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Comment by lvoudour | Hacker News Reader

It's been a while since we've seen you. We know you get busy but we'd love to see you again soon

And I absolutely love spending an hour deleting a flood of auto-genetated e-mails from my inbox every month or hunting for that tiny low saturation "unsubscribe" link (which sometimes doesn't work/exist at all).

The worst offenders are the airlines and travel agencies IMO. I mean I understand getting monthly e-mails from places like amazon where there's a multitude of unrelated things to buy, but how many airplane tickets can I realistically buy?

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BMW is sending me an SMS every month - how many cars do they think I need? I can't even call the number that sends the messages - it just says BMW.

I think that example is generalized to the point of uselessness.

A really good re-engagement email would hone in on the relationship between you and this company, and offer help in some way. Did you buy a consumable good? Well, maybe you're running out and would like to restock. Did you sign up for a SaaS trial and the trial's nearly over? Here's a step it looks like you had difficulty with, our support number, and maybe a trial extension, so you can really evaluate.

But because the author is trying to write a super general-case email, it actually turns into something you don't want to see in your inbox.

I don't mind getting offers every now and then, but every week or every month is just too much. I understand that companies are flooding their customers in the hopes they get that 1 hit every x e-mails (since sending an e-mail is virtually costless) but it's irritating and it's not worth (for me) the trouble of sieving through the endless stream of useless junk.

If they want me to seriously consider their offer as an existing customer they could send me a personal discount and make me feel I'm worth something. But I rarely get discounts besides the generic ones that apply to everyone (which you can get just by visiting their website even if you've never purchased anything from them before). And the auto-generated "relaxed & casual" language just puts me off, it reeks of kitsch and disrespect.

"generalized to the point of uselessness" is a very apt description

To be fair, living in an European LCC hub I get deals on my inbox every few days and I end up buying plane tickets up to once/twice a month, so it's realistic, maybe not so much for legacy/long haul

I also get many emails from legacy airlines for long haul deals and I end up getting one of them a year, I'd say it's a successful campaign, they don't expect a large amount of customers to jump on every deal, eventually one that's closer to your profile pops up

How about credit card companies, who refuse to allow opting out?

There's a specific government-controlled list for opting out of credit card offers (task yourself to re-fill it out every 5 years). It really works, I don't get them anymore. I have not tried the permanent opt-out, because maybe in the future I do want offers, so I do the 5 year one.

https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0262-stopping-unsolici...

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