Ask HN: ‪When did email spam become an acceptable “growth hack”? - benguild
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jagermo
journalist here. There is hardly a week when I don't get an email or a call
about if I "saw the mail about XYZ they sent me last week".

I think it has been around forever. Most people I know hate it, but there are
still companies that put pressure on their agencys to "follow up".

That beeing said, its probably a low-effort thing that still has a medium to
high chance to bring in customers.

Update: If you work in a company and force your media guys to do these cold
calls, please stop. Nothing gets you faster on blacklists.

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builtinbuffalo
So then how does one make you aware of what they're doing? Should they send
you over a fax or wait for you to call them? Part of your job, whether you
like it or not, is interacting with pr agents and in house marketers via phone
and email.

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jagermo
Don't get me wrong, I have no problems interacting with PR persons or other
people. But there is a difference between a friendly chat, a follow-up call
(e.g. after an interview or a lenghty mail conversation) and a cold call to
check if I intend to write about an obscure "news" release.

Yes, it is frustrating if no one picks up your release, but then you have to
adapt and choose either a different topic or a different target audience. Me,
for example, I never write about personal changes in companies. And still
people ask me if and when I publish my piece about their new Head of XYZ.

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builtinbuffalo
I don't envy the position and having been on both sides before there's no
simple answer. I wish I lived in a reality where I could actually take the
time to build meaningful relationships with the press at all times, but most
of the time being a little pushy and eek _spammy_ is required to deliver.

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underyx
Just forward those emails to sp@mnesty.com[0] with your personal info removed
from the subject and body.

You can also send abuse reports with the help of SpamCop[1].

And of course, if you use GMail/Google Inbox, marking them as spam also helps.

[0]: [https://spa.mnesty.com/](https://spa.mnesty.com/)

[1]: [http://spamcop.net/](http://spamcop.net/)

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pedrorijo91
marking as spam on GMail really works? I do get a lot of similar emails, and
I'm always marking as spam and it still get to my inbox. Not really sure how
does GMails learns about spam, which fields it considers (just sender?
subject? specific words?)?

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tmikaeld
We tried to analyze this behavior over employee inboxes on a company using
Gmail exclusively and we saw that the users that routinely use the spam button
as often or instead of the trash button are ignored on the spam markings (not
reported to Amazon SES as spam). I think too many users have gotten used to
abusing the spam button like that and that's why Google is ignoring those
users.

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drcongo
I also find the term "growth hacker" unacceptable along with pretty much
everything they do.

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AznHisoka
I generally reply saying "here is a link to my new contact info." the link is
just an amazon affiliate link.

Now i look forward to cold emails.

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peterbonney
Since before email? Cold calls, catalogs in the mail, coupons, promotions...
the medium changes, the sales principles do not.

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builtinbuffalo
For as long as sending 100 emails results in one or more sales. Cold email,
even done poorly, will still net 1-2%. If economics work, then people do it.

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edpichler
The email was the best marketing tool to show my product to new users. But I
don't send cold emails, I wrote real messages.

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tschlossmacher
"Growth Hackers" use the internet as a tool with a complete disregard to the
environment that exists. It's a cool tool for a job, the medium where it takes
place (reddit, HN, email, FB, twitter) changes but the existing effort won't.
Not everyone, unfortunately, views the internet or specific websites as a
community. For them, reach numbers are important, and why wouldn't they be.
It's not a community to them. They're pursuing ridiculous results and rewarded
when they can say "I reached X amount of people through X tactic".

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cpach
Would you mind elaborating a bit?

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benguild
"Hello, I came across ..."

Two weeks later:

"Just checking in to see if you'd seen my email!"

... or something along those lines. Best part is when there is an "opt-out"
link.

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yati
CitiBank used to send me spam about credit cards (I used to own one a few
years ago). The opt-out link led to a page where I must fill out an elaborate
form with the CC number and address and whatnot to unsubscribe from spam I
never asked for in the first place :(

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DrScump
Are you sure that wasn't a phishing attempt?

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yati
I did verify that, and yes it was scary in the beginning. When I asked
customer care, I was told that is how it is :/

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forgottenpass
Hasn't "growth hacking" always meant shady shit? "Hacking" has just been a
word to give cachet to otherwise less-appealing shit for like a decade now.

Just do the responsible thing, and contact the abuse department of the sender
company, and the "mass mailing" service they use. There is spam coming from
their systems, they should be made aware of it.

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nunez
Did you know that most of the sign-ups credit card companies receive come
through snail mail?

As long as email continues to be the primary communication medium of the
internet, companies will spam people through it. It takes exactly zero effort
to set up Mailchimp and run a 50K email campaign. Everyone reads email. If the
subject is curious enough, people will read it.

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builtinbuffalo
Except if you do that you won't get very far. At least with MailChimp, which
does a lot of policing. You'd be luck to get a few thousand emails out before
their spam filters pause your campaign.

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thejspr
I think automated/transactional emails falls in this category as well. Seems
like all startups are firing several Intercom messages at new users these
days. I especially don't like how they come of as personal messages, whilst in
reality they are robots with a human avatar.

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eeZah7Ux
Let's just stop applying the term "hack[er|ing]" to marketing, please.

