Email Blasting Themselves Into Oblivion

Client: “We got twenty-two sales from the first email blast you did, eight from the second, two from the third, and none from the fourth and fifth.”

Me: “Yeah, we’ve reached everybody we’re going to reach. We either need to start deep discounting or give this promotion up.”

Client: “What if you ran the promotion again?”

Me: “There would be no sales, and people would start unsubscribing from the mailing list. It’s time to move on.”

Client: “What if you removed the unsubscribe option?”

Me: “Well, then you would have no sales and also a lot of potential customers very angry with you. And you’d be breaking consumer protection law. This idea is a total bin fire.”

Client: “I see your point. Any other suggestions?”

Me: “Well, you’ve got a couple of new launches planned next year. We could start teasing them to keep people interested — unless you have any other special offers you’d like to run?”

There was radio silence for three weeks. Then, I received an email blast with the original offer, but not written by me, to an address I had never signed up with. And, twenty-four hours later, another identical one with the unsubscribe option missing. And then twelve hours later another. And six hours after that.

And then the client went into receivership.

I was never paid.