[CLUE-Talk] Marketing to CLUE Members

[Jed S. Baer]

On Fri, 14 Mar 2003 17:00:41 -0700
El Presidente de CLUE <president at clue.denver.co.us> wrote:

> On Friday 14 March 2003 03:53 pm, Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier wrote:
> 
> >
> > My suggestion is this: A member, like Rick, may post a specific
> > announcement to the clue-talk list no more than once per year for a
> > non-Linux related commercial announcement to invite people to "opt in"
> > or whatever. Any member is limited to an arbitrary number of such
> > posts within a twelve-month period, say three.
> 
> Zonker,
> 
> IMHO, this is not an acceptable option.  Who is going to keep track of
> this number?  Where do we draw the line?  Suppose I run a porn shop,
> would it be ok for me to send three messages to CLUE-Talk for 'hot,
> young girls'?  I don't think so.
> 
> It's a slippery-slope which we have not had occasion to formally address
> because it hasn't happened (to my knowledge) in the 5 years I have been
> on the admin board.
> 
> > But, you raise a good point... we do need to put up a policy, and
> > pronto. We can't just assume there's an unspoken policy that everyone
> > will absorb through some kind of netiquette osmosis. 
> 
> I agree.  Even though we have links to NetEtiquette on the CLUE
> Resources page.  The fact is that the lists do not explicitly state 'no
> commercial or unsolicited offers'.  This will change in the next few
> days.

I have to agree with Jeff here, as far as some quota system being
unworkable. But in truth, with some obvious exceptions such as Jeff
mentions, I can see benefit in "peer marketing", as Dave calls it. It's
part of being a community. But the boundaries are fuzzy, and there's the
rub.

Would anyone have cared much about a short message, to the TALK list,
saying, "Hey, fellow CLUEbies, if you're also interested in real estate, I
have a newsletter you might be interested in. Contact me off-list for
details"? That's a lot different from a direct e-mail saying, "I've
already put you on my mailing list, using the address I snagged from
CLUE". The problem being we can easily use a little word substitution in
the first sentence to make it non-grata. So there's the slippery slope
again. OK, I admit I might get irritated at my short-message example.

Is there value for me in knowing, for example, that a CLUEbie works at
such-and-such computer store? Yep. Would I be more comfortable buying a
car from a dealer, knowing the salesperson is a CLUE member? Yep. How does
a list policy allow the sort of things we've been seeing as long as I've
been around, where people ask for recommendations for an ISP? OK, so
responses to those are solicited, but they're still marketing.

jed
-- 
I wouldn't even think about bribing a rottweiler with a steak that
didn't weigh more than I do. -- Jason Earl