I got a wonderful email today from Whirlpool. They were kind enough to inform me that their corporate privacy policy had changed in November of last year. Specifically, Whirlpool's e-mail communication policy has gone from "opt-in" to "opt-out". It was nice of them to notify me of this change three months after it was made. If Whirlpool sent me any notifications prior to making the change, I don't recall them. But maybe that was the intent.
The timing is amazing, because I have been busy this week trying to unsubscribe from the DAILY emails I get from FTD. Geez, for a florist, they sure do have a penchant for sending out emails. I'm guessing that the person responsible for developing FTD's email strategy must be a volunteer, because I can't believe anyone would actually get paid for creating such a horrible email communication plan.
Whirlpool will likely run into the same problem if they begin force-feeding unwanted messages to anyone who has the audacity to contact them. Nothing will turn off a consumer faster than an in-box filled with unsolicited emails from the same company. Perhaps they think that because they are FTD and/or Whirlpool, that we want to bury ourselves in their branded communications. However, if they don't rethink their opt out strategy, the only thing they'll be burying is their profits.
Please marketers, do yourself a favor...don't adopt an opt-out strategy for your email communications. It just seems illogical to require consumers to choose "not to communicate with you".
