Bad email marketing is reminiscent of how telemarketing calls were perceived the past few decades; they come too frequently, are overly pushy, and are far from personalized. Many of us can remember hearing the odd pronunciations of our last names as telemarketers would blandly greet us. Today, with email greetings spewing out a misspelled name or poorly targeted content, it’s not too different — just more tech-savvy. If you want your spam email to be one of the most hated object in hundreds or thousands of inboxes, just follow the tips below:

Send Multiple Emails a Day

If a sender doesn’t reply a few hours after an email, it must mean the message got lost in the mail, right? A truly terrible email marketer will send another email just a few hours after the first if there’s no response, since it’s probably safe to assume that a blogger or press contact has nothing to do all day but sit around and refresh their emails.

Make It Obvious the Recipient Is Just a Number

Apart from the recipient being more receptive to opening the email and perhaps even engaging with the campaign, there’s little benefit to addressing a recipient by name, or adding a personal compliment — like how much you enjoyed their most recent blog entry about the Amazon rainforest, specifically. Personalization makes it seem like the marketer cares, which isn’t what a terrible email marketer wants at all. All you’re doing is copying and pasting a recipient’s email address from a spreadsheet. Make sure they know this by being as robotic and non-personable as possible!

Send Attachments

Attachments are fun for anyone who likes to waste hard drive space on information that could be condensed to text within the email. Again, most contacts have all the time in the world to download attachments. Also – in their minds – if a virus sabotages their computer it won’t be an issue to their work or personal life to not have a computer for several days. Marketers should expect them to take the risk of getting a virus, just to download a 20MB PDF file that regurgitates information already in the email.

Use Generic Subject Lines and Content

When it comes to the meat of your marketing email, it doesn’t seem worth it to create good copy or a unique subject line that will engage the recipient. Instead, opt for a generic production description with a big ‘BUY NOW!’ link at the top and bottom. Also, be sure to make your font difficult to read and in some overly bright color; recipients often love the challenge of squinting to read their email. As far as the subject line goes, use something like “Check This Out!” or “Hurry Up and Buy Now!” Those don’t read like spam at all, so it’s very unlikely they’ll be caught by spam filters. Avoid using a subject line that caters to the individual recipient’s interest; they may even be inclined to open it quickly in that case.

Respond Rudely to Unsubscribe Requests

If someone asks to unsubscribe from your emailing list or future emails, then it’s recommended to show passion for your product by lashing out at them. How could anyone deny the beauty of what you’re marketing? Whatever the product is, it clearly deserves to be loved by everyone. All tastes are the same, after all. These recipients are then likelier to respond amiably to your future pitches, as opposed to outright blocking you, since they’ll appreciate the passion and enthusiasm emitted by the unnecessary insults and irrational behavior.

Being an email marketer from hell is a fun role to play. Unfortunately, with the frequency of bad email marketers today, it can be difficult to claim the spot of the most truly awful one on the internet. By following the tips above, you can begin your descent into becoming the most abominable email marketer on the web.

So, there you have it, folks. Here’s how you run a terrible email marketing campaign! However, if you’d like to run an effective email marketing campaign, do the opposite of all of the above mentioned tips and sign up for our newsletter below to see how it should be done.