Enough/Stop the Inane Freebies for My E-mail Address!
The offer appears wonderful and promises to give me information I can't get elsewhere to help with my life, my career or my anything else, but that's not true.
Day in and day out, my too-full e-mail inbox carries several of those tempting “gems” that promise to make my life fuller, my happiness rise, my career efforts zoom, or my money increase to bloat size. None of it proves to be true until I have given this marketing fishing trip what they want—my e-mail address.
Once I receive their oh-so-easily-available nothingburger, the game begins. Now that they have that little nugget of platinum, it’s anything goes time, and they can rent or sell it to someone and use it to enhance their website/platform/product. And what did I get? Right. I got something I could have gotten anywhere on the internet without forking over a piece of me.
How many times have you fallen for this ploy? I admit I’ve done it several times, and each “book” or pamphlet or another bit of valuable information has been almost useless. Today’s tasty offering promised to help me declutter my mind.
Being a psychologist, I was curious regarding what they were offering in that decluttering and who was the person responsible for writing it. Guess what. It’s nothing more than 14 pages of a book summary and is a pitch for me to buy it. Sorry, guys, I think this type of clickbait is unacceptable and sneaky. Where’s the value in telling me to buy a book? Oh, right, you gave some teaser suggestions.
This one was written by a coach of some type, and an author of books that he says are bestsellers. The information is accessible on too many websites; meditation, relaxation breathing, setting goals, distracting yourself—you know the drill. I wonder if they include References in the back of this little wonder. I’m sure they didn’t, just as one major TV superstar doesn’t have one in his books.
Well, these offers are in the category of Suzy Homemaker Makes Good at Life, and if you find that objectionable, you should. I would if I were a person looking for help.
Perhaps I shouldn’t be too harsh here. I should be more sophisticated than to know to fall for this type of gimmick. But isn’t that what all the other “experts” on marketing and “increasing your e-mail mailing list” are telling people to do—offer something free? But shouldn’t free have more meat on it?
I wonder what David Ogilvy would have done in this case. I’ll bet he’d have given a bit of steak with this offer. Maybe a free lesson on something, an interactive video, a short quiz as an inducement. Yes, even a discount on a course.
Now, I will go through the daily process of getting all these unwanted e-mail solicitations and going to the bottom of them, and hitting “unsubscribe.” But that won’t be the end of it because they will have shared my information with others so that the activity will go on and on and on. My spam folder will bulge daily, but I will persist in unsubscribing.
Beware of the freebies is my final word today for you.
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