Please Don't Be This Type of Marketer

There is no doubt that marketing in the technology industry is difficult. B2C marketing to the general public is hard enough, but B2B can be especially brutal: from finding appropriate targets with the right role and level in the organization, to dealing with low engagement rates and maintaining reasonable touch frequencies without getting a dreaded DNC/unsubscribe, marketing either technology products or services to other businesses is not easy.

Having said that, my team and I have been seeing a significant increase in certain marketing tactics targeting our own company that are not only ineffective in converting us to a potential sale, but are also guaranteed to get us to immediately disengage. Here's my list of "Please Don't Try to Market to Me This Way" tactics; marketers, please, please stop trying to engage using these methods:

1. Soliciting from Gmail Accounts. While I appreciate that marketers fear having their domains reported as a spam perpetrators (which means far fewer emails are going to reach their intended target, and are much more likely to be quarantined regardless of the heuristics score of the content), the fact is that it's difficult to take business solicitations from unknown Gmail accounts seriously. Even when a legitimate domain/account of the company is cc'd (which of course is for tracking purposes with no potential reporting threat), this reads (at best) "I'm trying to game the system" or (at worst) "we're a completely illegitimate fly-by-night operation". If you send out an email with engaging, sincere content and an opt-out link (which you honor), I promise you that my team and I are not going to report you.
2. The "Escalated Executive" email. Few marketing tactics I find more irritating that receiving an email from a company, then within anywhere from 10 minutes to 24 hours later receiving another email from their "supervisor" / "executive" at the same company who talks about how "[the first person who emailed us] reports to me, and she reached out to me because she feels that your company would be a great fit... let's get you on our calendar for a call!". First, it's obvious that you're a scheduled and automated secondary responder email. Second, these emails often lack opt-out links because the marketer is trying to not appear that they're an unsolicited communication and are instead a "team that has researched your company" and we are being selected for a "partnership". Recently, we've been getting a huge number of these from a group of companies offering business services (marketing, accounting, business mentoring, etc.) that all have the same attributes: (1) Neither the first nor second emails include an opt-out, and are trying to sell themselves as something other than unsolicited marketing emails; (2) They use a different (but similar) domain name for emails (kudos to them for that... at least that gets around undesired tactic #1 above); (3) All of the websites look the same (same template, same cluster of hosting companies); (4) All of them claim to be based in New York City; and (5) A quick OSINT search shows they use the same cluster of domain registrars and resolve to the same IP addresses (indicating the same ISPs/hosting providers) I'm not going to name-and-shame these companies here (or who I believe their actual owner is, as I believe they're all owned by the same parent company), but I will say that the moment any of my team members report this type of email, I have our IT team block emails from the entire domain (both the original email domain and the actual, business name domain). This is a clear violation of the CAN-SPAM Act, and it's an unethical marketing tactic.
3. The "Our VIP Has Selected You!" call. These are calls from ISRs who purport to be an "executive assistant" to some sort of industry VIP/guru (most commonly, these are for companies that offer executive coaching or business management consulting services). The times I've received these calls, the ISR tries to suggest that their VIP/guru is practically a household name, and rattles off all manner of bona fides. The gist of these calls is usually, "[VIP/guru] has researched your company, and he believes you are one of the very few that fit our profile for massive success... he is SO BUSY and has VERY LITTLE TIME AVAILABLE, but he's so eager to help you that he has agreed to make time to schedule a discussion about your company ASAP!" Interestingly, the moment I mention needing an NDA to discuss my company's sales figures and growth strategy, the conversation ends. Trying to put on airs is not an effective marketing method, at least with most business owners I know. Just be honest, and pitch your previous successes and what you think you can do for us. And of course, don't push back on signing the NDA if you really want to have an in-depth discussion.
4. The "I Have an Opportunity for You" communication. These are generally either emails or (more commonly) LinkedIn pitches to connect, under the premise of "we have a project that's perfect for you and your company!". As a small business owner, I'm certainly not one to turn down a potential paid services engagement and I'm open to connecting and discussing legitimate opportunities. However, it immediately becomes clear after the initial contact that the "opportunity" they want to discuss is the opportunity for us to become one of their paid clients. This is a HARD PASS. If we've connected on LinkedIn, we're now disconnected after the email/messaging exchange. Camouflaging a sales pitch by using intentionally vague language that pretends to be a legitimate business opportunity is unethical behavior that's going to generate far more disdain than the number of closed deals it facilitates. Plus, it's going to destroy your reputation. If you want to reach me on LinkedIn to solicit business and we're not already connected, use InMail or Message Ads.

For my marketing friends, if you're somehow getting increased engagement metrics with these methods, then OK... but honestly, there are better ways to engage that involve less deception and will be less damaging to your organization's reputation.

As for those in my network and beyond... are you also seeing these types of marketing tactics with increasing frequency? Do any of them actually resonate with you, or do you immediately disengage like my team and I do?