spamming your way to success
September 03, 2007
So Quechup spammed everyone. (link courtesy of Digital Hive)
And I don't know about you, but I don't think too many of us would even consider using their service.
ON A HOLIDAY WEEKEND, they flooded my inbox with spam or the worst kind: spam that uses the names of those I trust and respect.
So if you were Quechup what would you do?
5 Next Steps for Quechup
- Apologize - both on your website to new users and via email to everyone who's names you used in your spam emails.
- Make it real and sincere, anything less you're just wasting ink.
- Change your terms of service - nobody will knowingly give away ownership of everything they write, nor will they give their address books or their own names for usage in spam.
- Never do this again - in the world of opt-in media, being evil gets you nowhere.
- Capitalize on the negative attention - by becoming a really good guy and giving away premium accounts to everyone you've wronged - free for one year, not 30 days, not 90 days, but one year.
- If your product is any good and we do end up using it regularly, we probably won't mind paying a bit for it (or downgrading to a standard account) in a year from now - after 12 months of positive experiences.
- This should be standard practice in all new social networks. We come to experience, we stay because they become part of our lives.
- And even if we don't stay, Quechup REALLY needs to build some good will if they still want to be around tomorrow.
- If your product is any good and we do end up using it regularly, we probably won't mind paying a bit for it (or downgrading to a standard account) in a year from now - after 12 months of positive experiences.
- Change your name and your message
- Rebrand, rebrand, rebrand (not three times, just doing this for emphasis), then relaunch with a better, more organic and friendly message.
OR you could jump headfirst into the deadpool.
Chances are this will happen anyway (unless you have an exceptionally amazing product), and doing nothing is a surefire way to speed up this process.
But that's just me, what about you? Any thoughts?
What would Quechup have to do to get you in the door?