Comments on: Consent does not mean confusing your recipients http://blog.wordtothewise.com/2007/10/consent-does-not-mean-confusing-your-recipients/ Spam, delivery, email and more Fri, 21 Nov 2008 12:34:34 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 By: Eaglehawk http://blog.wordtothewise.com/2007/10/consent-does-not-mean-confusing-your-recipients/#comment-157 Eaglehawk Thu, 25 Oct 2007 13:55:57 +0000 http://blog.wordtothewise.com/index.php/2007/10/22/consent-does-not-mean-confusing-your-recipients/#comment-157 I can relate to Sprezzatura's comment, I worked at a big box store that sells home improvement stuff at low prices, they decided they wanted to get phone numbers to "track how far our customers traveled". So we were told that when we couldn't get a phone number to make up a random number in one of the 5 area codes in our area... It turned out I learned after I left the company that these numbers were used to solicit customers to purchase other things, or for credit offers. I can relate to Sprezzatura’s comment, I worked at a big box store that sells home improvement stuff at low prices, they decided they wanted to get phone numbers to “track how far our customers traveled”. So we were told that when we couldn’t get a phone number to make up a random number in one of the 5 area codes in our area… It turned out I learned after I left the company that these numbers were used to solicit customers to purchase other things, or for credit offers.

]]> By: Sprezzatura http://blog.wordtothewise.com/2007/10/consent-does-not-mean-confusing-your-recipients/#comment-136 Sprezzatura Tue, 23 Oct 2007 04:02:38 +0000 http://blog.wordtothewise.com/index.php/2007/10/22/consent-does-not-mean-confusing-your-recipients/#comment-136 True story: A mid-sized US retail chain decided they were going to do e-mail marketing. Since they had little previous Internet presence (or internal clue) they decided that the best way to build their e-mail list was to require all their retail outlets to ask customers to sign up for their e-mail list. The closing manager was to enter that day's addresses collected as part of the store closing ritual, and the number or email addresses collected became part of the package of statistics a store (and its manager) was judged on. Not surprisingly, most customers balked at giving up their e-mail addresses, but the pressure to keep up the number of addresses collected continued unabated from On High. Retail staff, more afraid of losing their jobs than of deliverability issues, started making up addresses, adding the same address multiple times, and even pulling email addresses off the Internet in order to get their numbers up. Moral of the story: you need to get your incentives aligned all the way down the line if you want a clean list. True story:

A mid-sized US retail chain decided they were going to do e-mail marketing. Since they had little previous Internet presence (or internal clue) they decided that the best way to build their e-mail list was to require all their retail outlets to ask customers to sign up for their e-mail list. The closing manager was to enter that day’s addresses collected as part of the store closing ritual, and the number or email addresses collected became part of the package of statistics a store (and its manager) was judged on.

Not surprisingly, most customers balked at giving up their e-mail addresses, but the pressure to keep up the number of addresses collected continued unabated from On High. Retail staff, more afraid of losing their jobs than of deliverability issues, started making up addresses, adding the same address multiple times, and even pulling email addresses off the Internet in order to get their numbers up.

Moral of the story: you need to get your incentives aligned all the way down the line if you want a clean list.

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