Connectix Spam

Posted by Pierre Igot in: Macintosh
June 10th, 2003 • 3:27 pm

When I first bought Virtual PC 4.0 a long time ago, I agreed to be put on a mailing list for future product announcements.

I started receiving infrequent emails promoting various Connectix-related offers, including newer versions of Virtual PC and special “bundles” with other Mac software titles.

Virtual PC 6 came out quite a while ago. According to my records, I bought the upgrade from Virtual PC 5 in December 2002. As usual, I dutifully registered my copy of Virtual PC 6 with Connectix as soon as I installed it.

Today, a full six months later, I received an email from Connectix with the subject line: “SAVE $20 when you Buy Virtual PC For Mac Version 6!”

I realize that email spamming is much cheaper than printed junk mail and that, as such, the incentive to target such offers more accurately might not be there. But there is something utterly annoying, nonetheless, about the fact that Connectix knows very well that I already own Virtual PC 6 — since I registered my copy with them — and still finds it appropriate to send me an offer to buy it, with $20 off.

It seems to me that, in this day and age, it shouldn’t be too hard for tech-savvy marketers to get their spamming systems to automatically CHECK their company’s registration database to see if the targeted recipient already owns the product being offered.

I find it somewhat insulting that a company such as Connectix would not even take such basic precautions. (For those readers wondering, this item is not directed at Microsoft, even though the software giant now owns Connectix’s Virtual PC product line. This problem has been going on for a while.)

It is all the more frustrating to see marketers continue to use their brain-dead, brute force approaches when you know very well that more “clever” marketing is probably just a few mouse clicks away.

If a software company is not even able to use software to refine their marketing “strategies”, that’s an indication of how far we still have to go before the majority of online vendors take full advantage of the medium.


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