DMA/Pike Fight: Dueling Spammers?
Earlier this week, my colleague Ken Magill wrote about the e-mail campaign against the Direct Marketing Association launched by a dissident DMA board member. You’re probably familiar with the saga by now—Amy Africa did several provocative blog posts on it.
In his article Gunfight at the DMA Corral, Ken points out the irony that Gerry Pike and the DMA are duking it out using “the one channel the organization has arguably struggled with most—e-mail.”
(Pike e-mailed DMA members on Sept. 25 asking them to sign their proxy votes over to him so he help change how the DMA serves its members; the DMA retaliated with an e-mail and direct mail proxy-vote campaign of its own.)
Here’s another irony: Both Pike’s appeal and the DMA’s request for my ballot and proxy went into my spam trap. Not the junk mail folder—the super spam filter, which sometimes doesn’t notify me for a week that I have mail flagged as spam to review.
Not great for direct response. To be fair, some of Pike’s and the DMA’s e-mails on the topic did get through during the two weeks since the first salvo was lobbed exactly two weeks ago, but some didn’t.
Maybe we should all be concerned when e-mails from a seasoned marketer and an organization representing the interests of direct marketers—e-mails going to a member list—are considered spam.
So if you’re a DMA member and you didn’t get an e-mail solicitations for your proxy vote, you might check your spam filter. Or you can download one from the site of either camp: the DMA or Pike’s A Better DMA.org.
But take the opportunity to have your say—this discussion has been a long time coming.
October 13th, 2009 at 11:26 am
Ha, ha! But this is so representative of what most Email campaigns result in. Unsolicited emails are worthless, but make marketers look busy. The DMA did do the right thing by sending out a direct mail piece as well.