About your...

I just got an email titled: "about your message..." I didn't recognize the sender, but since it wasn't from a name like "Trixie" I thought it might be legit. Nope. Spam. Not just spam, but an obnoxious spam that took forever to load and was full of typos.

What was this spammer thinking?

Did he think he created rapport by tricking me into reading his email? Did he expect me to say "Wow! I DO need to refinance! Is this the kind of sneaky, inattentive shyster I want to trust with my hard earned money and my largest single asset"?!

In marketing, we call using an unrelated subject to get someone's attention "borrowed interest". It's like using a swimsuit model in an ad to promote power tools. (She's obviously not dressed to rebuild an engine! Her job is to stop someone, not to lend credibility to the product.)

Borrowed interest hardly ever works. Think about it: When's the last time YOU were persuaded by an ad that tricked you into reading it?

How many unqualified leads do you want? You obviously want to weed out non-prospects immediately. Using smart marketing methods in your advertising can get prospects to pre-qualify themselves.


-- Phil Sasso