photo credit: christopherdale
Opt-in is all the rage. Seth Godin says don’t interrupt your viewers, get their permission and you will have a dedicated channel. The major problem with permission marketing is, most of the time, you don’t actually have my permission.
I get e-mails from Target, TicketsWest, Wild Ginger Restaurant in Seattle and Wrrl because they not only ignored my initial subscription choices, but they also ignored subsequent opt-outs.
Excerpt of e-mail from Whrrl:
Hi Carlos,
It’s come to my attention that you had tried to turn off your notification settings
That about sums up many companies attitude toward “permission marketing” — that I need their permission to leave. That is bull. When I say NO notification I mean it, it is not a suggestion. I didn’t ask for notification, it was auto-checked on all registrations. I didn’t ask to get your new newsletter you ignored my subscription settings and sent it out just in case I changed my mind, that is not permission marketing that is SPAM. Today I even received a spam e-mail form an online acquaintance to ask if I want to be on his mailing list? No, but thank you for the personalized mailing.
Companies that auto-opt-in new users and customers are not following the spirit of opt-in. If you have a check box do not recheck it at every step in the process, and don’t change the settings on my account when you update your site.
I didn’t care the first time and I certainly don’t care now.
Tags: 4 Comments
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4 responses so far ↓
Hi there. im into creative work and liked two sections in your blog. one was ‘offline marketing’ and one was ‘design’ and I would like to link to you and talk further about your work if thats ok?
Also i would like you to check out my creative seo site if you have time…
Um…wow. Is that ^ a joke? It’s humorous considering the topic of this post.
Anyway, I agree solidly with this. Nothing burns a brand worse in my mind than when they continue to send me their garbage even after I’ve specifically requested that they don’t. What gives? Don’t their marketing departments realize that while, yes, email marketing to existing customers still brings in the best ROI, when you force your foot in the door and then knock again when you’ve been asked to leave you’re doing yourself more harm than good?
I do find the first comments very funny. I had to strip a link that he was trying to pass.