I get about five unsolicited e-mails a day from PR companies and random folks asking me to pitch a product or click some link of theirs. The unsolicited e-mails wouldn’t be so bad if the sender at least addressed me by my name, followed my site, or mentioned something interesting in one of my posts. But when you get a “Hi Mr.” or a “Hey” or a nothing, e-mails start to become a drag.
If I get five spam e-mails a day, that’s roughly 7,500 spam e-mails since I started blogging. What a waste of finger energy and time, deleting them all or responding with a “No, thank you.” I’ve already demonstrated how you can earn passive income from comment spammers in a previous post, now I’m going to demonstrate how you can conceivably grow your blog’s readership and revenue over time with e-mail spammers.
GROW YOUR BLOG WITH REVERSE E-MAIL SPAM
E-mail spam is targeted for the most part, otherwise the sender would be wasting his or her time. Many of the e-mails come from PR agencies who somehow get a hold of your e-mail. The more I learn about PR agencies from my new tech startup consulting job, the more I realize it’s all about sending out massive amounts of blast e-mails to relevant people, hoping that some will stick. PR agencies also use their connections to try and get you air-time on television, radio, and so forth as well.
There is value to whomever is sending you these incessant e-mails. In order for a PR agency to get my e-mail, they’ve got to click on my About page and then scroll down past 2,000 words to see my e-mail address. Next to my e-mail address clearly states “Do not add me to your distribution list.” Therefore, by adding your e-mail to their blast distribution list, they are blatantly disregarding your request for privacy. What’s a blogger supposed to do?
From today forward, I am creating my “Reverse Spam” e-mail list! I will diligently add every single spammer onto my list so that by year’s end, I’ll have at least 1,500 names. While I build my Reverse Spam list, I am going to e-mail the list every month some awesome post on Financial Samurai and why they should read it and share with their contacts. Most won’t do it, but at least a majority of them will read my e-mail and perhaps 25% will click my link because I’ll make sure the introduction is awesome and why the post is relevant to them. Of the 25%, maybe 10% will actually share the e-mail with their friends. Who knows? Maybe my post will spread all around the internet!
COUNTING THE DOLLARS
Building an e-mail list of 1,500 relevant personal finance people a year can pay huge dividends down the road. If I started my list back in 2009, I would have at least a 7,000 person reverse spam list. Let’s say that half of them visit my site every week, that’s 3,500 a week, or 182,000 visits a year. One $5 CPM banner alone will generate $910 in revenue. Five $5 CPM banners will therefore generate a tidy $4,560! Now add on another $1,000 for potential CPC earnings and you’ve now got over $5,500 a year in passive income.
To generate $5,500 a year in passive income at a 3% interest rate, you’d need $183,000 in the bank. Of course one’s assumptions can be different from my own. But the point is to always look at perceived negatives and turn them into positives. Be an optimist! Nobody on your Reverse Spam list can complain because they spammed you in the first place. You might even develop a friendship with someone connected along the way. Finally, you could potentially always sell your list for several hundred dollars a pop as well!
By combining the good work on your site and embracing all the spam work by others, there’s no doubt you’ll be able to garner more pageviews and earn more money in the process!
Readers, what do you think about creating a Reverse Spam list? Will this violate the CAN SPAM act? Why do you think e-mail spammers continue to spam you even though it states clearly that you don’t want to be spammed? Is there that much pressure to succeed on their part? Anybody have experience working with or for a PR agency? What do they do exactly and how much do they charge? Anybody interested in buying my a 1,000 person Reverse Spam list for $500? Anybody in PR and wants to shed some light on exactly what you guys do?
Note: The next Yakezie membership class is coming due by end of February.
Regards,
Sam
Hahaha. It probably does, but they sure deserve it…
Worst are those automated ones. In those cases, DO NOT ENGAGE. There was one I replied to – it actually seemed like it was written by a human, one of those ‘check out this infographic’ type spammy emails – asking them to never contact me again and remove me from the list. I just got MORE of the same email after that. Had to block.
I’ll sell you my Respam list for $99. Good price for you!
We may clearly say we don’t want to be spammed but the spammers know that most people have weak moments when they get sucked in and engage with the spammy content. That’s why they keep blasting it our direction.
Funny article. Who would have thought 10, 20, 30 years ago we’d be dealing with these kinds of problems today. Spammers are a pain. I’ve stopped even opening emails from “SEO expert for you” and “Me write you free article” requests. Straight to the trash bin they go in a swift swish. Imo it’s not worth spending any extra time or energy trying to “spam” them back. Usually I only get one email per sender anyway, and I think NZ Muse is right that engaging can just end up increasing the volume.
Google is laughing every day to the bank. Imagine looking over a hamster city. Each time a change is made the hamsters start scattering all over the place.
Sam,
I think that is clever and inventive and I’m going to stick that idea in my “swipe” file.
PR is an interesting game…. why not play it to your advantage?
Easiest way to develop a relevant and powerful roledex for free without having to do all the work. Brilliant I say!
I don’t have a blog yet, but I love this idea. Why can’t I be clever like this?
Great thing is, all you have to do is start one!
It’s quite brilliant and I love the idea of turning a negative into a positive. What CPM ads are you using? Mine only provide revenue upon clicks.
Is spamming a spammer spam? I think so. :) Will any of them actually get in touch with the Bureau of Consumer Protection to accuse you? Highly doubt it.
I work for a PR agency myself, but we don’t spam. We’ll only contact relevant bloggers who are open to it and they will never hear from us again if they are not interested. To answer your question regarding pressure.. yeah, there’s a lot of pressure to complete a lot of work in little time. :/ Some do it more professionally than other though, of course.
Good to get your insight about PR! It’s quite an interesting industry I must say learning about it more with my new consulting role. It’s all about connections at the end of the day no? If you have the ear of the producer of the most popular TV show, then you are golden!
Yeah! I’m ready for the next Yakezie membership class!
That is pretty clever, although if you use aweber doesn’t the person have to confirm they want to hear from you? What do you use to email 1,500 people? Gmail won’t let you send a mail to that many people.
Good question! I’m only had 55 users on my Gmail reverse spam list yet so I’ll let you know when I get there!
You sure have a confident way to reversing the spam situation :) I don’t receive a lot of spam but when I do, they are mostly SEO related and thankfully they mention that in the subject so I just hit the delete button. Maybe as the blog grows, more will come buzzing like pesky flies – I’ll be sure to make a contact list then!