Spam is defined by ethical marketers as unsolicited commercial email. Unless you’ve opted in to receive it, it’s spam.

Which is why I find it interesting that so many marketers participating in ad:tech New York also participate in spamming.

“I understand that you will be attending ad:tech and would love to schedule a meeting with executives from Accipiter.”

“I noticed you’ll be at the upcoming ad:tech New York show, November 6-8 and thought it would be a perfect opportunity to have you speak with the president and CMO of MIVA.”

“I’m writing to follow up and see if you’d be interested in scheduling a time to meet with Allan Levy, CEO of SilverCarrot.”

“Are you still planning to attend the ad:tech NYC show? If so, I thought you may be interested in speaking with the folks from Think Partnership.”

And on and on and on. I have 521 unread items in my Inbox that I need to address. I have to think that many ad:tech attendees are similarly swamped. There are nearly 300 exhibitors at ad:tech, and it seems like all of them are targeting my Inbox … without my having said, “fine, contact me before the show.”

The ones who don’t are the ones for whom I’ll feel a little more affinity when I hit the exhibitor floor.

Takeaway for marketers: Spamming is spamming, whether it’s spamming customers, potential customers, or potential business associates. The rules in the B-to-B world should be the same as in the B-to-C world.

OCTOBER 31 UPDATE: Stop calling me, too!

The other day, USA Today had a pretty good article that was sort of a high-level State of the Union of advertising. The pithy summary comes via Max Kalehoff of Nielsen BuzzMetrics: “The more consumers ignore ads, the more ads marketers spew back at them.”

Takeaway for marketers: Don’t interrupt. Engage.

AdAge recently posted an interesting article about survey fatigue (registration required; sorry), on the heels of CRM Magazine saying that most companies (71 percent) don’t even bother to act on the information they gather in their surveys.

Takeaway for marketers: Want your customers’ opinions? Make it worth their while so you get valuable feedback. And if you’re going to go through all the time and trouble to get that feedback, pay attention to it.

I’m a little late in linking to this, but this eMarketer article from about two weeks ago has some interesting information for anyone who is marketing to kids online:

According to parents, the Internet poses far and away the number-one risk to kids of any media, more than six times that of television.

Also according to parents, the Internet poses far and away the greatest opportunity to kids for learning and growth, more than seven times that of magazines and more than nine times that of television.

Contradictory data? Hardly. I think it shows a lot of common sense: We parents want our kids to be smart with technology, we want our kids to know how to navigate the online world, but we don’t want anyone taking advantage of them.

Takeaway for marketers: Treat kids with respect. Earn the trust of their parents and never betray that trust. It’s that simple … and that difficult.

If you’re a little bit handy and you don’t feel like allowing those pretentious people at the Apple Store’s “Genius Bar” to ship your iPod to parts unknown for a battery replacement, you can do it yourself with one ordered from Kokopelli Music.

When I received my nano battery the other day, I also received a pleasant surprise: a square of Ghirardelli dark chocolate with white mint filling. Nice touch.

It’s not necessary that the hotel puts a mint or two on your pillow, but you always feel just a little bit better when they do, don’t you? What a great simple idea that a mail order company takes a page from the Ritz Carlton playbook.

Takeaway for marketers: There are many, many places where your company touches your customers. Are you taking advantage of every opportunity at every touchpoint to make them feel just a little bit better?