Spam Intros

I accidentally clicked on a bit of spam the other day. It somehow got through the filters for all this kind of nonsense.

It really was quite something else. Whilst not quite on the scale of channelling a distraught Nigerian Prince, here was the first line;

This is our third attempt to contact you, please review the below. We will need to hear from you by [a date already passed].

As the saying goes, if I’ve not responded before perhaps there’s a good reason for it. The waffle went on;

You have received this email as we feel you can use our [random skillset] to increase [a random benefit]

Whoopee-do. Then there was inclusion of my name, job title and location. All impressively done by some wonder of mail-merge. For instance, I live in;

London, United Kingdom

Amazing. Then at the end, there was an incentive to get in touch. I’d get a free ebook on who-knows-what. All I needed to do was reply before a date that was three and half months expired. Incredible.

We’ve all encountered this kind of uselessness I’m sure. But the point is quite an important one. A cold email is as likely to elicit a new prospect as kidnapping their kids.

If you do feel yourself falling into this trap, take a moment to think how you can turn it into a warmer approach. The classic is who you might know that might know your target suspect. This can include people elsewhere in their organisation, industry peers, their suppliers/customers or people in the same role in other fields.