NOTE: This story has been updated several times, including the exciting appointment of a professional marketer, see below.
Dear 'Emily'
A lesson in email marketing
If you buy a list, or have someone get one for you, you need to make sure that when you send the email, there really is the opportunity to unsubscribe, particularly when it is not relevant. In your case, I have unsubscribed several times, and even written a few nasty letters.
What is the point of marketing to me when I have expressly asked you not to?
Do you think I will change my mind when I'm a little bit more irritated when you email me again next week?
If your copy in your email was even remotely true, then you would have been trying to get hold of me on my 03 telephone number, and then you would know why there really isn't any point in continuing to market to me (for those of you reading, just glance at the top right corner of the web page). * update - at the time of spamming I actually had a 03 number for my business.
And please, please, make sure that your unsubscribe function actually works - not only when I push the button to, but continuously, each time you try to reload my data to your list. And while we are on the subject, make sure that whoever you are using to make your list actually has a proper process of removing those who have previously (repeatedly) removed themselves from your email list.
I'm not interested. I'm so not interested that I have made a point of telling everyone how not interested I am. Even if there could be an opportunity to do business in the future, all I will remember is that you don't listen when I hear your name again.
Thanks for indulging my rant.**Update: The very next day after this post was published, I received yet another email from them selling me an 0845 number. I thought that was very funny. It would have been even more amusing if they had purposefully done it, following this post. Even more hysterically, here we are about 2 weeks later, and of course, I have yet another email from them, despite unsubscribing (well it must be at least 7 times now). What absolutely astounds me is the links to the likes of Ofcom, using the Thomson Local email list, and yet, absolutely nobody is capable of making sure their process actually works. If you happen to be getting spam from this company, make a comment if you like, sooner or later, someone may actually notice in their Google results that unsubscribe just isn't working. Assuming they care of course. The lesson here, of course, is that they could be a perfectly nice company, but I'm using them as an example, because it really, really annoys people when they tell you they don't want to be marketed to and you don't listen. I can never view them objectively, because they have irritated me to such a degree to begin with, and I'll never hesitate to comment on it to anyone who asks.
***Update update update.Following the posting of this is 2011, I received a new comment from Phil below, June 2015. I found it very funny, because just last week, I had received email from Windsor-Telecom selling me numbers. Oh dear oh dear, still not understanding unsubscribe all these years later. I bet their customers LOVE them.
**** (old) NEWWent back to check email and found to my delight THERE IS AN UNSUBSCRIBE NOW. I pressed it and recorded it in pic above. Also, I discovered that they had been emailing me (in Spam folder) since 2011, when this was first written. I will get round to writing that post on 'successful spamming techniques we can all use', one of these days. They have been using FAO with someone's name all this time, and I hadn't noticed.
Just to be clear, Windsor-Telecom, when I unsubscribe, I mean from you as a company, not just the made up person's name you are using on that email. Sigh.
****NEW NEWLet it never be said that I don't enjoy a good story, and it seems this one may have a happy ending. I received an email from the newly appointed marketing manager at Windsor Telecom, who had not only found and read this saga of a blog post and its comments (which means already you've won, Windsor Telecom, by appointing a professional marketer!) but had the good sense to email me in November. I'm sure that you have at least doubled your effective leads by now, Daniel, and hopefully Windsor Telecom will be well on the way to success, having freed themselves from that dead spam end. I am always a fan of turning a negative into a positive, and it speaks volumes that you've responded and considered the complaint. Complaints, after all, can actually be your customer's attempt to help you to do better. Companies that do something to make things better are the better ones to do business with.
Yep this company and Peninsular Group are repeat spam merchants who just ignore unsubscribe requests. It’s very unfortunate that unless they identify your full name in your email address there is nothing the ICO can do about companies like this.
I personally would like to see a change in law to stop this from happening but I suspect nothing will happen.
Thanks for commenting Alistair. I think there is a big upswing in companies that are harvesting emails and selling them to businesses trying to acquire customers. I suspect the only way this will change is when there is no money to be made. Again, who is buying services and products from unsolicited email? Or are the companies harvesting the emails getting away with it because their customers don’t know any better? Stop buying unsolicited data! I’d love to hear from someone who actually signed up from one of those emails and has had a nice experience.
Good luck with your spam, Alistair. If it’s any consolation, I haven’t received one since March this year, so sometimes I get a breather from being spammed by Windsor-Telecom. Other times, I get to add to this blog post.
GOod old Windsor Telecom spammed me yesterday (24 June 2015).
They hit my personal email address – not even my business email address, so totally irrelevant.
How did they get my address? No idea. However the idiots managed to spell my surname incorrectly. So to add insult to injury they spammed me (totally unsolicited) and got my back up by being incapable of spelling my name correctly!
As I am an IT manager for a large global business with over 60000 employees worldwide they’ve just shot themselves in the foot as I’ve added them to our blacklist of bad suppliers (which contains bad debtors, spammers, criminals, poor quality suppliers, etc).
Of course, no one at Windsor telecom had the decency to reply to my email that I sent back to them!
If this is BEFORE sales service, you only want to guess what their after sales service is like!!
Dear Phil
Oh how your comment made me laugh. Thank you for taking the time. I wonder how many there are of us, professionals, googling ridiculous direct unsolicited emailing culprits.
It does beg the question, how are they still managing to get emails delivered when they are being blacklisted? That is some serious email voodoo magic.
The marketer is me is dying to know the stats – there must be money at the end of this or they wouldn’t do it.
Have a great day.
BD