I like to occasionally click on the unsubscribe link on unsolicited emails, ie spam. It makes me feel better even though I know it isn’t going to make a blind bit of difference to the amount of crap that comes through to my inbox. Sometimes I block the user and sometimes I even respond to them telling them to go away.

I’ve done it on a number of occasions with recruitment firm ComputerFutures who send me no end of rubbish. Including one “consultant” who said he was going to be in North London and would I like to meet for a coffee. I said it was a bit far to come from Newark. I’ve tried unsubscribing from their list as well as individually asking their people to take me off the list but to no avail. The last time was this week when I threatened the sender that if I got another email from his company I would ask all my friends in the industry to blacklist their IP addresses. Probably not hugely ethical but so far I haven’t had another peep from them!

Today  I was merrily blocking and unsubscribing when  I got a  mail from Amanda at Sheffield Chamber of Commerce and Industry. It wasn’t addressed to me personally, ie none of the old familiar Hi Trefor, hope things are well. It was just  “Good morning”. No name (no pack drill either fwiw and whatever one of those is).

Amanda was offering me a “free taster session for her 1 Day Telephone Prospecting Masterclass”. This seemed particularly not well targeted, me being a CTO and all.

I replied to her asking where she got my email address from and got a reply saying she “captured data from a search which includes Companies House, Dunn & Brad Street etc”. There really is no hope for us all. These mailing lists get recompiled from scratch on a dynamic basis. As soon as you unsubscribe from one someone else goes ahead and puts together another and there is no way you can stop it.

I’m pretty sure the Sheffield Chamber of Commerce are a good bunch of people and Amanda is just doing her job but it is a shame there is no way for people to have better targeting. It almost makes Google, Facebook et al seem like good guys. Like it or not at least I am sometimes interested in they chuck my way because as often as not it’s based on my search history.

Amanda does need to adopt some best practices mind you. She offered no unsubscribe link for example. I told her this in a reply and copied one of our sales guys in so that he could give her a call and sell her something. Seemed like the right thing to do. If she becomes a customer I’ll delete this post. Can’t have people writing stuff like this about our customers now can we?

Ciao baby!