I am sure like me, that you get a large number of emails that come from people who think you need to be cheered up. These emails will contain that latest joke, urban myth or funny picture and most likely will contain a huge amount of garbage text where they have been forwarded at least 3 or 4 times.
Most of the time, it's ok because you know the people who are sending these emails to you and because of your relationship with them, they have your permission (implied or otherwise) to send you this stuff. But what happens when a company sends you one of these things? This very thing happened to me just a couple of days ago and I was really quite surprised and left feeling somewhat abused by this uninvited extension of a purely business oriented relationship.
I know that I have given these folks my email address and I did agree to receive the occasional email from them, in fact, I really DO want to know about their new products in this area. But surely these emails should have to be related to their products and not the latest mix of funny urban myths? Or is it that, because I am interested in VoIP telephony, I must have with no life and thus need some comic relief?
Seth Godin writes about this sort of thing a lot and has a name calls this style of communication Permission Marketing and writes here about something similar he experienced with Amazon, i.e. I have given these folks permission to send me their latest marketing information. But this appears to be that permission marketing idea taken way too far.
I have written to these folks to see if I can get a response...I will let you know what they say.
Update: I got a nice note from Erin today who noted that I got this email by mistake. Apparently they have a 'tom' in the shipping department...anyway, my trust has been restored in the system over there.
Here is the first few segments of the email:
Time once again to review the winners of the Annual "Stella Awards". The Stella Awards are named after 81 year-old Stella Liebeck who spilled hot coffee on herself and successfully sued McDonald's USA. That case inspired the Stella Awards for the most frivolous, ridiculous, successful lawsuits in the United States.
Here are this year's winners from 5th to 1st place:
5th Place (tie): Kathleen Robertson of Austin, TX, was awarded $80,000 by a jury of her peers after breaking her ankle tripping over a toddler who was running inside a furniture store. The owners of the store were understandably surprised at the verdict, considering the misbehaving little toddler was Ms. Robertson's son.
5th Place (tie): 19-year-old Carl Truman...
You get the general idea.
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