This is just a short about section where you can describe yourself and your site. You'll want to keep it fairly long because there are some layout issues that arise if the area is below a certain width.

When email marketing goes bad - Diplo Magazine

What is the point of email marketing? A few possible answers to that question should be:
1. Attract new customers to your product or service.
2. Notify existing customers of a new offer
3. Increase brand awareness.
Ideally you don’t want to be driving customers away however it seems not everyone agrees. Diplo Magazine in the UK have an interesting approach.

Today my email gets clogged up trying to download a hefty 15mb attachment. Turns out it is a subscription offer for the monthly current affairs magazine Diplo Magazine (dont bother clicking, its badly done flash with white text on black and a forum full of spam) from one Charles BAKER.

Quote:

Dear All

There is still time to take out a Christmas subscription to Diplo Magazine, the monthly current affairs magazine.
There are still three days to go to claim the special Christmas subscription rate of 12 issue for £20. Just e-mail the Publisher to qualify.

With best wishes

Yours
Charles BAKER
Publisher, Diplo Magazine

Never heard of it. I am not impressed so far, I don’t believe I have ever expressed an interest in current affairs and they lifted the email address from spoilt.ie which is not exactly political.
But wait, the attachment. It looks like it is a sample of the magazine. It makes sense to show me a sample of the magazine I have never heard of if they want me to buy. I like magazines so maybe this spam is not all bad. But no. The 15mb attached PDF file is actually just the cover page. Its a 15mb image of a city rooftop with a few generic article titles. I even have to look sideways to read it.
So I am pissed now. But still I try and do the guy a favour. He is obviously trying to bring in a bit of extra money before Christmas.
I felt I was quite reasonable in my reply but realise email in open for miscommunication of tone.

Quote:

Hi Charles, I appreciate you are trying to advertise your magazine but sending a 15mb that I never asked for and clogs up my email for 30 mins as it tries to download only succeeds in pissing me off. Then to find it is nothing but a worthless cover that tell me nothing about the content and quality(?) of the magazine just aggravates the situation. Perhaps you should find a way to attract readers instead of driving them away. Please do not send me spam again or if you do at lease make it worthwhile so I can overlook the spamming.

And what does he reply with?

Quote:

It does sound rather that the name of the company reflects you. Will take you off the list.


Followed by

Quote:

Don’t have time for this. Please stop e-mailing me.

Hey, who started this conversation?
It is inspiring to see a business success in the making.

Two great related sites worth checking if you have not already are Seth Godin and Church of the Customer.

| | 11/12/06 11:21 AM

  1. Shocking! What a sh*thead!? God love his dial-up “subscribers”.


    — Eoghan McCabe    Dec 11, 01:44 PM    #

  2. priceless, it reminds me of this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JYIXzfhel8


    — Paul O Mahony    Dec 15, 08:51 AM    #