My inbox regularly receives emails from people I don’t know, soliciting me for things I don’t want. We’re all used to marketing emails, which Gmail helpfully segregates in its “Promotions” tab. But marketers know that they’ll get a greater response if they can get into your primary tab, so they’ve designed “personalized” emails that are…
I recently received this email (some words redacted): Hey Josh, I hope you’re doing well! About this time last year, we started to put together our very first [redacted] Summit, and we knew when 200 experts and speakers responded to our call to participate, we had something special. That said, it still blew our expectations…
I was astounded to read a Twitter thread from a go-getter named John Plumstead, who harassed 58,408 people to get one or two deals. He can do this because there is no cost to harassing people. Let’s change that. Plumstead’s business is finding property owners in financial distress and buying their properties for less than…
I get dozens of emails every week from people who want to post shit on my site — despite the fact that I have never posted an unsolicited article. They don’t benefit my readers and they annoy me, so I’ve declared war on them. Here are some samples: Hi there, I know you’re swamped, so…
I was surprised to get a promotional message in my doctor’s patient portal, mislabelled as “New Information in Your Chart.” It made me think about marketing, what it is, and where it belongs. Here’s how it looked: I like my doctor and I like my doctor’s practice, which I think is doing excellent work. I’m…
We tax things that are bad for society, like tobacco, alcohol, and gambling. Unfettered, undifferentiated internet advertising and marketing impressions are bad for our souls. Let’s tax them, too. Spam. Clutter. Noise. There is just too much of it. Raise your hand if your inbox is full of stupid, pointless, and undifferentiated offers. Say “aye”…
One company has proven itself up to the task of indiscriminately bombarding me with irrelevant and really awful press releases — Meltwater Press. Today, I ridicule them and their credulous clients. I’ve been conducting a science experiment. When I started this blog, I also created a new email address. I never use it to sign up for…
Blogging is wonderful. People all over the world have shared their perspectives with me. While many of my blog commenters are apparently not native speakers of English, I find their idiom delightful, almost poetic. I had to reject 1,077 comments on this blog. But so you won’t miss out, I present here the most poetic excerpts from…
Why are you still doing press releases? And why are they so awful? In 20 years as an analyst, I received 10,000 press releases. I acted on four of them. But PR pros still craft releases and send them to wire services to clutter up everybody’s inboxes. They’re not just poorly read but poorly written, like this delete-provoking…