and vendors to media representatives, customers, and others.

The key difference between spam--unsolicited junk mail--and industry spam is that the senders of industry spam are usually pretty careful with their E-mail. They aim their press releases, newsletters, and other solicitations based on information they find in media directories such as MediaMap, by manually scouring the mastheads of magazines and newspapers, or by purchasing E-mail lists that have been culled from conference-attendee lists or other sources.

Another difference is that industry spam isn't always a bad thing. I sometimes get unsolicited press releases that I want in my in-box, but because the subject line makes no sense or because the release is only available as an attached Adobe Acrobat document that is garbled, I delete it in a fit of pique. Thus, desirable E-mail can become annoying spam simply because the sender didn't design the message well.

This relatively new breed of spam, coupled with the steady increase in online marketing, could easily grow to be as resource-sapping as the bulk mailings sent out by conventional spammers. Anti-spam software isn't an option since few, if any, of the senders are on anti-spam lists and some percentage (usually less than 40%) of the messages are desirable--in fact, important for my job.

If PR agencies and vendors followed some guidelines, industry spam could be greatly reduced. For my purposes, always send plain text, not HTML or attachments. Format your E-mail subject line so that it accurately summarizes the contents of the message. Finally, in every message, always include the information necessary to get removed easily from your mailing list. Check out my online Internet Zone column for detailed guidelines to eliminate industry spam.

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