Slightly Askew

A Marketer Calls

Tuesday, May 6th, 2008

You’re just about to sit down for dinner when the doorbell goes.

Ding-dong.

Hello Sir, you don’t mind if I come in, do you?  Brilliant, I’ll just take a seat here for a few moments.  Yeah, I’d love a cup of tea.  Milk, two sugars, not too strong.

So, anyway, I thought you might be interested in buying one of these wonderful new t-shirts that we’ve designed.  It’s got a hilarious strapline about saving water by drinking beer on the front.  You’ll love it.  Comes in four different colours.  If you buy it today, we’ll give you one-third off.  Yes, that’s right, one-third off.

And that’s about all.  Don’t worry about the tea, you’re too slow.  I’ll see myself out.  Thanks for listening.

Oh and if you didn’t want to hear from me, you should have unchecked a small box on our website when you enquired about a t-shirt a few weeks ago.

Would you even contemplate visiting that website again, let alone buy their product or service?  Of course you wouldn’t.

So why does your business send people emails that they didn’t ask for?  That they were just too lazy to opt-out of?  What does that say about your company?

It says you’re desperate and you’re scared.

Opt-in, on the other hand, says you’re confident that you’ve got something to offer that’s worth reading.

So which one are you?