SPAM, SPAM, SPAM, SPAM,
TELEMARKETING, SPAM AND SPAM

This month were going to take a break from the question and answer routine. We're going to talk about spam.

Spam is a growing problem. People send out spam because the actual cost of advertising that way is very low. They send out emails in massive quantities and get a small reply. This is much the way telemarketing works. Having worked in telemarketing before I know first hand that that success rate is 1-2%. Don’t worry, I didn’t call you during dinner. I only did Business to Business Telemarketing which has a higher success rate but not much higher. It’s a numbers game. You call 100 people and can expect about 1-2 people to respond to your offer. In Business telemarketing it’s more like 3-5 per 100 calls.

There are many programs out there that will help stop the spam from your inbox.

 The newer outlook and windows mail in Vista have it built in. However they are only filters and they have to be trained.
So when one way is trained and the spam stop’s hitting spammers find another way to beat the filters.

So I suppose your next question is then: What should I do? Well let me pose a question to answer the question. What do you do with junk mail you get in the regular mail? You throw it away. I have never seen anyone get angry over junk mail in the mail. But junk mail in their inbox is a totally different story. It will really set some people off.

I can understand why but frankly there is nothing that you can do to stop it 100%. It’s just something you’re going to have to live with. Delete it and forget it. It’s much like identity theft. We have people setting in prison that they can’t prosecute because they can’t prove who they are. We live in a digital age where everything is online. Information flows freely.

So less-than reputable business take advantage of that. Spam really just boils down to human nature. Opportunity to do something cheap and make a nice profit. That’s really the underlying reason for telemarketing. It’s fast and relatively cheap. And it’s legal.

Well that raps it up this month; as always email your questions to jason@flagcitycomputers.net

God Bless!