Every time you purchase a product or service, especially online, you are automatically signed up to receive digital marketing from that company. You give them permission when you accept the terms of the purchase of the product or service. Your email address is, of course key to this potentially invasive practice.
The main source of digital marketing comes via email in the form of a newsletter. A newsletter can be used in many ways but the idea is to stay in the minds of customers. It could be in the form of information about the company, or their products or services. Or it may be to promote a new product, service or a sale. It’s a great way for businesses to inform their customers of their offerings.
So many people understand the benefits of doing business online, both personally and professionally, but there are drawbacks as well. The primary drawback comes in the form of digital marketing that could turn into email clutter if not managed properly.
Before the internet, we were barraged by paper clutter coming into our homes via snail mail. We received paper bills, bank statements, magazines, newsletters, ads, etc. With the invention of the internet, all that marketing paper clutter turned into digital marketing clutter.
As with any form of clutter, there are ways to manage our digital marketing clutter as well. The best way to manage it is to prevent it from cluttering up our email inbox. Shown below are some ways to manage the influx of emails. Try out one or more of these options to see which ones work best for you. If you know of other ways, feel free to share them in the comments box below.
- Create an email address specifically for items purchased online. This strategy will keep the majority of marketing emails out of your main email inbox.
- Create rules in your email inbox for digital marketing to go right into a folder to bypass your inbox.
- Manage your preferences for each company to let them know how much marketing material that you are willing to accept. Reputable companies always provide the ability to manage your preferences for the amount of digital marketing material you receive, or to unsubscribe from all of it.
- Unsubscribe from digital marketing that doesn’t serve you, even if it’s from a company you continue to do business with. If there is no way to unsubscribe from their emails, mark them as spam.
