The email title If you want to keep your job, use Spoke would normally warrant immediate deletion, but I decided to check it out, since it came from Spoke Software. I used to keep a close eye on them, back in 2002 met the founders, in fact in 2003 we briefly discussed them acquiring my startup for it’s IP… then nothing happened, for I while I continued using Spoke, then lost interest.
Now, out of the blue there’s this email:
In uncertain times, you probably find yourself working twice as hard to maintain the same level of business success. There are fewer opportunities out there, and working through the process of getting to those opportunities can be exhausting. What you need is an easy way to get access to a large number of businesspeople. In other words, you need Spoke.
What’s wrong with this? Nothing, except the title. Which happens to be the most important part of a marketing email. Now, I don’t pretend to be a marketing guru, but I seriously doubt fear marketing works. Or does it? The real marketing gurus think it often does work. Well, perhaps it does – but it sure does not make the sender popular. In fact the first emotion this email triggered in me was anger. I really, really don’t like it. In fact I find it offensive enough to remove myself from this service (which I barely remember anyway). But wait, I don’t need to hassle of trying to log in – Gmail’s spam, filter is pretty good.
One click – Goodbye, Au Revoir, Auf Wiedersehen, Arrivederci, Adios, Spoke. You’ve just lost me.
I also remember Spoke from “back in the day” as an early example of social networking – but I never found enough use for it to keep it up – then by chance I found a acquaintance’s profile indexed in Google and spotted this post – All I can say to Spoke is “did you fire the person who wrote that ad yet?”
Spoke.com created an inaccurate profile for me without my knowledge that I only discovered by doing a Google search of my name. I have been researching this company and discovering some very interesting information, which directly contradicts information provided in the email you received. Seems like they seriously pad their numbers. Check out my blog if you are interested. http://territimlin.wordpress.com/
PS. I also found lots of examples of writing in the style of the letter. I don’t think they would fire the person who wrote that ad. That is just the effect spoke.com is after: fear and intimidation.