Promo Emails

I *just* unsubscribed to my daily Groupon alert.  (For those of you who love Groupon, this may seem like blasphemy; for those of you not in the know, count your blessings.)  It was surprisingly easy to do, which I very much appreciated.  The "unsubscribe" button was at the top of the email, and though it was in small font, it was still a cinch to spot, click, and be done with.

THEN I was prompted to give feedback.  Again, the wizards at Groupon have made this ridiculously easy.  Three buttons appeared which said "Too much email," "Not relevant to me," and some other option that escapes me for the moment.  I wanted to click on BOTH the first two options, but I decided that the greater of the two evils was "Too much email," so I went with that one.

THEN I was thanked, but what kills me was the new button at the bottom of the thank-you: RESUBSCRIBE.  You have got to be kidding me.  Why in the world would I resubscribe to something I just dumped?  The audacity!

I get so many promo emails - stuff that I actually signed up for - that I have come to look at them as SPAM or unwanted clutter.  They make me *not* want to buy anything from those particular retail outlets for a long long time.  Google did a remarkable job of sorting true SPAM out of my inbox, but dumbass that I am, I have spoiled their work by signing up for various deals, bargains, and for shopping online.  And for signing up for Facebook.

I could go on and on.  I hate this stuff.  So let's skip to the idea.

I don't want to entirely get rid of these stupid promo emails because once in a blue moon I might want that 30% off from Amazon or an update from Marmot (Marmot by the way sends far fewer email updates than any other business, and to this, I say "Thank you.").  ONCE in a while, those emails come in handy, and I love a good deal, so I don't want to eliminate a lifeline.

Instead, may I suggest the consolidated email.

In Google, I have many many options, but the main one is to flag an email as being a junk email.  Why couldn't I flag it for consolidation?  I don't want to reroute these emails into a separate folder because I'd likely never visit the folder (that's just the way I roll).  What I would prefer is that these promo emails get collected and delivered to me as one single freakin' email once a week/month/whatever.

So let's say I've flagged nine to fifteen promo emails.  I don't want to see these individually ever again.  However, every two weeks (I'm thinking that twice a month is PLENTY for me), I'd get a single email that I could click on and be presented with a collection of these promo emails.  I could glance at the list and determine in ONE MOMENT if I'd like to investigate something new.

I can see retailers hating this, but if email service providers had that option, there's certainly nothing they could do about it.  Over time, however, I could see companies redirecting their efforts to making sure that when they get that fraction of a second from a consolidated email what they write will actually be worth reading.