An ethics question...is it spam or is it advertising?

Ok here's the deal..... I HATE spam....I hate getting notecards popping up on me when I'm busy doing something. I already have to send the occasional notecards for a group I'm in and I feel bad enough about that.

But I really do want to advertise my business more. So here's the compromise I thought of and I'm asking for the public's opinion on how you'd respond to it. I tested it today with about 10 people (getting their names off the find list) and so far only one person said no ty. Everyone else responded positively (and she was still even very nice about it ).

This marketing is geared towards women because it's women's clothing I sell but I appreciate all opinions please.

Here is the scenerio.... You get an IM saying this.....

" Hi, forgive me for the intrusion. I would like to send you a promotional gift but I wanted to ask for your consent first rather than just spamming. "

Now if you happened to be one of the people who asked what it is first, the answer you'd get back would be this.... "Well I confess it is advertising, a catalog and notecard but it comes with a free gift of two outfits, a prim minidress and a jeans outfit. Would you be interested?"

So now the poll question... how would you respond to this type of advertising?

the only way i ever find out about new malls that i can set up in is if people IM me or drop me note cards.

I encourage this from any one who has a mall or shopping area that i may be interested in setting up in
.

keep them coming!

I am a UNIX System Administrator by trade. It's how I pay for my Mortgage and my Tier.

I spend at least 2 hours a *day*, everyday, filtering SPAM, answering complaints about SPAM, emailing other providers about their SPAM, ad nausium. That is 14 hours a week that I could be spending in-game, bulding statues.

I abhor SPAM and go out of my way to avoid anything advertised by SPAM.

I am on the extreme edge of my feelings towards SPAM, but I'll guarentee that there are others that feel the same as me.

If you can find a way to do an opt-in list so that you are sending out advertising to people who want to read it, more power to you; I wish you the best of luck in that endeavor.

However, if I get SPAM'd with an unwanted IM asking me to buy something... I'll be very put-off.

Don't mind the grumpy gus there, this is fine, as long as a reply of "no thank you" gets no response except maybe a polite, "ok thanks, sorry to trouble you."

I hate the spam, but if you bothered to personally ask, I would politely tell you "no thanks" and not really feel too put off given the exchange as you have described it.

I don't really equate this type of personal interaction as spam. Unwanted intrusion, perhaps, but not really spam as I think of it. I consider spam the type of thing that is geared such that you can target as many people as possible with as little effort as possible. Mass mailings, inappropriate group chat, etc.

It nice and polite. Since it's a personal IM with appropriate and direct response then it's not spam. It's person-to-person marketing.

It would still annoy some people but nowhere near as much as much as spam would.

If you ask the same person more than once, you can call it spam.

As far as spam goes, that's a polite way of doing it.

I would just recommend that you pay attention to the profiles of those you contact, and if there's a request (demand, death threat, sobbing plea, etc etc...) not to be contact with advertisements, you move on without contacting them.

Point!

Ty for the responses!

And yes... if someone says no (as one person did) my response is simply ty anyway, sorry for bothering you with a smiley and move on. Oh and yes I check profiles first, have to check anyway to make sure it's a woman as not many men will be interested in prim dresses. hehe

If I saw anything that sounded like someone who didn't want to be bothered I'd move on down the list. I use my alt account when I'm working on clothes for instance and it states in the profile that it is alt and often busy and hardly worth trying to talk to.

I think this is something if done should be a one time promotional thing and not a daily thing of course.

EDIT: I did notice that half the people who voted considered it flat out spam... thats good to know too. Hmmm

I don't think I'd be too annoyed by that, at least at first. If it became common practice and I was getting several IM's like that a day from various people it would probably start to get on my nerves.

i dont mind this if you have a reason for contacting me, like i put my name on a list or something, but just out of the blue, wether it was done with profile research or not i would consider it spam...

free gift doesnt really intice me either, maby its just me but i see alot of "free gifts" floating around the internet, eventho you are infact giving a honest free gift. If i got this message out of nowhere it would go to the bitbucket, with out me even really reading anything about it.

the standard means of advertising within SL does produce some results, these include

on the SL forums:
New products, to promote items

Shopping, to announce your store and to announce salesevents (<- notice 1 word there)

Events, if your having a 100% legit event that happens to be hosted at your store, you can create exposure, and awareness, without being a commerial. (besides stores usually have nice open spaces, and make a good party spot when needed)

inworld:

Again events, if done as an actuall event, throw some partys, post them, do not do any advertising in the post, or during the event, keep it on the level with event rules, have some giveways and all the usuall party stuff, if someone happens to see something on the wall they like they may buy it, if nothing else ppl had a good time, and are aware your store is there this of course wouldnt include a Grand Opening

Classifieds, cost L money, but it puts your name on the list, and alot of ppl probally look at them (ive not done a population poll yet heh)

Mall Kiosk's, again money involved, but you can rent a 5 prim kiosk pretty cheap, put up a sample vendor and a landmark giver in more traffic areas

3rd party Hybrids:

things like newspapers, magizines, maby some of the interactive terminals like bound net and info net (not shure tho) webvendors, fansites (yay banners and slurl) and the few Ad firms within the world

i wish you the best of luck

As long as that was it, for instance if someones in busy mode, they won't get it until later, so it may seem like they're ignoring you. I hate the whole "Helloooooo" "Anyone there??!" thing that you get a lot.

However as Chip said, if you were getting them frequently it'd begin to annoy you just as much as notecards.

Is there a "Shop" option under the "What I want to do in second life" bit of the profile? Maybe only ask people with that ticked .

*ponders very slowly* While I can see this abused, I don't think I'd mind it. I guess it would depend on phrasing.

I'd also suggest keeping a list of names of people who do not wish to continue to recieve such, so you don't get AR'd for spamming or something.

I guess I am of the same opinion as most, which is if it's polite then *most* of the time I would also answer back politely.

I would not like it though, and while I wouldn't chew your head off or yell at you (most of the time) I also wouldn't go to your store and would probably make a point of never going there unless I had to.

The thing is you are wrong to think it's not Spam.
It's polite spam, but it's still Spam.

Spam is simply unwanted or unasked for communications for the purposes of advertising. What could it be but Spam?

You dont hav ea vote category directly fitting so no vote but:

SPAM to me would be dropping items without asking, offering friendship or TPs without knowing me intimately first, and above all setting up objects that just give notecards or gifts to everyone in range. Those I all loathe and if power was granted would result in perma ban, castration and burning your house to the ground to ensure you no longer had ready means to get back on the net anytime soon.

That aside;

If you are PERSONALLY checking profiles first for any hint it would be unwanted
If you are politely asking first in the manner you said
if you accurately state what it is you are offering
if you respect people who respond negatively in a polite way (regardless of their demeanor) and make an effort to make them as "do not contact again"

That drops it down to personal marketing skills and is quite COMMENDABLE of a manner to conduct your business. The situation you specifically mentioned i would refuse, but not be upset with at all.

Your free handout at the VERY BOTTOM could even include a comment where they could 'opt-in' for a regular automated mailing list of free samples or product updates. That would not be going too far as long as the person was friendly and wanted the sample to begin with. Do NOT mention or push the mailing list option. If they read and are interested they will contact you.

Good luck.

It's good of you to be concerned, and the way you're phrasing your verbiage in your ad messages is polite, but as others have pointed out, it's still spam. As my good friend Butthead once put it, "You can't polish a turd, Beavis." Nicely packaged spam is still spam, a rose by any other name... and all that.

I'm all for agressive marketing; don't get me wrong, but sending people unsolicited messages just isn't a viable or proper way to go about, no matter how nicely phrased the wording is.

It might not be terribly annoying when it's only one person doing it, but imagine if 5 or 50 or 500 people all started doing it. It would quickly become impossible to do anything in SL without getting tons of these "polite" intrusions all day long. If it's wrong for 500 people to do it, certainly it's wrong for one.

Bottom line, there are lots of other ways to advertise. It's not a good idea to send people unsolicited messages.

Although I'm probably close to being in the same camp as Androclese, what you've suggested is reasonable, and at the least it's good to hear you're considering the annoyance factor. I'd make one suggestion though. If you are going to send IM's like this you should probably rethink the wording...



I would see that as being spam already anyway, so saying you want to ask consent for spamming is a contradiction and could just serve to increase their frustration. IMHO a message that indicates that if they ask to never receive the messages again that you will abide by their wish is a more important point.

I don't think I'd mind too much.. but if other people started doing it as well, it could definitely be a problem. Maybe instead of just IMing people, hang out in a well populated place and keep an eye out for avatars that look like they're into your sort of fashions. Interact with people a bit face-to-face, compliment them on how they look or something like "I just wanted to say that I like that outfit you're wearing. I make clothes with a similar style - would you like a copy of my promotional free gift package?" or something to that effect. I'd be more interested in someone trying to sell me clothes if they went to the trouble of talking to me a bit and noticing whether or not my style is what they have to offer.

If someone is personally asking if I'm interested in that, theres no harm in that I don't think.

I can say 'no thanks' , I can be put on that persons 'do not call list' and all is good. It's polite and fairly respectful.

I've had my share of very obnoxious SL advertising, and I don't think any reasonable person would go off their handle at being asked politely if they are interested in something.

Wow, I am really glad I decided to ask this.

And this gave me a giggle.. Thank you.


People were so polite when I did my little test and you all have great thoughts on it.

I did notice that nearly half of people seem to think this is a negative thing though. I see that as nearly half of the people even being polite to me when I do it, probably still somewhat annoyed. So final decision...its a no go. No advertising offers unless someone actually signs up on a list to recieve it.

So I'll make a group and sign up list. *shrugs* heh

So thanks again everyone... great help!

One person doing this in a personalized manner where they find a person at random, look at their profile, determine they might be interested in the business, and then spam them doesn't seem like a big deal.

If this practice became common place in SL, however, it would suck big time. I vote NO.

Use conventional advertising. If it crosses my mind that I might want something like your product, I will search for it when I'm ready to search for it. Do not spam me with your crap because you think I might be interested.

Thanks for asking, but no.

My first reaction to this interesting strategy was, 'can this be cost-effective?' How much is your time worth for cold-calling SL products? I love how you approached this considerately, Allana, before going at it bigtime!

I was one of those ten! And oh yes, I really did appreciate the courtesy. I typically don't appreciate anonymous notecards or objects dropped on me. Never took well to unsolicited advertising, and opening unannounced mystery objects is potentially dangerous for the grid.

I'll be checking out your gift package very soon!

And I might add...the personal approach takes this method of advertising DIRECTLY out of the spam category. Anyone calling it spam would do to look up the actual definition of the word (in terms of the promotional online activity, not the processed meat product ) and commit the nuances to memory.

I don't mind if its relative to what I'm looking for, mainly new malls or openings available. I put up stuff at a new mall recently that I liked and only found it because of it. So keep sending them as long as its short and sweet. I do not like it if its an event though at some club or something like that.