It's competitive out there in the world of newsletters. You want people not only to subscribe, but to be interested enough to open them. How many times have you gotten a newsletter you've signed up for only to delete it without even nary a glance.
*Raises hand*
Then there's the clean up/clean out. Once or twice a year, when my inbox is becoming unmanageable, I go through the newsletters I subscribe to getting rid of those I don't ever read and subscribing to ones I think I'd like. There's a lotta interesting information out there and I'd rather have it come to me than having to hunt it down.
I had been getting Oprah's newsletters for years now. There were three of them - Oprah Show Daily, Oprah Show Weekly and Oprah.com - I never opened them. Ever. So early in January I decided to unsubscribe.
It's now March and I'm still receiving them. In fact, just this morning, I unsubscribed again.
I used the "Unsubscribe To All Oprah.com Newsletters" option (Your unsubscribe request has been processed. If you change your mind, you can re-subscribe at any time by updating your subscriptions in your profile.) and to each individual newsletter (You were already unsubscribed.).
This isn't the first time I've done this, nor is it the first time I've seen the "you were already unsubscribed page".
Ya. *shakes head*
For me, that's someone who's doing it wrong. The newsletters never grabbed my attention and now I'm pissed off that I don't want the newsletters and yet I'm still getting them. Oprah is not on my good side right now.
Enter Groupon.
I subscribe to a bunch of daily deal newsletters because who doesn't like a good deal, right? Then yesterday I read this blog by Sara Deveau who recommended a website that compiles all the daily deals into one email newsletter. Lots of deals, one email. Perfect.
This morning I set about unsubscribing to my plethora of daily deals. I clicked on unsubscribe link in the Groupon newsletter and it brought me here.
Uh....Punish Derrick? We won't even get into the psychology of what type of person I am that I actually clicked on that button but let's just say curiosity killed the cat and leave it at that.
When you click on the button, a video starts playing and another person enters the screen and proceeds to berate Derrick (no sound on the video but lots of arm gestures and contorted facial expressions) and then throws a cup of water at him.
And then this screen popped up.
And I did want to make it up to Derrick. So Groupon now has one more subscriber again.
Groupon thought outside the box, was creative and ultimately, made me laugh out loud. Not an easy feat on a Saturday morning when my kids have started fighting before I've even have a cup of coffee.
Thank you Groupon for making me laugh. I look forward to receving your emails for a long time to come. Oh, and I hope Oprah reads this.....she could learn a thing of two from you.
I'm interested in hearing your thoughts on email newsletters. Have you had a good/bad experience with e-newsletters? What makes you subscribe? What types of things compel you to open it. And what stops you from unsubscribing.
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