The very freedom that email has created means anyone can jump on the bandwagon and promote their wares

I hate Fridays. That might be an odd thing to say since for many it means only seven hours until the start of the weekend. I also remember the days at the start of my career when Friday meant going down the pub at lunchtimes and not going back to the office.

Secret Marketer

The reason I hate Fridays is because that is the day when everyone else catches up with their work, and in so doing they send emails – lots and lots of them. On Fridays, I get more emails than on any of the other four work days added together. 

The reason why I am raising this today is because I received my new shiny work smartphone this week. It does all the things that a modern phone should do. I haven’t worked out how to make a phone call yet, but that isn’t what people use smartphones for, right? However, one thing that it has is an annoying beep every time I get an email. Foolishly, I have added both my work and home email addresses to the phone.

As a result, it beeps every few seconds as emails arrive in my inbox, which is becoming very annoying – not least for the people sitting next to me. At least my old BlackBerry only used to flash at me.

We, as marketers, are meant to be in charge of this thing called communication. Many of us also use email as one of our main marketing mediums. But any email sent to me by a third party trying to promote something gets quickly deleted – no matter how good the offer or how well crafted the email. I have to find a way of getting some work done, and deleting emails is the quickest way to see the wood from the trees.

Interestingly, the emails are not the Viagra-type spam but genuine emails from well meaning organisations. However, the very freedom that email and the digital world has created means that anyone can jump on the bandwagon and promote their wares. And most of them use email, believing they are the only people to contact you at that moment in time. 

Marketers, we have a problem. Forget chemical weapons and global warming. The biggest curse we have brought on today’s generation is the invention of email.

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