Abusing the Inbox

I do a lot of unsubscribing these days.

But I don't do it lightly.

As a marketer, I understand and appreciate the value of consistent messaging. A strong brand is all about consistency, and showing up regularly with high-quality content is important if the goal is to be top-of-mind when a potential customer is ready to buy.*

As someone who publishes a weekly newsletter, I also understand the need to keep connected with your audience. If I were to go months without publishing any new content, they would likely see my name in their inbox, forget who I am or that they chose to sign up for dpThoughts at some point, and decide to unsubscribe.

But when brands believe a customer who provides them with an email address for a specific reason has granted them unrestricted access to an inbox, they're making a critical error.

Like Old Navy. Their cashiers ask for your email address at checkout in a way that makes it seem like not providing one isn't an option, then the company uses your email to send you emails multiple times a day. Asking for my email to access my account and log my purchase is perfectly acceptable. But I didn't agree to multiple promotional emails that followed, and making me opt out of something I never opted in to in the first place is wrong. Worse, these emails are often generic and don't use the information the company has on me to personalize their offers: after I buy three black men's T-shirts from you, why would you send me an email promoting women's summer dresses? Unsubscribe.

And like Harvey's. They asked for my email in exchange for free Frings and a promise that I would "get emails you actually care about" (their words), only to send me emails I do not care about. Like the one below, for instance. I already know that Harvey's is all about customization: that's the reason I go there in the first place. I understand why they might want to remind me of this, but this communication is all about them, and has no value to me. Unsubscribe... until the next time I want free Frings, then I might return for a brief while.

And that's any small business, founder, or consultant who decides it's a good idea to add my email to their newsletter list, without my ever agreeing to be on that list, just because we had an email interaction about something entirely unrelated to said newsletter. This happens all too often, and if you do this, you need to understand that the temporary increase in your subscriber numbers will never make up for the permanent loss of trust.

I receive several hundred emails every single day. Managing my inbox so that I can quickly reply to the people I need to answer and absorb the information I need to receive is a constant challenge. And I don't need brands making that worse by sending me emails that only serve to benefit them.

Personalized, value-based emails can be effective marketing that drives awareness, sales, and brand loyalty when executed properly.

But abusing a customer's inbox has a predictable, almost inevitable outcome.

And it's not customers that think, "This is a place I want to continue to support."

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* The key words here are "high-quality content". While content is subjective and not everybody will appreciate everything I write, I usually spend considerable effort on what I choose to publish, and do my best never to "phone it in" on days I'd rather not be writing.