Is it just me getting flooded with these "Can I give you a call?" emails?
And the text is always the same, despite coming from so many “different” companies:
I wanted to reach out to you one last time to see if you would be open to hearing more about our lead generation and appointment setting solutions.
Are we good today at 3 PM? Please advise if you would prefer another date and time.
Looking forward to hearing from you.Some Business Development Manager in Asia
To save time replying each time, here is my universal reply...
No, I am not open at all to hear more about your lead generation and appointment setting solutions.
We are not good today at 3 PM.
No I would not prefer another date and time.
Because if this is your lead generation and appointment setting solutions, then it is BAD.
Your emails are SPAM. Your copy is DISCEPTIVE. Your assumptions are PRESUMPTIVE.
And if I hate what you are doing, why would I subject my potential clients to this?
Go away. You are not welcome here.
I am looking forward to never hearing from you again.
But am I too harsh?
I sell a product, and I know that the way to do marketing is to get in front of your target audience, and I am their target audience.
But then I personally believe that online marketing can’t be like the old days of bad TV ads. We can’t just annoy customers until they eventually remember us and engage with us.
Instead we need to add value. We need to help people with their day, either with knowledge, reminders or maybe just a little bit of humour.
And here is a company promising that they can do lead generation, and they do it by annoying the proverbial out of me. Having responded to one of these ads before, I know their methodology is cold calling and they are flogging off a call centre somewhere.
So why use spam to promote call centres? It would imply that their call centres are less effective than spam. Let me just repeat that to be really clear:
Call centres are less effective than spam
And that is kind of ironic, because the most valuable thing I have is time, and you are asking me to give you time to be told how I should be trying to waste my customers’ time with a method of marketing that is less effective than spam.
No, I don’t think I am too harsh.