They titled it “Is This Stamp-Worthy?”. Seth Godin did a blog post about the evolution to email marketing campaigns from mail outs. When companies still used physical mail-outs more readily than they do now, the marketing team would have to think twice about who they are going to send the mail to since it cost them per piece of mail. Now that email is essentially “free”, it is much easier to hit send.

His example was that he received an offer to buy diapers online from Drugstore.com. He explains, “I’ve never purchased diapers online, since my diaper purchases predate online diaper shopping and my hope is that I won’t be buying Depends for another fifty years or so!.”

This is now a completely irrelevant product for him but because email doesn’t really cost a company anything, he got the mail out anyways. Now he has become an un-subscribed customer!

So next time you think about sending out a big email blast, think about whether you would pay for the stamp that would have to go on the mail out!