my email to the daily beast
October 2nd, 2009 • posts i've written
I went all Grandpa Simpson on The Daily Beast today, would love your thoughts if you have ‘em up there in your skull muscle…
Hi,
In the timeline of the web, I’ve been a longtime reader and fan of the Daily Beast. I also receive your newsletter. Today I unsubscribed from that newsletter because of the large AMEX ad and because the email contained absolutely no other content (and you guys produce such great content!). My question to you is, what value do I have to you beyond your ability to send me ads to my inbox? The newsletter often reminds me to visit your .com, but now I won’t be receiving that reminder. Why not entice me with an ad-free version that is, say 30% less chock-full of awesome, to me once I hit unsubscribe? Moreover, the form to let me unsubscribe didn’t even try to give me a choice of options to explain my decision (some people wanna have their say).
Just something to think on, if you’re so inclined.
Keep up with the good work.
-B
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3 Responses (add your comment)
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(Funny, the ad was actually for a VISA Black Card, not AMEX. They weren’t even successful in making that impression.)
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Ha! You’re right, Mike.
I didn’t spend much time looking at the ad, and it definitely didn’t leave an impression, huh?
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NOTE: Anonymous and/or hateful comments get deleted. My blog, my rules.
Good, provocative question.
My $0.02 is that subscribers have value no matter what mix of content / ads sent to them because the publisher has permission to communicate with them. That opportunity has value. But publishers have to determine whether it’s enough value to justify doing multiple versions.
The standard ad-supported-media agreement is that readers get content for free in exchange for their attention, which is then rented to advertisers.
But attention is rising in value while content is becoming more competitive. And 2 versions have both an overhead cost in production and a visibility cost — others might follow suit and opt for the no-ads version if presented with the chance.