I am a publicist. I get paid to publicize. My agency uses e-mail, snail mail, telephone, faxes, digital press rooms, face to face meetings, CD ROM, DVD, USB drives, and more to distribute the news.
Most of the time we use e-mail blasts because it is the easiest way to reach hundreds, sometimes thousands, of writers in the most expeditious way.
I receive several thousand e-mails per day. It takes me less than 10 minutes to delete the ones I do not want.
I do not understand journalists (thank goodness there are only a handful of them) who get on this spam kick. They ask to be deleted from mailings because they do not want to be spammed.
The time it took them to ask me to remove them from our mailing lists certainly took 100 percent more time than what it would have been to just "delete."
I wonder what their bosses would think if they knew that their writers/editors did not want to receive information.
By asking to be cut from lists, you only cut yourself off in this world of digital communications.
Sure, you may not be interested in this particular news item, but who knows, the next one could be exactly what you need.
This morning Ned Colt called from NBC London asking to be taken off. A cross-Atlantic call instead of a simple delete.
I think that tells you something about a person. I am not going to say what.
At the most, he received three emails from us in the past month. 1, 2, 3, and he would have been rid of me. He choose to take 15 minutes out of his obvious, not busy schedule, to call and chat.
I rest my case.
I hope I get a lot of comments on this blog because I would love to debate spam any day of the week. I have been on both sides of the fence, editor and now a PR person.
Junk mail is a necessary evil. Get over it.
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