I also just saw a “vacation” setting last night to suspend emails from the sending company for a set number of weeks. Could be an irritating trend…

I really wish more companies would do this… there are certain companies I’d like to get occasional emails from, but get tired of the (almost) daily barrage of them. I find I look at those less often when I get them all the time, while I still take the time to look at the ones I get less frequently.

I also don’t appreciate the huge surge in email marketing many companies do around the holidays. Boosting frequency a little is OK, but some companies with from bi-weekly to daily from Thanksgiving until New Year’s!

But as a web marketer, I’ve run into problems trying to suggest such a system a number of times at a couple different jobs over the past few years.

I think it’s a great idea so long as the company plays by their offer. Although arguably getting any sort of email from a company is an implied “agreement” until you tell them to stop, taking a ‘once every two weeks’ option is far more clearly an agreement.

Staples recently did something like that when I attempted to unsubscribe, I took the less frequent option and they continued to spam me every day. What otherwise would have been another nameless unsubscribe now has a specific brand name memory of a company that can’t keep its word.

Certainly an interesting approach, but isn’t there an inherent admission that they’re sending emails that aren’t particularly valuable in the first place? Seems like they should be engaging some self-editing to make sure they’re only communicating value. Also, placing the choice in the hands of the user is often a crutch for not being able to make a decision yourself.

Everyone I know is on email overload. Just because you can send an email doesn’t mean you should. Sure it doesn’t “cost” anything, but more and more companies are inbox spamming these days, without realizing the long-term brand damage.

That’s a great idea! I know that I’ve personally unsubscribed to lists all together when if a “downgrade” was available I most likely would have gone that route. I would love to give this as an option to my list – better to have them getting something from me once in a while than not at all.

Matt

Shop It To Me has the best unsubscription page that I’ve seen: http://emailmarketingvoodoo.com/blog/post/before-you-go/