I have spent a great deal of my working life involved with advertising online. I guess that online advertising includes the ability to mass-market by e-mail.
I have no problems with legitimate, professional marketing from reputable companies. For years I’ve never objected to direct postal correspondence – to a certain extent I don’t mind opening junk mail. Occasionally, very occasionally, it’s quite interesting (even if I am just trying to work out how the hell I got on the mailing list).
So, e-mail direct marketing is OK. I don’t mind getting the odd circular or if people I’ve encountered before in an online environment send me mail. I don’t mind those lists that I have signed up to. But, like many people I abhor spam. I use mailwasher to delete spam before it reaches my inbox and have always felt this is the best way of dealing with it. I am careful which e-mail addresses get out and have a couple of e-mail aliases which are just used on mailing lists etc. and therefore the spam does not collect in my most oft-used mailboxes.
Today, however, I noticed my work e-mail address is suddenly getting clogged with spam. Now I rarely sign-up to anything with work e-mail addresses (and they are only professional newsletters if I do). But I’ve only been at this e-mail address for a month and haven’t signed up for any lists at all yet. In fact, so few people know I am on this new e-mail address that I wouldn’t have thought it possible to be signed up to anything. Regardless, all this morning’s e-mail in my office e-mail account was spam. Every one. This is the first time that has happened to me at work. What would it say about my life if I responded to this motley collection of marketing messages:
- Do you have problems with your septic tank
- GET OUT OF *-DEBT-* TODAY
- Hundreds of Lenders… WILL COMPETE For Your Loan!
- SIZE AND STAMINA DO MATTER
- Reduce the amount of sleep you need
- The Truth About Gold And Silver
- F*r*ee s*e*x on the web
- Helping You Get A MOrtgage Loan
- If you’re interested in *eliminating* up to 100% of your unsecured credit card debt, read the rest
- Do you want for a prosperous future, increased money earning power, and the respect of all?
- If you want to see a SERIOUS Opportunity then you need to check this out
Honestly, it should be fascinating. It really should. And every single one appeared to be from a US-based company targeting US consumers. I really wanted to reply to the lot explaining how they ware wasting their time but you know what that will result in!
