Laura Betterly
Laura Betterly | |
|---|---|
 Betterly in 2024 | |
| Born | 1961 |
| Citizenship | American |
| Education | High School |
| Occupation | Entrepreneur |
| Known for | Featured on the front page of the Wall Street Journal for distributing high volumes of commercial emails. |
| Website | laurabetterly |
Laura Betterly, also referred to as Laura Betterly-Blom, is an American businesswoman and founder of Data Resource Consulting. She gained widespread attention in the early 2000s for her extensive use of commercial email marketing, once humorously dubbing herself the "Spam Queen" during an interview with a Wall Street Journal journalist.[1]
Personal life
Born and raised in Long Island, New York, Betterly resided there until 1995 before relocating to Clearwater, Florida, where she currently lives. Since 2002, she has been married to Steven Blom, who serves as an officer within her company. From her previous marriage, she has two sons named Chris and Craig.[2]
Career
Prior to founding Data Resource Consulting, Betterly held the position of president and co-founder at Visiosonic, which later operated under the name PCDJ.COM, a company specializing in mp3 music.[3] Throughout her career, she collaborated with notable figures such as Ice T,[4] Nile Rodgers, Jam Master Jay, and Chaka Khan.[2] She has also been invited as a keynote speaker at prominent industry events including the Consumer Electronics Show[5] and the Winter Music Conference.[6]
Bulk email or unsolicited messaging
At Data Resource Consulting, the company routinely dispatched between 8 and 10 million emails each day, billing clients between $600 and $1,000 per million emails sent, with roughly half that fee applied for any repeat mailings. Additionally, clients were charged for responses generated from leads obtained through these emails. Unlike many other bulk mailers, Betterly maintained that she never falsified email headers, nor did she route messages through unauthorized external servers or employ other controversial tactics often associated with spammers. She also declined to send advertisements promoting adult products or services, as well as anything she considered illegal. According to Betterly, her mailing lists consisted solely of individuals who had opted in by signing up for other online services, and she committed to honoring all unsubscribe requests from recipients.
It is estimated that her annual income from this operation was at least US$200,000. She described her work as "just trying to make a living like everyone else." Betterly openly criticized those who opposed her methods, stating, "I have a beef against what I consider hate groups that are trying to shut down commercial e-mail," and characterized her business as "a win-win situation." When confronted by detractors of her profession, she responded bluntly, "I don't really care. As long as I'm not breaking any laws, you don't have to love me or like what I do for a living."
On 9 September 2003, Data Resource Consulting was found liable in a small claims court in Kansas for violating the state's anti-spam legislation.
Shift in business approach
In September 2005, Betterly and Bob Cefail, chairman of her corporation, terminated their relationship with a Clearwater, Florida radio station that aired her show "The Profit Doctors" after the station management discontinued the toll-free call-in number for listeners. The following year, they resumed broadcasting on the same station with a new program titled Scooopradio.
Betterly took her company, In Touch Media Group, public and announced her withdrawal from the bulk commercial email industry on 10 October 2005. She referred to spam as "a four-letter word" and commented that mass emailing had declined into "a bunch of unprofessional, ineffective scams" due to its tarnished reputation. She also sought to distance herself from earlier pro-spam remarks made in media interviews by stating, "I have never advocated spam or sending spam."
She emphasized the difference between spam and targeted commercial email. Her company was among the pioneers certified by Google for pay-per-click advertising.
Despite raising over $1 million in additional funding for growth—as disclosed in their 8-K filing with the SEC—In Touch Media Group incurred losses exceeding $2 million. Ultimately, the company ceased operations in 2007.
Recent activity
Since 2007, Betterly has been at the helm of Yada Yada Marketing, a specialized marketing agency, while also maintaining an active role as a speaker at various industry conferences and events.
She has built a strong reputation within the digital marketing arena through her development of educational programs such as Mobile Local Fusion, Local Agency Startup, and Traffic Genesis.
Further highlighting her entrepreneurial spirit, Betterly founded CLOSEM.AI, a software enterprise which she later sold. Over the past two years, she has broadened her expertise to encompass artificial intelligence applications for business, offering both training and consulting services. This evolution culminated in the creation of her latest initiative, Yada Yada AI.
External links
References
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- ↑ "Yahoo Finance – Stock Market Live, Quotes, Business & Finance News".
- ↑ DigitalHollywood
- ↑ Winter Music Conference – WMC Home