How many emails you receive each week are commercial? It used to be about 400 a week - but I was still collecting email forwarded from old addresses. I got ruthless about a month ago and now I get about 70 commercial emails a week, of which six or seven are well targeted.
How many email addresses do you have? I have a dozen email addresses.
I get them forwarded to three accounts: work, projects such as Head-Space, a creative collective (www.head-space.org), and friends.
What is the best marketing email you received recently?
I hate unsolicited commercial email, so it has to be very good to get past my spam blocker and then not get added to the spam list. But I got an email from MacExpo the other day that reminded me I want to visit the exhibition later this month.
A good marketing email has to be straight to the point and have a strong proposition; also the politeness to assume I'm in a hurry and might have other things to do than wait for a flaming logo to download. If it's a weak proposition, I'm not going to buy it; if it's good, it doesn't need the distraction.
What is the worst piece of spam you received recently? I get lots that look awful - broken images or links that don't work. I got one the other day from a London email marketing company that hadn't tested the email in the (popular) email programme I use, so it made its client look really bad. To me, spam is anything I haven't asked for. If someone's done research and targets my role at work, then I'm prone to put up with it, if it's polite. But I don't read anything not addressed to me - would you listen to an automated sales pitch by phone? You'd barely put up with a scripted pitch from a salesperson.
Have you received any viral email more than once this week? Not commercial stuff. It has to be good for people to want to send it to their friends despite the advertising in it, so most of it dies the second it gets to the initial seeding list. Two exceptions in the last two years were the spoof Budweiser 'Whassup' ad starring a pair of grannies, and the Zippo link (www.zippotricks.com), which shows you tricks you can do with lighters.
Have you passed on any viral email this week? Only jokes. A lot of which, come to think of it, carry a text ad for Hotmail.
Should email marketing be opt-in or opt-out? Opt-in. Pay me commercial rates to sift through commercial messages, then it's even. You don't think I'd do that? Why ever not? Surely your product's compelling? In which case, I'll opt in, thanks.
Which newsletters or news groups have you signed up for?
Channel 4's Snowmail (www.channel4.com), BBC News (www.bbc.co.uk/news) and New York Times (www.nytimes.com) for news, World Wide Web Consortium (www.w3.org) for technical updates, Direct Marketing Association (www.dma.org.uk) and Institute of Direct Marketing (www.theidm.co.uk) updates, and Japanese creative community Shift (www.shift.jp.org), PopBitch (www.popbitch.com), Need To Know (www.ntk.net), and Adbusters (www.adbusters.org) for an antidote to the system.
If you could get hold of any email address, who would you want to send an email to? The only time I was moved to track down a stranger was when Ken Kesey passed away, and I sent an email to Ken Babbs and got a lovely one in return.
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