Friday, November 30, 2012

Spamming is not Marketing

There's something about this post at Plastics News that bugs me: "If American Moldmakers Marketed Like Chinese Moldmakers". It's about a LinkedIn group discussion in which a automotive parts supplier is looking for a moldmaker in Ohio, only to be inundated with offers from Chinese moldmakers. As you can gather from the title of her post, the author thinks Americans should be similarly aggressive in seeking out quotes.
"I wrote a response that I hope moldmakers in this country will take to heart. What I said was that if U.S. mold manufacturers would market their companies, expertise, and capabilities as much as the Chinese mold manufacturers, OEMs and Tier One suppliers wouldn't have to get in on a LinkedIn group to try and find a good moldmaker."
This is crazy. Any input I've ever received from Chinese moldmakers is something that is NOT seriously marketing "their companies, expertise, and capabilities". Let me show you an example. I get plenty of emails such as this one from my deleted messages file:
Dear Sir,

We would like to be Your Molds supplier in China.

We offer : Mold Design
Mold Manufacture
Rapid Prototype
Injection Molds
Die Casting Molds

Contact [company name deleted] today with any questions you may have regarding consumer electronics, home appliances and other industrial components.

Thanks & Best Regards.
[name deleted]
International Sales
This is spam, plain and simple. It is completely and absolutely useless to me as we do not do ANY injection molding here at Aspen Research. Lacking injection molding capabilities, I have no interest whatsoever in any of these offers. If my junk mail filter doesn't catch these emails, I delete them from my inbox without a second thought. Even if I was interested in mold design and moldmaking, I would still ignore this offer as it is not serious marketing, it is not serious selling nor is it any serious explanation of a company's abilities. Sure, you can admire the energy and drive behind someone looking under every possible rock for a lead (assuming that this email was actually sent under human direction and not by a bot), but no one can suggest with a straight face that this effort will pay off. And to use this as a model for others to emulate, and even worse, embrace it with the name of "marketing" is ridiculous.

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