One of my new favorite daily activities is to read through the comment spam folder for this blog. Not that I find smam (social media spam) funny, in fact, I find it totally annoying. But the Irony of receiving smam on this blog is that the point of this conversation marketing blog is to share our views and invite discussion and comments about how companies can successed and go farther by not advertising at people–spam is sooooo advertising at people!
To further our discussion on conversation marketing, we recently started a discussion group on LinkedIn called Idiomatic: Conversation Marketing (we hope you’ll all join the discussions). Today, we had our first smam post–Thanks Lilly, an Account Manager for an expense management software company.
Here is Lilly’s post:
Expense Management Software
Certify is the leading self-service, online expense management solution for small to mid size companies. www.Certify.com is an on-demand subscription that gets you up and running instantly, configured to your needs and your travel policies being fully enforced.
• Completely internet based – no software to install or maintain
• Easily capture and submit expenses with your cell phone,PC,or fax
• Outstanding business expense capture, tracking and reporting
• Award winning service and support
• Available for both Personal and Corporate use
• Get started with a free 30 day trial
For more information regarding go to www.Certify.com
It would seem that Lilly did not read the group profile description:
Conversation marketing is the practice of strategically interacting in the market conversation. This group focuses on the marketing industry’s market conversation for building mutually beneficial relationships with Influencers; responding to market conversation topics and initiating topics that do not include traditional marketing messages; extrapolating market conversation content to utilize as company/product proofpoints and counter sales objections; and internalizing the market conversation for business growth. All marketing, sales, communications and other business professionals are invited to join in by sharing their experiences and asking questions.
If she had, she would hopefully have thought twice before posting this in the group. I have kept the post up, but did comment that it was a prime example of a sales or marketing person not understanding that by posting their “ad” in the group, they are spamming the group and will eventually be banned from the group and people will think less of the company/product they’re pitching.
I hope Lilly won’t be too mad at me, but I decided to send an email to her company. Unfortunately, the company is of the old-school of thought that they should not publicly post the email or phone numbers of any staff. The only addresses to be found were sales@ and support@ and info@ etc. I did find the PR person’s email on their press release so I sent the message to her and to sales@
I specifically said that I was writing in good faith and hoping they as a company would find it thought provoking and an opportunity to take a look at their sales and marketing practices. Here’s a bit of what I wrote:
Here is a great article about why social media is failing to help sales people. http://tinyurl.com/dkxnd4 The reason sales people are not having more success with social media is because they are using these online tools to do exactly what Lilly has done.
1) Because of the profile of this discussion group this is not the right place for a sales person to find leads
2) If Lilly were to find groups and communities that discuss business management practices, startup companies, accounting practices, etc. then she would have something valid to contribute to the conversation because those topics are in line with what your company offers.
3) Today, people have spam filters and they can turn off popup ads and they can ignore google Adwords results and they can trash their junk mail and get on the do not call list, etc. An online community post that reads just like a marketing brochure will not be looked at favorably by the group. Marketing messages have their place, but participating in the actual market conversation that is centered around fulfilling the business and accounting needs of companies will get a sales person much farther.
Again, thank you to Lilly. Hope you don’t mind being our example of what not to do.
Cheers
