Things Worth Getting By Email

Not many things are worth getting by email.

So many requests for your email address, so few things worth the exchange.

Herein lies the problem: it has become an exchange. It’s a barter.

Things we barter for

• When they entice us with a super-secret hack we just have to know about (we’re fully aware we’re going to be spammed as a result, otherwise they’d have just told us?)
• When they want to send us a some sort of very-important PDF (we’re fully aware that won’t be the end of it, otherwise they’d have just linked to the PDF?)

When the opt-in wasn’t really necessary, when we know it’s a gateway that didn’t need to be there, we know we’re bartering. When we barter, we know they’re playing games, and they know we’ll enroll with our ‘buyer defenses’ up.

How’s that for a good start to a relationship?

Better than barter

• When I want to be notified when something that doesn’t yet exist, exists (if they can’t contact us, there’d be no way for them to let us know?)
• When I want a copy of something sent to my inbox for safekeeping (because I may not know where to store the PDF copy right this minute?)
• When I want you to contact me (because that’s what mail is for?)

These are times where it makes more sense to share our contact information than to not. No bartering here – the very act of opting-in is a service to us in the first place.

The question is, if not bartering for emails makes us feel so much closer to a company or an individual than when they do barter… why barter for emails at all?