The e-mail came in like hundreds of others. I read it, thought about it and took the e-mailer up on their offer to unsubscribe. Frankly, I was upset that I ended up on the e-mail list. I never asked to be. And while it tried to come across as humble, real and authentic—it just didn’t really do it for me. It took time out of my day that’s valuable to me. I felt inconvenienced to have to go through the unsubscribe effort, though strangely satisfied after it took.
The reality is that most marketing is unremarkable. It’s an annoyance. An inconvenience. A reminder that I’m just another cog to serve the benefit of the individual, brand, or company who wants me to do something for them.
It doesn’t have to be. Make a connection. Make it real. And I’ll pay attention. It’s hard work and difficult to scale. But it’s more difficult to unsubscribe from a relationship. And that’s the bottom line.
Image source: nickwheeleroz
Original Post: http://darmano.typepad.com/logic_emotion/2010/08/marketing.html
