You own a pizza company.
You bake a pizza and have the delivery driver randomly pick a house out of the phone book to deliver the pizza to.
The owner of the house has to “opt-out” of the pizza delivery.
Sure, some people might be hungry and accept the pie. But can you imagine how annoying it would be to have to decline pizzas all day because there are thousands of pizza places in your town delivering like this?
And aren’t you wasting a lot of time, energy, and dough by sending out so many wasted pizzas? It would be much more efficient and productive to only deliver pizzas to people who order one. Why are you ticking off your entire market base by randomly delivering pizzas that people don’t want?
Now replace the word “pizza” with the word “email”
I’ve noticed a recent up tick in the number of legitimate companies that are adding my name to their list because they really think I want to hear from them. The emails have unsubscribe options all over them because that’s what the guy learned in the $99 email marketing seminar down at the Airport Marriott.
Just because you offer a way for people to opt-out doesn’t mean that you’re not a spammer. You’re a spammer when you send people things that they didn’t ask for.
Chris Houchens 
That is indeed annoying. Others are just assuming things and they are not even considering what will they feel if the same thing was done to them. These are problems we get from having things done automatically.
Funny idea, opt-in pizza but that’s not the way opt-in email works. First people search the web for a solution and then they opt-in to get helpful information which is actually more akin to what happens with pizza delivery.First, a hungry person opens the phone book, calls the pizza parlor to place their order and then they opt-in to get it.
Read the post again, Charlie. That’s my point. there are too many companies who aren’t doing the “way it’s supposed to work”. They just add your name to the list.I think the entire concept of the “opt-in” is a marketing goldmine. But you should have to opt in first, not have the burden of opting out.
John, you’re right about that in getting things done with the help of technology. If email isn’t discovered yet, then it wouldn’t be a problem. Who would want to spend time sending all the mail to almost everybody they don’t know?
Thank you for the post! Because I have a popular real estate site, people will add me to every damn real estate email list. SPAM central! It is beyond annoying! Thanks for the rant and for letting me join you in it!
Maybe these people never considered getting the same email from different people. If they get a taste of it, then maybe they will know how frustrating it is to have tons of those emails.
You can almost see the thought process here. A) Email is cheaper, faster and easier to get direct response than mail. And **gasp** it’s measurable! B) Now, where can I get a list…I guess that was the thought process with direct mail too, but so many people think spam is what you get from those other guys…Frustrating. I think I’ll go opt-in for a pizza…