At checkout, I was asked my email address. I was distracted (not difficult to do) and without thinking overly much about it, I gave it to them.
I was not told why they wanted my email address, nor was I asked if I wanted to sign up for their newsletter.
Here is a screen shot showing the unsolicited emails from Sur La Table from Sept 10 - Sept 17 of this year.
I don't know about you, but I consider this obscene. On what planet would a company seriously think I could ever be interested in reading 2-3 emails from them each day?
Do I blame Sur La Table entirely for overloading my email inbox? No. After all, I am the one that stupidly responded to the question asking for my email address. I'm used to checkouts asking for my zip code (which makes more sense) and I just wasn't thinking too much about what they were asking for. My bad.
That being said, 17 emails in 8 days is overkill.
So what's my point?
My point is, they lost an interested party. I had to unsubscribe and/or set up a filter so these all bypass the inbox from here on out.
This means I will never see a Sur La Table newsletter. Had they sent one a month, or even one a week, I probably would actually read it. I'd still be a bit miffed that I never opted in to receiving their newsletter, but that seems like SOP for a lot of businesses these days.
So having been on the receiving end of "this is too much!!!"... fellow artists, my advice in regards to newsletter is:
- Make sure your list consists of people who requested to be on your mailing list
- Don't send too many newsletters to your mailing list
I send out one email per month (btw, if you want to sign up for it, here's the link). I try to make it short and to the point and I try to put something interesting in it.
Do you send a newsletter to your customers? Do you receive and read/enjoy any particular newsletters? What's your experience on the subject?
