Your Xmas Emails

Do you even read them?

[Visit Thailand]

Like a lot of you here I am sure, I received a tonne of Merry Christmas emails, some with the message embedded (which converts to an attachment if you have convert to plain text turned on) some with links to the message.

Do you read them all?

I think this year I read whatever plain text there was and just deleted the rest.

PS. I am talking about business emails rather than those from family and genuine friends.

[incrediBILL]

I too only read the plain text or HTML.

Any file attachment gets the boot unless I'm expecting a file attachment from someone.

PS. I am talking about business emails rather than those from family and genuine friends.

Don't care where the file attachment comes from, even my own Mom, it gets the boot unless I'm expecting something.

Friends and family seem to get easily infected because they don't know any better, no matter how many times I warn them, not to open file attachments from people they don't know.

[sem4u]

I delete most of them without even opening them. "Merry Christmas from 'store x'" Delete!

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

It's resounding delete from me!

[Visit Thailand]

I wonder what the answer is then? Xmas cards are an expense, but a rare commodity these days. But these companies must surely know that nobody is even bothering to look at their emails.

Is the Xmas card in e-form and paper about to become obsolete in the future (for businesses)?

[Leosghost]

Is the Xmas card in e-form and paper about to become obsolete in the future (for businesses)?

Absolutely not ..we ( that are web based businesses or have a large part of our businesses based on the web ) are not the real target market for these kind of emails, they work well for the average B2B company ( as do "dead tree" calenders etc )..and extremely well for the B2C market ( Amazon's emailshots to their customers etc ) ..

Joe and Jane Sixpack or aunt Flora think "hey they remembered me, it won't hurt to see what the special offer is, that has my name on it"..

Churches and charities use these kinds of personalised lists a lot..

Individuals are sending more and more email Xmas cards to each other ..and there is a lot of money to be made ( still ) in designing "personaliseable"* email Xmas cards for download or sending onwards from websites..

"Send a personalised Xmas card from your phone" for under a dollar can make you money if you offer it ..not hard to make a hundred or so designs to chose from ..and you get a lot of email addys for follow ups throughout the year..

And yes there are a lot of people doing this kind of "offer" already, but they wouldn't be doing so if it didn't work ..the ROI is good..

* personaliseable ( with a "z" for the "cousins") may not be a "real word"..I'm actually rather hoping it isn't ;-)

[lucy24]

Cool. Next time I receive an e-mail from my insurance agent-- which seems to be about every other day-- I'll just forward it to you then ;)

Never mind the attachments. I'll happily download a picture of my father's cat, even if it doesn't really need to be a 2MB behemoth that I could use for wallpaper... of my living room. Does anyone even load the images in e-mail? I can't be bothered. I know what your corporate logo looks like, thanks.

[topr8]

>>Does anyone even load the images in e-mail? I can't be bothered. I know what your corporate logo looks like, thanks.

haha, exactly, infact my email client only renders plain text all images and html formatting are removed.

[Old_Honky]

I agree with most of the above, my email is plain text also. However I am disappointed, from the title post I thought this was about those long emails from friends or family which you get around Christmas. The ones where they detail every part of their life so far this year, these always get deleted because I'm really not interested that little Eric chipped his toenail in the summer or granddad got some new teeth in march. One of my friends even prints out the emails and puts them inside the Christmas card he sends just so you won't miss it. This year he actually wrote it all inside the card in very small handwriting. Life is too short for this.