spammers top the list of creative email marketers

When it comes to new approaches at email marketing, let's face it...
Spammers take the cake. Hands down - no question.

From no other company will I received unique rainbow colored, word ciphered messages with letters replaced by numbers and - S P A C E D - out product descriptions (to thwart email spam filters). While it is frustrating to wade through at times (to say the least), from a visual perspective I have to admit that it is somewhat creative. I also find the dummy text (lorem ipsum, anyone?) that they sometimes include to be absolutely bizarre. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that I appreciate receiving email after email about overnight college degrees, penis enlargement, Viagra, faux Rolex watches, or Hydroxycut. I'm just saying that I find it interesting that spammers are the only companies to use these silly visual techniques to try and rope in customers.

And who is clicking on these emails? Who in their right mind would assume that it is safe to follow a link on an email that replaces the letter "e" with the number "3"? Therein lies the answer as to why regular companies don't use these same marketing techniques in their valid email campaigns - if it looks like spam, even if it isn't, it will probably get ignored. Some of these scams even try to address the receiver by name, as in: "John, I just had to share this breakthrough product with you!" I suppose that if they are sending out several million of these emails at a time, there's a chance that some of the recipients will be named John, right?

These types of emails must be working for someone, at least for a minute fraction of the time. Otherwise, wouldn't we see an end to them? Or has spam become the new B2B joke, where successful profiteers create landing pages and late night paid-for-TV programs to convince others that they can make a killing in the email marketing business by buying an e-book, lists of email addresses, or mailing software from a certain self-proclaimed industry "expert" (who never made any money himself, but is now rich because he can convince you that he has)?