You think it’s just a simple
click of the button but the buggers have set it up to ensure that you stay
connected until they’re ready to let you go.
I’ve learnt that unsubscribing
from unsolicited email services and newsletters takes, on average, at least
three clicks. And just when I think I’ve nailed the unwelcome intruder, even
after “they’ve” sent me a mail confirming that I’ve been unsubscribed, the very
next day I’ll get another email offering me the latest gizmo or
get-rich-quick-scheme.
For many years, Reader’s Digest
magazine made a virtue of direct marketing using free gift trial offers sent to
you through the post. The free gifts made you believe that somebody was really
thinking of you. Trying to return the cloying gift at the local post office was
another matter entirely.
“Spam” seems a way too innocuous-sounding word
for the maximum frustration caused by those who invade one’s email inbox, ala
Digest, to market their businesses directly.
Some email updates, I concede, I
elected to receive years ago when I had some obscure interest in those activities.
But I’ve grown on since then.
Others were clearly
recommendations (read: sales leads) from someone who claims to be a friend and
who hopes to secure X number of loyalty points for including my email details.
Or from my internet service provider, who have their own commercial reasons for
distributing addresses.
In my inbox currently is an
alert from Women’s Health telling the in-shape modern woman how to keep all her
bits firm and in place. Often, there’s something about “how to keep him
interested”, which amounts to keeping all the bits firm and in place or “how to
interview for a job”, which somehow also relates to bits being firm and in
place.
I have deleted missives from
Homemark, FedEx, Imagine Cruising, Johannesburg Stock Exchange, Brian Williams,
Kishore, Groupon, and a string of lenders.
I get a newsletter of karaoke
playlists, another on EC news (usually two-week old articles from local
papers), mails on courses from project management, through to photography and
marketing.
I have offers to work from home
– the online equivalent of putting your spit on envelopes. And political
parties think they’ll get my vote by dumping weekly garbage on me.
I get invited to enjoy freebies
including Apple technology launches – pity they didn’t throw in a free flight
to the event in northern California ;
that would have been a great email deal.
There was the company selling
new skins for laptops. Bizarrely, this mailing was actually useful as, just a
couple of weeks earlier, a loved one had asked if I knew how to replace the
Barbie glossy pink lid of her laptop, without trawling church fetes for crocheted
laptop covers in vibey colours.
On Fridays, I get a long list of
weekend show houses from estate agents with whom I’ve had the slightest cursory
contact over the years, some of whom object when I spam them back.
Yes, I know there are ways of
restricting access to your inbox, blocking mails from certain addresses or
hiding unwanted mail so that you don’t “see” them. But there is always the
danger that some important mail ends up being hidden by your internet service’s
spam blockers.
The modern, online version of
returning your free Digest gift at the post office is the “opt out” button
which often means having to answer questions on why you’re leaving, hence the
average three clicks to unsubscribe.
There’s seldom a tick box for
“Because I’m flippin peeved off with all the rubbish you push through my
mailbox and, by the way, I never asked you to mail me in the first place!” – RAY HARTLE
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