Friday, 20 May 2011, 6:27 PM

Send More Emails, Make More Money, Annoy More Humans

Now here’s a strange statement in a world where spam isn’t very welcome. Dela Quist believes that we should send more emails – and more than one of the same email at that! Read the article and tell us what you think.

I get stuck on two of his comments chiefly:

“The more people you have on the list and the more emails you send, the more money you will make. And because of that, one of the weirdest things about email is how little people spend in trying to acquire email addresses.”

If everyone would try to get as many email addresses as possible in order to earn as much money as possible – how would that affect email marketing in the long run? More spam? Better spam filters? More angry people? Probably.

What Dela doesn’t share with us is the statistics after this “strategy”. How does it affect the number of unsubscriptions? And what’s the click frequency in the long run? Not to mention the relationship with the customers…

Just about anything can sound great if you look at the short term stats only.

“My mother doesn’t know whether there was permission or not, it doesn’t matter to her. She’ll either respond to the email or not respond to the email.”

So I guess it’s ok to collect email addresses and shoot out newsletters randomly…

Is no one thinking of the customers’ interests? Some are…just not Mr. Quist.

I work a lot with the web, and I love to listen to The Big Web Show – a show where entrepreneurs in the webosphere tell their experiences and success stories. It’s mostly the nerds of the business who are being interviewed. One common thread connects these nerds – they don’t focus on money. On the contrary, these people are driven by the thought of creating something that people will love, solutions and knowledge that will help people. But above all, they want to do what they love and are passionate about.

In an interview with designer Andy Rutledge, he talks about how absolutely important quality is. He describes it as “uncompromising professionalism”. He mentions why he avoids working together with customers that don’t share the values and development of his company – you mean everything isn’t about money? He also adds a somewhat different policy that his company has stuck to from the start: Never to have more than seven employees. Why?  So his company will always have personal dialog with its customers…always.

A great way of looking at their own business.

Dela Quist’s approach to email marketing is soiling the channel. Email marketing is not a channel for unaddressed direct advertising.

“If you build it, they will come” – thanks Ray Liotta. Build relationships first, money will come later – or sooner.