Outsmart spam
The Wheel Estate Cam: Episode 8
By Frank Borges LLosa, Friday, December 18, 2009.
Episode 8: Spam is a dirty word to Frank LLosa of FranklyRealty.com in Arlinton, Va. In this episode of the Wheel Estate Cam, LLosa describes how he sets spam traps to snare senders of unsolicited e-mails. Periodically changing out the e-mail addresses that you use that are publicly displayed on the Web can also help to curb spam. Even better, he says: Use a Web form instead of e-mail address to allow consumers to contact you.
"I have the right to a clean inbox," he says.
When sending e-mail to others, LLosa says don't use a cut-and-paste approach to reaching the masses. "I consider spam a mass e-mail going out to more than 10 people," he says.
Watch past episodes of the Wheel Estate Cam.
Frank Borges LLosa is the broker, founder and owner of FranklyRealty.com, a real estate brokerage in Falls Church, Va. He is the creator of the Trust Me I'm a Realtor blog and multiple listing service wiki site FranklyMLS.com. You can follow him on Twitter: @franklyrealty.
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Submitted by Duncan Logan on December 18, 2009 - 4:49pm.
The problem is that sending a million emails is so cheap and even if only 10 people out of 1m pay $20 for Herbal **** or whatever they are selling they make a profit. I.E. 0.001% is profitable. Some of the products would get as high as 0.1 responses. On a $20 product it adds up to $20,000. Not bad for a days work! Currently 81% of all business email is Spam. Consumer email has even higher rates. I hate it and think it will ultimately be the end of email.
My solution is that every email should cost 5cents. Every email you send costs 5 cents and every email you receive you are credited 5 cents. You have a paypal sort of account which holds a balance. For most people the net effect is free email but spammers would disappear overnight over night.
Submitted by Jon Angevine Calgary Real Estate on December 19, 2009 - 8:21am.
Spam is an ongoing issue and the local real estate boards don't seem to be able to handle the agents (new and experienced) who as you put it just discover mass email systems. I go one step further in that I will page or call an agent who spams me and play phone tag a little bit until I will then let them know that they can remove me from their list of emails. Does that waste some of my time - yes but they usually get the point. The MLS system is in place for a reason and if I have clients that are looking in a particular area I will know about it. Sending out a 'New' listing email to every REALTOR does not do anything for marketing a home.
As for solutions to spam I have moved my domain email over to Gmail for Organizations and that has really seemed to reduce the numbers of spam that I get as well.
By far the largest group of spammers are the SEO companies. I especially like the ones that 'Guarantee' first ranking on Google. My question to them is if you are contacting me regarding 1st place ranking did you actually look to see that the site your contacted me about actually is in 1st place?
As you can see Spam does get me going as well. The battle continues...good luck in your fight!
Jon Angevine
Associate Broker, REALTOR
RE/MAX Alpine Realty
www.CalgaryRealEstateMarketReports.com
www.CalgaryHomePage.com
www.CalgaryCondoBlog.com
Submitted by Larry Mayall on December 19, 2009 - 9:17am.
Spam is a given on the Internet.
If we buy the premise that we manage spam effectively by changing an email address, wouldn't the same apply to dealing with unsolicited phone calls? Periodically then I will be announcing my new phone number and email address.
From a marketing perspective a phone number and an email address become part of our identity. I think there are more effective solutions to dealing with spam. This approach borders on paranoia.
We use gmail and have found the filters to be very effective. If an email is spam, delete and move on.
Submitted by Frank LLosa on December 19, 2009 - 9:30pm.
Hey Jon,
Yep I have the new agent (or clueless older one) thinking they need to do everything from putting flyers up for their new listing at the local bagel shop AND spamming each Realtor in their area, or any area for that matter.
It took me a few years, but believe it or not, I got my local MLS to change how they display emails. While it isn't perfect, it reduced spam from Realtors by 90%.
Ask your local MLS to remove posting your email in simple text. And then have them use webforms in case somebody needs to contact an agent. And then the webform can verify that a spamming agent isn't sending the same message to everyone.
Frank
Submitted by Frank LLosa on December 19, 2009 - 9:31pm.
Larry, Larry, Larry.
In the "just delete it" camp I see.
You just want until you lose a $1m client because they were sent to your trusted gmail spam folder and lost forever. Then you'll see.
Frank
Submitted by Ken Lampton on January 9, 2010 - 2:52pm.
Frank, I resent spam just as much as you do.
I figure I spend 30 minutes every day manually deleting spam. (I do it manually because, as you say, there will always be one important message per day sent to my junk mail folder by error.)
The way I see it, 2% of my life is being stolen from me by spam.
It is amazing that our civilization spent so much time and money and talent building the infrastructure for email, only to have it hijacked for disreputable purposes.
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Ken Lampton, CRS
RE/MAX Realtors
www.m-street-dallas.com
Submitted by Lindsay Stroupe on March 27, 2010 - 11:14pm.
Using a web form is much more effective and useful than using the normal emails. It has outdated now. Also using a web form is much more professional in many ways. teeth whitening los angeles