Since the dawn of email, companies have repeatedly abused the Internet’s expansive popularity as a means to distribute information on upcoming promotions, structural changes to their websites, and public oriented company news — all through the use of email newsletters. We’re all familiar with online newsletters — in fact, many of you might even be reading this article on one — and we’re all familiar with junk mail, not only the discount drug variety, but also the repetitive banter and useless kind. These are the emails which are not simply spam, as they come from an established online source, but are the emails which cross the line into being pointless and uninformative advertisements, doing nothing but discrediting the emigrating source and filling our inboxes.
The concept of company newsletters is great: a cost effective method of sending out informative broadcasts to thousands of members of their target audience (people who admire the company enough to ask to be on their mailing list). In reality, it is the company’s dedication to providing quality content that drives one to even want to subscribe to their email newsletter. Take this site for example; PC Mechanic is renowned for its unprecedented ability to deliver quality computer related content and its newsletter (in addition to its daily tips) support this attribute of PC Mechanic. Despite the occasional email-based advertisement regarding the site’s products, PC Mechanic’s newsletters are informative, reliable, and entertaining. The same cannot be said for many other company newsletters, and while I’m not going to point fingers, I am going detail the ascending calamity that many company newsletters are becoming a part of.
Avoiding the obtrusive junk mail that tries to pass itself off as being a company newsletter isn’t ridiculously difficult. A vast majority of these phony email newsletters emigrate from sites that force their newsletter upon you. These are often commerce sites that, once you do a transactions through, already have your email on file (for purchase confirmation letters, etc.), or companies that have little depth to their main site. Simply resisting the “join our newsletter” pop-ups and unchecking the persistent “check here to receive site updates, promotions, and more” options that appear after providing your email to online commerce sites, will drastically reduce the magnitude of useless and uninformative mail you receive in place of pertinent company newsletters. GoDaddy, another site which does, in fact, offer a rather informative and entertaining newsletter service, allows users to choose whether or not they would like to receive email updates on sales and upcoming promotions. Despite having promotional emails that in reality are mildly obtrusive, simply having this option to select which email newsletters you would like to receive is a Godsend.
Identifying which email newsletter services are actually worthwhile is slightly more difficult. If a site regularly publishes content and doesn’t force its newsletter on you, you are pretty safe subscribing to their service. Other clues that indicate that a site’s newsletter is more than just trivial promotions and advertisements can be uncovered as well. If a site willingly publishes, or archives, back issues of its newsletter, you can always take a gander at the depth of the email’s content before subscribing. Additionally, if a site broadcasts that it is easy to unsubscribe from their mailing service and then promotes the fact that they don’t redistribute your email address to spammers, it is more likely that you will be receiving quality newsletters as opposed to uninformative trash. Distinguishing which sites are going to fill your inbox with junk newsletters and which ones aren’t is often a trial and error ordeal — it is tough to find sites, like PC Mechanic, which email quality newsletters with regularity.
In My Opinion
I can’t necessarily blame the vast number of sites which use email newsletters as a means to broadcast uninformative advertisements and useless banter and testimonials. All in all, it is just another source of income, and over time, the natural selection of the Internet will weed out newsletters that nothing but junk mail in comparison to some of the quality email-based content that is available. While it may be a hassle to continuously try out new newsletters and then unsubscribe from their mailing service, it is often worth it in the end if you run across a site like ours which offers superb content both on the site and through its email newsletter. One tip to subscribing is that you can set up a separate account specifically for trying newsletter subscriptions, so in case you do receive undesirable content even after unsubscribing, your main account won’t be bombarded by it.
It seems like more and more the Internet is overflowing with ludicrous and unnecessary websites and services; many of whom won’t last long in the highly competitive World Wide Web. Chances are you won’t tumble across too many quality newsletters. But, if you look for the aforementioned indications that the site you are visiting has a reliable and informative newsletter, the hunt for quality email-based information should be relatively easy.
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I love it! And with newsletters, simplicity is best. Your sections are very clear, readable and easy on the eyes. I often wonder where others get their information from and so to that end I’m going to share some of my sources.