NOTECARDS?!? spam?

Hey guys, im thinking of sending all my custumers a notecard with free items for xmas and wish them a merry xmas. I read a thread today about some notecard drama.

Im just wishing them a merry xmas and giving them a "thank you" for shopping, and giving them some freebies

Is this consider spam?

What do you think??

I think it would be fine, especially if your notecard is titled "Merry Christmas" and not "Come buy my stuff"

I think you could have posted this question in the thread you speak of.

I forgot, but is it possible to put items into notecards? Cause that would be most awesome, and alot cleaner. Oh, and I say go for it wuvmeeeee.

No.

yes it is.

Everything is spam if somebody doesn't want it, especially if it's from some very large group.

Oh yeah?

How d'you do that then?

Hi wuvme-

There are important differences between the notecard you're considering sending and the spam notecard sent by the anshechung.com employee:

First off, the people you will be sending to are your actual customers, not random sim owners who've never dealt with you before.

The main intent of your card is to send a holiday sentiment and offer gifts. The notecard I received from anshechung.com was a long sales pitch with a half-hearted Christmas message tacked to the end of it.

I suspect your recipients will be very happy to get your notecard.

Drag and drop.

Notecards are more invasive then objects because they just "pop" in the middle of your face, without you being able to accept/decline. Hence, yes, you can definetly concider these as spam.

I'd opt for gift box objects instead.

Yes, a gift box with the note IN it would perfectly sidestep that
in your face" problem!

(Although I personally don't consider notecards to be spam, either yours or Anshe's.)

coco

As long as something is copyable it can be stored on a notecard.. this was a tip I found here in the forums long ago and a suggestion I make to folks all the time.

I recommend the gift boxes, because notecards are annoying when they pop up in your face.

*hugs*

Ash

Good point.

Personally, I find giftboxes {or anything thats sold in boxes} far more annoying then a notecard. The notecard might pop-up in your face, but it minimizable or can be discarded with a click of a button. The whole expirence might last 2 seconds for those who hate note cards and close them on site. Boxes, you have accecpt, take out of your inventory, make a new folder {depending on your own little inventory system}, and drag and drop everything into them.

I am by no means against the idea of a gift box sent out, or LL making some system for those who wish to block notecards.

I prefer a giftbox, And i think it works well with Christmas, because you have to unwrap it just like RL.

I prefer giftboxes. Unsolicited notecards can be annoying. Less annoying for sure from someone who I have bought from before, but still giftboxes are better in my book.

I would consider IMs.

Both notecards and giftboxes feel more spammy to me (YMMV). One concern I have with giftboxes, though, is that we should be trying to engender a spirit of caustion in residents. As a general rule - treat unsolicited object in SL just like unsolicited mail attachments in RL - delete immediately, do not unwrap.

Many of your clients may already be doing this (one of the recent grid-attacks was launched through unsolicited objects), so they will never see the contents of the box.

Yes it would quite certainly be spam.

While restricting yourself only to past customers might reduce the number of people receiving the notecard who find it unwelcome it will by no means avoid them completely. Which is really the problem. The people receiving unwelcome notecards will not care about all the other people who didn't have a problem with it, they will only be concerned that you shoved it in their face and made no effort to restrict yourself only to those who would be interested it.

There are two possible ways to avoid this:

1. Setup a dispenser at your store to distribute your free gift and holiday greeting.
   
2. Setup something to collect the names of people who want to receive it and only send to them. (be careful about this one. You should be clear about exactly what you plan on sending and how often you plan on sending it.)
   

Both are opt-in which is really the only way to go if you are not a friend or a debt collector.
(And argument can be made that both friends and debt collectors are also opt-in systems.)

I hadn't thought about what the above people said, but yes, it is true some people are annoyed by getting gifts, and there is the thing about those gifts that keep on giving by being self-replicating and crashing the grid when you open them.

Just last night a friend of mine was visiting, and he told me getting my Christmas gift to him a few days earlier was actually "annoying." Naturally, I called him a dork and told him it was an a*****e thing to say, and promptly ran him into a brick wall. Which was especially gratifying, since he was nude at the time. (Showing me this new skin he was thinking about buying.)

But yes, come to think of it, not everyone likes to receive a gift, either. ...sigh ... Sometimes it's hard trying to be nice!

coco

Thanks guys,

Ill just IM them and wish them a merry xmas and ask if they would like to receive a gift.
If they dont want they can just say no, and that will be it.. hehe