Indie 2.0

I’ve been meaning to do this ever since I got a Blackberry and started my own business 15 months ago. And now that I’ve done it, it feels great. And I highly recommend you do it too: Unsubscribe from all the CRM/Loyalty programs who you opted in to receive emails from.

Here’s my story:

I, like you, hate spam. But I used to appreciate receiving infrequent informative emails from some of my favorite retailers and vendors: e.g., Apple, Amazon, HMV, TimeOut, Matrox, NAB, CNet, ZDNet, Watson’s Wine Cellar, etc. An informative monthly update or cross-sell or sale announcement email to my Outlook client at home was something I’d read. But that was before I got my Blackberry for my own business. Now every day, every 5 minutes (until yesterday) my Blackberry would vibrate with a new email. And, like Pavlov’s dog, I had to check it. Because it might be from a client or potential client. But 95% of the time I’d check my Blackberry, it was a Loyalty/CRM Program marketing email–which I’d never read.

Now, mind you, I design and help build CRM/Loyalty programs for big brands. Communication via email is supposed to be a key part of these programs.

But the consumer in me got fed up. Here’s what he told the CRM/Loyalty consultant in me:

Yo, merchants: stop sending me increasingly frequent (what used to be monthly is now often daily), indicating increasingly desperate, emails. National Association of Broadcasters: I’m talking about you here. And if I do opt in to receive communications, can you please make sure they’re relevant? Apple, I love you and your products. But your “New Music Tuesday” iTunes store is a tease and a waste of my time–as you (in conjunction with the record companies) still haven’t figured out a way for me in Hong Kong to buy a single album or movie off the iTunes store. If you want to communicate with me, embrace Web 2.0, and syndicate your content, i.e., put all that content you’re currently emailing me on a corporate blog with an RSS feed I can subscribe to. Then, in my leisure and if I have time and if your headline catches my eye, I’ll read your marketing material. I don’t want you to push marketing to me. I want to pull it when appropriate. And don’t SMS me, especially without my consent. I’m too busy.

So yesterday I spent an hour unsubscribing from vendor and news mailing lists. And my life is saner and quieter already. Today, if my Blackberry vibrates, it’s been pretty much from a human being I know, who wants to communicate me (or plain up spam).

To mix metaphors: Try it. You’ll like it. And I know I’m not the only one…

This whole issue is about to only get much bigger, with millions of consumers newly empowered with push email to the 3G iPhone in their pockets. The daily two dozen opted-in marketing emails received and generally ignored in a pc Inbox are now intolerably vibrating their thigh (or purse) all day. So merchants need to get Web 2.0 savvy quick–or they’ll see a sudden and inexplicable downward spike in opt-in rates for marketing email.