e-Marketing is a type of marketing that can be defined as achieving objectives through the use of electronic communications technology such as Internet, e-mail, Ebooks, database, and mobile phone. It is a more general term than online marketing which is limited to the use of internet technology to attain marketing objectives.

Dave Chaffey, working from a relationship marketing perspective, has defined e-marketing as:

Applying Digital technologies which form online channels (Web, e-mail, databases, plus mobile/wireless & digital TV) to contribute to marketing activities aimed at achieving profitable acquisition and retention of customers (within a multi-channel buying process and customer lifecycle) through improving our customer knowledge (of their profiles, behaviour, value and loyalty drivers), then delivering integrated targeted communications and online services that match their individual needs. (Source: [1] with permission of the author)

Chaffey’s definition emphasises that:

1. It should not be the technology that drives e-marketing, but the business returns from gaining new customers and maintaining relationships with existing customers.
2. It also emphasises how e-marketing does not occur in isolation, but is most effective when it is integrated with other communications channels such as telemarketing, direct-mail, personal selling, advertising, publicity, sales promotion, and other promotional techniques.
3. Online channels should also be used to support the whole buying process from pre-sale to sale to post-sale and further development of customer relationships where this is appropriate.
4. It should be based on knowledge of customer needs developed by researching their characteristics, behaviour, what they value, and what keeps them loyal.
5. The web and e-mail communications should be personally tailored to individual buyers based on the information obtained in the research.

References

• Smith, P.R. and Chaffey, D. (2005) eMarketing eXcellence: at the heart of eBusiness. Butterworth Heinemann, Oxford, UK. 2nd edition. http://davechaffey.com/E-marketing

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

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Newsgroup spam predates e-mail spam, and targets Usenet newsgroups. Old Usenet convention defines spamming as excessive multiple posting, that is, the repeated posting of a message (or substantially similar messages). Since posting to newsgroups is nearly as easy as sending e-mails, newsgroups are a popular target of spammers. The Breidbart Index was developed to provide an objective measure of the “spamminess” of a multi-posted or cross-posted message on Usenet.

Spamming an internet forum in general, is when a user posts something which is off-topic or doesn’t have anything to do with the current subject. Also, a post that doesn’t contribute to the thread whatsoever is also considered spam in some cases. A third form of Forum Spamming is where a person repeatedly posts about a certain subject in a manner that is unwanted by (and possibly annoying to) the general population of the forum. Lastly there is also the case where a person posts messages solely for the purpose of increasing his or her ranking on the forum. In a broader sense, advertising on forums where it is not wanted is known as spamming and is generally seen as an annoyance.

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The great majority of telemarketing presentations are legitimate calls from companies that offer valuable services. Unfortunately, telemarketing has also been negatively associated with various scams or frauds like multilevel marketing, pyramid schemes or with fraudulently overpriced products or services.

The prospective customers are identified and qualified by various means, including past purchase histories, previous requests for information, credit limit, competition entry forms or application forms. Names may also be purchased from another company’s customer database, or obtained from a telephone directory or some other public list or forum. The qualification process is intended to find those prospective customers most likely to purchase the product or service being sold or advertised. Charitable organizations, alumni associations and political parties often use telemarketing to solicit donations.

Market survey companies often use telemarketing techniques to survey prospective or past customers of a client business to assess market acceptance or satisfaction with a particular product, service, brand or company. Public opinion polls are conducted in a similar manner.

Telemarketing techniques can also be applied to other forms of electronic marketing using e-mail or fax messages.

Telemarketing is often criticized as being an unethical business practice as some companies make unsolicited calls, using high-pressure sales techniques. Such practices may be subject to regulatory or legislative controls related to consumer privacy and protection. In particular, telemarking in the U.S. is restricted at a federal level by the FCC’s Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 and the FTC’s Telemarketing Sales Rule. Many professional associations of telemarketers do have codes of ethics and standards that member businesses follow to win public confidence.

Do Not Call Listings

Some jurisdictions have implemented “Do Not Call” listings, either through industry organizations or legislation, in which consumers can indicate that they do not wish to be called by telemarketers. Legislative versions often provide for heavy penalties for companies calling individuals on these listings. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has now implemented a National Do Not Call Registry in an attempt to reduce intrusive telemarketing on a national basis. Although challenged by telemarketing corporations and trade groups as a violation of commercial speech rights, the National Do Not Call Registry was upheld by the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals on February 17, 2004.

Avoiding Telemarketing Calls

There are several methods that people use to avoid telemarketing calls. Using caller ID or a privacy manager can allow the targeted subscriber to identify the caller before the call is answered and make the decision not to answer. Answering machines and voicemail can also be used to screen calls, as telemarketers generally do not leave messages. A device called the Telezapper foils telemarketing calls by issuing a tone which causes the autodialer at the call center to log the number as out of service.

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

Video: How to Piss off a Telemarketer

A KMail folder full of spam e-mail messages collected over a few days.

Spamming is commonly defined as the sending of unsolicited bulk e-mail - that is, email that was not asked for (unsolicited) by multiple recipients (bulk). A further common definition of spam restricts it to unsolicited commercial e-mail, a definition that does not consider non-commercial solicitations such as political or religious pitches, even if unsolicited, as spam.

In the popular eye, the most common form of spam is that delivered in e-mail as a form of commercial advertising. However, over the short history of electronic media, people have spammed for many purposes other than the commercial, and in many media other than e-mail. Spammers have developed a variety of spamming techniques, which vary by media: e-mail spam, instant messaging spam, Usenet newsgroup spam, Web search engine spam, spam in blogs, and mobile phone messaging spam.

Spamming is economically viable because advertisers have effectively no operating costs beyond the management of their mailing lists. Because the barrier to entry is so low, the volume of unsolicited mail has produced other costs which are borne by the public (in terms of lost productivity and fraud) and by Internet service providers, which must add extra capacity to cope with the deluge. Spamming is widely reviled, and has been the subject of legislation in a number of jurisdictions.

Solutions to the spam problem

All manner of attempts have been made to curb unsolicited mass electronic communications. There are many solution categories in this constantly evolving field. Source-based blocking solutions prevent receipt of spam, while content filtering solutions identify spam after it’s been received. There are avoidance strategies, including disposable identities. Automated cancellation of netnews spam is ongoing. Contractual measures such as Internet Service Providers’ acceptable-use policies are also employed. Anti-spam laws such as the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 have also been introduced to regulate or increase the legal penalties for spamming. Various vigilante and retaliatory tactics are also employed. Newer strategies include various cost-based and e-mail authentication and sender reputation solutions. The best means however is to be vigilant as to whom you give your email address. Constant distribution of your email address is bound to result in spam in some way. The best frame of mind is to decide whether the website can be trusted with your email address.

Newsgroups

• news.admin.net-abuse.email
• others in news.admin.net-abuse.* hierarchy
• alt.spam

Links

• IETF views on spamming can be found in RFC 2635.
• Ursine:Spam - Spam article in The Jargon Wiki.
• DMOZ Open Directory
  • Webmaster Forums at the Open Directory Project
• CircleID: Addressing Spam
• Spam Blocker Crawler Free public service for scanning guestbooks on link spam and send abuse in the Google and spammer’s hoster.

Anti-spam organizations

• Anti Spam Research Group
• CAUCE
  • APCAUCE - CAUCE Asia Pacific
• The Spamhaus Project
• Fight Spam on the Internet!
• Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group
• OECD Antispam Toolkit

Anti-spam articles and publications

• Spam In Developing Countries - part of the OECD Antispam Toolkit
• AOL Postmaster Pages - What to do if AOL blocks you
• Outblaze Antispam Pages - Articles on spam filtering by the postmaster staff at Outblaze
• SpamKings Blog by Brian McWilliams
• SpamHelp Anti-Spam Articles
• Anti Spam Whitepapers and Software
• Anti-Spam Topics
• Antiphishing Crusade Daily News of phishing spam collected from around the net.
• Article by Andy Coote in SC Magazine June 2004
• California lawyer who sues spammers
• E-mail Address Harvesting: How Spammers Reap What You Sow by the Federal Trade Commission
• Email Battles Daily news about spam, security, privacy, spyware, phishing and viruses from the front lines of the e-mail wars.
• Getting Rid of Spam (summary)
• Library of E-mail Spam Reports and Articles
• Spam FAQs
• Spamfo.co.uk News on junk e-mail, scams, fraud, legal aspects and reviews of software and services.
• SpamNews.co.uk Delivering your daily slice of fresh Spam. All the spam news, all the time
• Suggestions on how to choose an e-mail address and how to disclose it with care
• The rules of spam, according to net.admin.net-abuse.email
• The War Against Spam — a collection of reading material on the subject
• Unsolicited Commercial E-mail Research Six Month Report by the Center for Democracy & Technology
• UPI article about the economic effects of spam
• White paper from e-mail client developers
• Yahoo Domain Keys: Another Ineffective Spam Solution — shumans.com article, Dec 6, 2003
• Spam Techniques Research — do.homeunix.org paper and wiki, Jul 7, 2005
• A tool that deals with referer spam
• How to deny access to spam bots
• Why I Hate Spam by Bill Gates, The Wall Street Journal, June 23, 2003.
• Artist turns mortgage loan and Viagra spam into art Vyuz.com

Humor

• Spamusement A collection of humorously drawn cartoons inspired by actual spam subject lines.
• The Incredible Spam Museum A search engine like site that collects and publish spam e-mails.
• Spamradio Turns spam e-mail into online music streams.
• Spam Eulogy A guy that lives in a world of spam.
• WhamBamSpam Website that wants you to spam it’s forums, essentially free advertising, and spam discussions.

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

Video: Spam, Phishing, and Online Scams: A View from the Network-Level