Official mail
When I get a letter marked “Official,” I open it. 10 times out of 10, it’s spam. But, what if it isn’t? It’s precisely that calculation that the authors of these sorts of deceptively-labeled spam bank on: that I might open their letter assuming it’s something else.
I don’t think I’m being controversial when I say that, in no uncertain terms, marketers who author these sorts of mailings are lying to their customers. While they may argue they’re operating in a ‘gray area,’ I don’t know anyone naive enough to give them a pass simply because they didn’t go as far as printing “This is a letter from the government” — marking their envelope “Official” made the intent clear as day.
“Hey, I’ve missed you. Can we talk?”
When I get a so-called “drip email,” I can’t help but think of these ‘official’ envelopes. You know the type of email I mean: it’s from a normal-enough sounding name, like “John Stevens,” and the subject is something that a friend might use, like “Forget something?” Or maybe a more aggressive form, like this post’s cover image (naming & shaming you, amplitude.com). The intent here, too, is clear: make the mark think yours is an email from a friend, or that there’s some urgent need for attention, and ‘boom’: you’ve upped your email open rate.
