From my email box this morning ...

Did you receive the e-mail which I sent to you recently (copied here-below)?
Please confirm since I have had problems lately with emails intercepted by spam-filters set too high.
 
Cordially,
 
Marc Schneider, Ph.D.

The email looks vaguely familiar, and I see from my history that Marc thinks he has been having email problems for nearly a year now. Indeed, I wrote to him on 27th November of last year as follows:

Marc, email filters which intercept your email are working correctly, as it is unsolicited bulk email cleverly tailored to appear to be personalised. The fact that we didn't respond means that we are not interested.
 
Your spam and insistence costs us time and money to deal with. Please telephone in with your credit card details so that we can make a ten pound charge for our wasted time. Our number is in my signature.
 
Graham

And - 10 months later - I have yet to receive his call ;-)

Although as a policy (almost as a zealous policy!) we do NOT buy from people who send bulk, unsolicited emails, there are times that I do read them occasionally, and some of the things they point to. Some of the telephony ideas we have followed up in the past have come as a result of emails which happen to have alerted us to services of a type we didn't know existed ... and we now make good use of through competitors - but ones who would distance themselves from the spammers. Our Freephone (0800 043 8225), diverted via the Internet, is perhaps the best example - UK customers can reach us at no charge to them (and not much to us!) 24 x 7, with the phone diversion controlled by us on a web page when we're out of the office.

Much of the text on Marc's site - pointing out that blogging, plenty of one way and reciprocal links, and presence building, Google Maps and the like, Forums, Directory submissions, published signatures, press releases to on line magazines, etc - is correct in its direction and each idea worth reviewing for your site. His suggestion that we hire a gopher of his at $3500 per month (one month minimum) to irritate the heck out of other webmasters and build up a presence is something we can well do without though.

Interestingly, if you serach for "Marc Schneider" on Google, his site doesn't appear on the first page - which tells you something about his techniques, I suspect!
(written 2008-09-30 07:35:42)

 

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