Does unsolicited e-mail actually work in promoting a product? You can't tell me that people actually open their e-mail to a pletora of inbox advertisements and actually think "Wow, those are some nice products. I might consider buying some of those."
Ever since I moved to New York, my e-mail address has been sold to one publicist after another. When one "Chris Ryan" managed to get my work e-mail to advertise some sort of gay event even though I'd never released that to anyone outside of work, I was baffled. Luckily, I happened to have been dating a guy who works in club promotion who said:
UGH Chris Ryan is the most notoriously annoying spam promoter in NYC.
He probably has a program that pulls email addresses associated with each other. So, if your work email has even been associated with this email address (for instance, if you have one email client forward emails to another email client) he can pull it and upload it to his database. But, he should have an unsubscribe option @ the bottom of his blasts (so he complies with the CAN-SPAM act). If he does not he can get in alot of trouble.
Turns out Chris Ryan DID comply with the CAN-SPAM Act, and I was unsubscribed with no problem. I haven't heard from him since.
So today when I got home, I checked my e-mail to find not one not two but THREE messages all in a row from the same girl advertising some stupid CD releases or something, I don't even know.
I was irritated. In fairness, having just walked 20 blocks from Bed, Bath... AND BEYOND with really heavy bags probably had something to do with my openness to irritation (a.k.a. irritability) but still, three messages?
I remembered the old fling's words and searched for an unsubscribe button, and there was none, so I irritatedly (remember?) replied with a short "I can't find an unsubscribe button. Please don't flood my inbox with crap."
But alas, it seems I hurt poor Gina-Marie's little feelings because she thinks I'm "rude". Pobrecita. :-( Isn't that sad?
Yeah, I guess I'm an asshole! Excuse me for expressing my annoyance at half-assed boring advertisements being thrown at me from every direction. If you're going to send me unsolicited e-mail, at least have the decency to make it look nice with a color or a picture or something. And while you're at it, don't send me unsolicited e-mail.
There's only one e-mail spam promotion agency that I don't unsubscribe to because their messages sometimes have hot guys in them.
Oh and by the way, People of New York, you can also stop shoving flyers and cards and shitty newspapers into my hands. The world has enough problems without you chopping down a rainforest to offer me cheap eyebrow threading or invite me to an after hours leather orgy in Brooklyn.