Whether you’re on email, Twitter, or the next big thing – an issue that always pops up is Spam. Spam are those unwanted messages – usually marketing in nature – that annoy virtually every person that they come in contact with. Dealing with spam has become a way of life – we build technology to remove as much spam from our lives as possible, yet it still exists and probably always will.

I started to think about spam recently. How can something so universally maligned manage to exist without an end in sight? Then it occurred to me, Spam’s ability to survive illustrates some good marketing insights that you can apply to your (hopefully) non-spam marketing plans – especially in the social realm. Here are the marketing lessons that spam taught me:

Fit In

Spammers are notorious for fitting in.  Often times, you can track a source of your spam to a web form that you filled out innocently, a cookie that you picked up from that site you shouldn’t have visited, or a variety of other things.  So much of the spam that’s received can be tracked back to user behavior – meaning that they are trying to assimilate to the anonymous person that had ventured to the wrong side of the tracks.

I was struck by a recent article on Ad Age entitled, “Marketers: Think About Fitting in Before Breaking Through.” The article focused on the changing way that consumers experience their media – with the proliferation of technology causing interruption marketing to not only be interruptive of entertainment, but of people’s lives.

One section of the article summed the scenario up perfectly,

“Instead of asking “How do we break through?” advertisers should be asking “How do we fit in?” If your audience is on Facebook, don’t interrupt their social life by shouting at them; find a way to insinuate your brand into their existing behavior. Burger King did it when it realized people with “friend fatigue” would gladly sacrifice 10 friends for a Whopper. On another hand, if your audience is made up of runners who like to run with music, put a sensor in their shoe that connects to their iPod and then to a network of runners around the world and call it Nike Plus. Or, if your audience is already searching the web for cooking ideas, do what Kraft did and give them a “Food and Family” digital magazine and iPhone app full of inspiration, recipes and tools.”

The main premise behind all of this is understanding what the consumer wants. Using these social technologies, brands can begin to understand the motives of the crowds that drive revenue. It’s about capitalizing on micro trends in cost-effective ways to assimilate your message into the prevalent topics of the day.  Spammers attempt to do this with little effort – which is why they’re strength lies in the millions of messages they send and not the content.  If you’re not a spammer, make a concerted effort to fit in with your customers in natural ways.   Which brings me to my second lesson…

Be adaptable

How many of you received spam emails about product x that included references to Michael Jackson dying within 24 hours of his death? (Raises Hand). I know I did. I laughed, probably tweeted about it, and moved on with my day – yet those emails started to stick out in my head. I was amazed at the adaptability of those spammers to capitalize on an event that captured the curiosity of a great majority of the population. After all, even though I knew it was spam, I ultimately opened the email. They won half the battle.

Obviously, cueing on non-relevant news stories to push your products is not the way to get the right attention. But, being adaptable enough to contribute to relevant conversations is the right way to engage with your core demographic.

Be Personal

It’s ironic that I’ve seen more spam emails use my first name than I have from PR companies and others that send out mass emails. My first name is in my email address. If what ultimately amounts to a computer program can take the time to figure out my first and last name, why don’t some people who I know have genuine interest in learning about my business practices? Simply addressing someone personally in an email conversation is an attention getter and a practice that is often left out by many PR and Marketing pro’s for the sake of time and effort. Again – if spammers can figure out a way to do it, why can’t you?

Build Trust

While you would never associate trust with spammers, it’s often a key ingredient to their manipulation of the web. Without going into too much detail on spam practices, spammers often hack or create pages on trusted domains in order to set up a formula to create great SEO for their spam pages. What this shows that, even in the seedy underbelly of the internet, trust is important.

The best way to build trust is to be honest and earnest in your endeavors. You don’t have to take my word for it – Chris Brogan and Julien Smith wrote a great book on Trust. Trust is the currency that powers the Internet – knowing this will help any brand endeavors.

Have any other lessons you learned from unlikely sources? I’d love to have you share them in the comments!