Legality is not morality

A few weeks ago, at the encouragement of a friend, I joined a Zoom session with a bunch of marketing folks that meet every month. Previous topics have looked interesting, but my calendar didn’t allow me to attend until this one.

The subject this month? “ How to improve your cold email outreach.” It was as shady as you might expect.

I found three things about it to be very interesting.

First, the speaker shared all of the ways to get around spam filters. He talked about using secondary domains, different email addresses, and other tools to evade spam filters.

Second, he was clear that people should stay inside the law. He referenced the CAN-SPAM Act, which helps to prevent spam, and taught the group ways to send lots of spam without getting into trouble with the FTC.

Third, surprisingly, the audience loved it. This was a group of marketers and agencies from across the country, and they were thrilled to gain such “helpful advice”. It was very sad.

Toward the end, he almost realized what he was promoting when he said “ I send thousands of these emails every quarter, and maybe gain one client. “ He made it clear that he was willing to waste the time of thousands of people in the hopes of gaining one client, and the others on the call agreed that it was a good trade-off.