The Entrepreneur Forum | Financial Freedom | Starting a Business | Motivation | Money | Success

Welcome to the only entrepreneur forum dedicated to building life-changing wealth.

Build a Fastlane business. Earn real financial freedom. Join free.

Join over 80,000 entrepreneurs who have rejected the paradigm of mediocrity and said "NO!" to underpaid jobs, ascetic frugality, and suffocating savings rituals— learn how to build a Fastlane business that pays both freedom and lifestyle affluence.

Free registration at the forum removes this block.

Where's the Line between Hustling for Free Advertising and Spam?

Marketing, social media, advertising

Joe Cassandra

Gold Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
509%
Jul 25, 2013
398
2,024
36
Woodstock, GA
I'm having trouble ethically with this question.

For a product I'm working on and collecting beta users, a good channel can be Meetup (as people openly tell you what they're interested in).

I've found a couple groups of potential users and have gone through the list of members, done a bit of personalizing at beginning of a message and pasted the generic, up-front information on my product (it's free to do BTW to sign up).

No one responded back saying was spam and I've had ok results. My dilemma came when I saw someone I know going on a social network, pinging individually different potential "customers" for their own thing, and they would ask them a question. When the potential customer answered, usually they would find a way to slide in a pitch for their product.

Example: If the person I know sold golf clubs, they asked to each person individually: "Who's your favorite golfer." The potential customer responds "Rickie Fowler," then the person responds with, "Sweet, we actually sell his driver here, check it out."

They had people commenting it was spam, but I'd use relatively similar tactics for these Meetup groups I targeted and now struggling with "IS it spamming or hustling?"

I hate spammers and thus "do unto others etc." is how I go about my life. This may be an area of "If you have to ask if it's spam, it is spam," but wanted to know others thoughts.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

Member

Bronze Contributor
FASTLANE INSIDER
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
101%
May 2, 2013
115
116
if you're not bothering anyone then it's not a problem.

this isn't some large ethical dilemma. look at it more pragmatically. you are sending people a message... not doing something malicious.

focus on what you are doing and how people are interpreting your actions.

maybe people genuinely like your product and appreciate what you're doing... maybe that's why you aren't getting the same response as your friend.

if you start getting complaints then maybe rethink your strategy. but even then, some people always complain no matter what you do. i hate youtube ads. should people stop doing it because it annoys me? NO.

are people ignoring you when you message them or are you getting friendly responses?
 

Joe Cassandra

Gold Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
509%
Jul 25, 2013
398
2,024
36
Woodstock, GA
if you're not bothering anyone then it's not a problem.

this isn't some large ethical dilemma. look at it more pragmatically. you are sending people a message... not doing something malicious.

focus on what you are doing and how people are interpreting your actions.

maybe people genuinely like your product and appreciate what you're doing... maybe that's why you aren't getting the same response as your friend.

if you start getting complaints then maybe rethink your strategy. but even then, some people always complain no matter what you do.

are people ignoring you when you message them or are you getting friendly responses?

Usually Ignore or I get a response back that's friendly etc. I get more Ignores then replies but I believe that's normal.

I don't think it's a huge ethical dilemma, but the world needs less spam and so I'm interested in what others thoughts and their experience with it. I've had people sign up for my email list, I send them a content only piece and they mark as Spam even though they signed up 2 days prior. I dont' want to keep targeting meetup members if most people think it's spam.

My friend WAS getting people responding "stop spamming me" so I started thinking he was spamming but no one told that to me. Two major differences is mine is a free signup and his is $xxx investment.
 

Ajita

Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
220%
Dec 17, 2013
40
88
Florida
Using this technique during a product development stage is different than using the same technique as a primary marketing tool to sell the product. The first is kind of like cold calling, looking for pain points to solve. The second feels a bit more MLM-ish since it is (in the example you gave) a veiled attempt to sell a product.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

Mattie

Platinum Contributor
FASTLANE INSIDER
Read Rat-Race Escape!
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
129%
May 28, 2014
3,485
4,491
53
U.S.
I consider spam when you email me 1000 times in a row. When you post on my page a million times in a row. If you're bothering me every day, and all the time and it's annoying I consider that spam. Now it depends on what you're selling too. If I didn't sign up for your product and I have no interest in it, then I consider that spam. On twitter I always get those emails thanks for following or check out my site. But it's only once, so no big deal. Usually what I consider spam is those sunglasses ads on face book that ends up on everyone's page. Otherwise I get emails like the other day. Hey, I'm a marine. I need to talk to you. Or I'm from Nigeria and you've inherited this much money. Let's not forget the chic's that end up in email too.

Usually I only block and report spam if it's of sexual nature instantly and the guy or gal doesn't give up. I ignore the totally in messages, but if they keep going even if you don't answer, it's a tip, they want something from you like money or sex.

I believe it depends on the person and what they consider spam. I've seen some reviewers on face book get reported for spam because they're emailing everyone. Social media just frowns on that type of thing. So, you can get suspended momentarily for to many posts, likes, and messages.
 

Joe Cassandra

Gold Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
509%
Jul 25, 2013
398
2,024
36
Woodstock, GA
I believe it depends on the person and what they consider spam. I've seen some reviewers on face book get reported for spam because they're emailing everyone. Social media just frowns on that type of thing. So, you can get suspended momentarily for to many posts, likes, and messages.

On Meetup, if you send too many messages in an hour, it stops you for 10 min or so from sending messages, but after that you can soldier on.

I'm looking for ways online to do some direct marketing (not banner ads) and targeting people in meetup groups was one of the ideas. Usually, I just send them 1 message with a quick explanation and everything and provide a link for them to click. Like I mentioned, it's only a 1-5% response rate.

Anyone else have any success with targeting ppl in meetup groups?
 

Post New Topic

Please SEARCH before posting.
Please select the BEST category.

Post new topic

Guest post submissions offered HERE.

Latest Posts

New Topics

Fastlane Insiders

View the forum AD FREE.
Private, unindexed content
Detailed process/execution threads
Ideas needing execution, more!

Join Fastlane Insiders.

Top