As technology progresses every day, so are companies that want to succeed. Everyone knows that the best way to succeed is to make as much profit as possible. Usually, companies either have a marketing department or they hired a marketing firm in order to get into a market they want to target. Hopefully, this would lead to get as many sales from those potential customers. That is pretty easy, right? Well, not really. Marketers would usually use all the ways possible to get customers attention with hope they are interested in their products or services. The usual ways to get a prospect customers attention is using TV advertisement, Radio advertisement, Billboard advertisement, and if you are older than fifty you probably remember the newspaper advertisement. Sometimes, these forms of gathering attention from a customer works or sometimes it does not. Here is the hard part or marketing, when a company does not reach a potential customer or the companies are not reaching enough of them. This is where e-marketing comes to the help, or does it.
This is how e-marketing got started. The e-mail was created in the early 70s, leading to the email advertisement creation shortly after in 1978. Now, keep in mind that in the United States and all over the world the Internet didn't become popular untill the mid 90’s. Almost a decade before the Internet was popular, email advertisement already existed. For those like me who were born in the late 80s and starting using email in the early 2000’s we referred to email advertising to SPAM. I remember when I was around twelve receiving emails on how to better my credit score or a low price weight lost medicine, medicine in which you don’t need to work out and or change your eating habits and still lose 20 lbs. in a week!, I guess you get the point. E-marketing has the ability to reach a lot of people, which is why it might make it a little annoying. For example, I am a 6’3, 185lbs. guy with a beautiful girlfriend, catholic, and I have an iPhone with at&t. I’m obliviously skinny, in a relationship, and I know there is no way I can’t get a free iPhone for any reason. So when I receive emails to lose weight, singles from every ethnicity and religions are interested in me, and if I fill a survey I will get a free iPhone, it gets annoying. I am not the only one who thinks these emails are annoying and that is why there are laws against spamming. Laws that would allow you to unsubscribe from these companies that you do not want hear from. There you go, laws will prevent companies from spamming you, problem solved… Not. The internet still is out there and almost every website you visit will have an advertisement. Since the Internet is more accessible you will even get more advertisement in your smart phones, video game systems, and televisions set.
In contrast, if you are actually looking for a product or service e-marketing can help you find whatever you want. For example, I like going to NBA and NFL games. The first time I thought I could afford to go to an NBA game I couldn’t afford the prices that Ticket Master was offering, in addition the fees Ticket Master had and still has. Thank god to an advertisement of eBay I saw on ESPN.com that said something like “find everything on eBay.” I looked for the seats that I wanted, and I got really good tickets from a season ticket holder that couldn’t go to that particular game. Now I receive email from eBay and every time I want to go to an NBA or game I’ll get my tickets from there. In addition, if you are interested in a product or service and you get it from a big company they will usually send you offers and discounts so you can make repeat purchases with them. Companies like BestBuy, Macys, East Bay, Footlocker, NBA Store, and NFL Store send me offers and reminders of deals of related things that I have purchased. That's the truth,
Mauricio
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A major reason for getting these spam emails is because of your internet activity. For example, on Facebook, I wrote that the Miami Heat is my favorite team (in which I really am, watching them since Zo started to play for them), I get these ads on the side saying something in the line of "win free Heat tickets" or "meet Dwyane Wade at this place" or something ridiculous along those lines. Just comes with the territory man.
ReplyDeleteYou are definitely focusing a lot on the bad, though from the customers point of view, how much good is there really? We have to take the bad in with the good, but hopefully in your emails, you have a good spam filter. Algorithms have only gotten better with matching our internet selves with ads and information that is currently interesting to us; and filtering out what we don't want to see. So has something else changed? How about the amount of time we spend surrounding ourselves with this information. The more we stay connected the more we will see, good and bad. The bright side would be that every action has an equal reaction; on email servers it's the spam vs. spam filter, and on facebook its the sponsored ads vs. the little grey x o never see them again. Workarounds.
ReplyDeleteDon't worry sooner or later someone with figure out a new way to bug you even more, but then someone else with counteract it.
KHameed3 is right that when it comes to your internet activity it does heavily influence what messages you receive. When ever you decide to opt in for solicitations/advertisements from a company you have to look at the fine microscopic print. This print will tell you sometimes that if you agree they will also send you emails regarding similar products and services. For reasons like this I decided to have two email accounts. One I use for any kinds of offers/promotions, and another one I use for friends and family only. The friends and family one has never received any kind of spam. If you are concerned with the hassle about having to log into multiple email accounts you can use Outlook or other email clients to help log in simultaneously and also filter your messages.
ReplyDeleteAlso regarding your concerns regarding the CAN-SPAM act there are many ways that phishing, fraudulent sites, and excessive spam is handled. ISP's have a site that can get that sending devices (email servers or web servers) IP address blacklisted on the internet. If it is deemed blacklisted they will be unable to send any kind of traffic (i.e. webistes or email) out to the internet. However it is the responsibility of the user (all of us that are affected) to report it as malicious activity so that the ISP can investigate it with the accused offender.
I agree with you that e-marketing can get really annoying sometimes. Every time I check my emails I’m receiving spam emails from companies who I never subscribed to, and I wonder how they got my email in the first place. These emails are sometimes inappropriate in the sense that they advertise diet pills or weight loss medicine like you mentioned, that will make me question my weight, and other emails about mortgages when I still live at home with my parents and don’t need that sort of information. Businesses most likely don’t have the intentions of annoying their customers but they should figure out a better way to get through to their customers, and spam isn’t the answer. I think businesses should also keep track of who they’re targeting to know where their information is being sent. The only thing that spam is going to do is make the customers irritated and consider buying from another company. The government could pass a law against spamming but in my opinion that’s not going to change anything. E-marketing does have it’s plus side because it can help you receive great deals on items that are usually expensive at the physical stores, so it’s not all annoying. I’m glad you brought up this point because it’s very important that marketers know how their customers are feeling about this situation.
ReplyDelete