Perhaps I’m being overly cynical, but in the past 3 months just about every internet “guru” who has me on their mailing list has sent me an email promoting a product and opened it with either a story about having a new baby, or about a massive family tragedy followed by a few paragraphs of sales text for some new product they are pushing.
I honestly don’t know if it’s just that everyone’s having either: a) great things happen, or b) horrible things all around the same time, but being distrustful of pretty much anyone who uses email lists to market, I have a feeling we are seeing a new tactic come into the main stream.
Does it work? On a personal level, I would have to say no, but to have so many people out of the blue start claiming both great news and horrible tragedies on sales letters has to mean that someone is making money off of it.
Anyone else notice this? Or am I just a mean-spirited SOB…
March 28th, 2007 at 6:52 am
I’m not on as many mailing lists as you are, but if people really are making up tragedies to sell their product….that’s pretty disgusting.