Dear Valued Customer, We are forwarding this email to another 10 million customers

How many times have you received an email explaining that you are a “super valuable customer” and therefore you get a higher discount, and lo and behold, here is a coupon to take to our store to buy more things so that we can get more quarterly earnings and shareholders’ equity? Isn’t it interesting that these emails start to appear towards the end of each month? The question I have is; Am I really a valued customer if the company also sent that same marketing and promotional email to more than 10 million other customers? Okay, now you’re laughing, but let’s go ahead and talk about this for a second, shall we?

Perhaps, this is a lot like assuming that the light turns off your refrigerator when you close the door. You know that the light turns off, because if you press the button that the door automatically triggers when it closes, the light inside the refrigerator turns off, then you assume that you close the door that the light also turns off. However, you don’t know for sure, you only understand the laws of physics, or at least the basic law of physics, and you actually assume that the light goes out. You don’t know for sure that your “dear special value customer” email was actually sent to 10 million other people in the exact same format, but you assume it was.

However, because I have multiple things that I do online, and occasionally I end up with different accounts at various vendors and stores that I shop at, I often receive the exact same email from the same company, therefore I no longer assume they are sending the same email to everyone. I know they are, because they sent me the same email twice, and sometimes three times.

Still, something very interesting happened the other day, I noticed that the email was tailor-made for the business model, and the emails weren’t exactly the same. I thought to myself this is great, computers are getting better at evaluating their customers, figuring out what they need, and sending them a more personalized email. That’s a good thing, and it especially makes sense because it helps reduce spam and only gives you the right information that you need or might want through targeted marketing.

In fact, as computers get better, and unfortunately to the chagrin of the Electronic Freedom Foundation, they take all of your data from all of the social networks and only send you exactly what you might be looking for, the best they can. as long as you have put information on the Internet that is true and correct.

Personally, and probably like you, I’m getting tired of certain types of spam, like male enhancement or special custom bras. In fact, I don’t have the first problem, at least not yet, being a young man, and secondly, being a man, I don’t need a bra, so obviously some more work needs to be done, and maybe some of these. Targeted emails for marketing will really help reduce the never-ending barrage and onslaught of unwanted spam. Consider all of this and think about it.