Will SPAM kill itself? This is something I asked myself today. I noticed that I treat each SPAM marketing e-mail with suspicion. SPAM has not only become an annoyance but also an enemy. I distrust everything that comes as SPAM. Even if I found some relevant and exceptional offer (I know, wishful thinking), I don't think I would take it. It doesn't matter how cleaver headline will they think of next to make me open the e-mail - I'll know it's SPAM and I won't trust those who send SPAM to buy anything from them. I know that all net-savvy people react the same way - with anger, frustration and distrust. And I think this will gradually catch up with all the other folks. There are probably enough new net users who will fall for SPAM once in a while to still make it worth-wile for those sharks to steal people's bandwidth and bombard their inboxes. But ultimately SPAM detection will be so ingrained in people that'll be genetically propagated. And then effectiveness of SPAM will drop to zero. No-one will be opening it and no-one will be buying anything. And then it'll have to stop because no matter how cheap it is to unleash millions of unwanted e-mails on people, if they generate zero revenue no-one will pay for that and the whole business will just die out.

Or maybe not. Direct mail didn't die even though direct mailers have to pay to produce and send this largely ignored junk. And it still pays. I just hope that there is a difference between SPAM and direct mailing: direct mailing has at least a shadow of credibility while SPAM doesn't. SPAM crossed the line - I get more SPAM messages that legit ones (and thank god for SpamAssasin and fastmail.fm for filtering them). Inboxes are flooded with crap and everyone knows (or soon will know) how bad it stinks and won't touch it even with the longest stick.

     

Law 21 (law of acceleration) from The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing by Al Ries and Jack Trout.

The book says: successful marketing programs are not built on fads but on trends.

     

Law 20 (law of hype) from The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing by Al Ries and Jack Trout.

The book says: the situation is often the opposite of the way it appears in the press. The amount of hype isn't proportional to success, often failed products are heavily hyped.