The 10 commandments of online etiquette

Marketers sometimes use communications techniques that most people, including marketers themselves, profess to hate. Take these suggestions as law.

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Nobody likes an inbox stuffed with spam or newsletters to which they didn’t subscribe.

How often do you unsubscribe to email lists and newsletters or click “junk” so they don’t hit your inbox? Do you know organizations that push their messages via the social networks, but don’t use it to engage, network, or build community?

Yet many marketers do this to others when they get behind their own computers at work.

Some examples

I ask these questions when I speak, particularly when I do three or four hour workshops. It prompts us to dig deep into why people do this at work, but hate it as a consumer or buyer.

A couple of years ago, I did some research on different programs for customer relationship management for a client. I spoke to five different companies. Of the five, three added me to their newsletter list without my permission, simply because I called looking for additional information. I’ve received emails from companies telling me they’ve added me to their email distribution list and to let them know if that’s not OK.

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