Is it just me or is everyone else’s inbox full of promos lately? I must confess that I am subscribed to quite a few lists but it seems that when I open up every morning there is another host of items that promise to change my life forever. Not only that but on occasion day after day from the same list owner.

Most of these “opportunities” are usually somebody else’s product as part of a JV (joint venture) promotion. Now I’ve no problem with JVs – in many cases it’s the only way to get a new product out to the market in a fairly short period. However I do begin to wonder about the quality of some of the products being promoted. Are there really that many life changing products out there?

The mass marketing of so many products really make me stop and raises a couple of problems for me and probably many like me:

1) Does this list owner really care about me and my success or am I just another number in his machine? When you join many of the mailing lists you’ll be assured by the list owner that all that he/she is really interested in is your success ans welfare. To be fair I know of a few examples where this is the case. These marketers tend to give you much more for free than you end up buying from them – see Lee McIntyre or John Thornhill both of whom have given for free at least 10x any purchases I’ve made.

2) How much time do I have every day to read these emails and watch the “dreaded” video. Why do I say “dreaded” video? Well, once upon a time (yes, I do admit to remembering ticker tape) what you got was a quick email followed by a link that took you to a sales page. Once at the sales page you could quickly scan and see if the product was of interest. Now we get the explanatory email plus a link that almost inevitably takes you to a video. These videos can last anything up to 20 -30 minutes to get to the point. Some you can zoom forward but with others you have to sit through the full presentation to get to the meat of the offer. Personally I just don’t have the time to review up to 10 of these per day.

So, what’s the net result of this? Frequently in my case I just delete the lot and read none! Am I missing out? Probably, but I also have a life to lead and work to do.

And as a side issue why does the product always have to been created by “my good friend …….”. How many good friends do some of these people have? Why not just tell us that you don’t really know this guy but he has good reputation and delivers good product. My supermarket doesn’t try to con into believing that they got these beans for me from their good friend Mr Heinz! No – it’s good reputation and good product.

You may be asking why I just don’t unsubscribe from some lists. Because I’m a keen student of internet marketing I do like to see the different approaches used by different marketers.

However in the final analysis I end up opening the mails from the marketers who have gained my trust and respect and just give a cursory glance to the others. The quickest route for a marketer to lose my allegiance is to bombard me with product offers day after day. Sure, send me stuff if it’s interesting and informative with the occasional sales pitch but please remember that time (my/yours) is valuable. Please don’t squander it!