An advanced method for building your email list

I am sure many of you have heard about Robert Ringer. Briefly, he is one of today's Personal Development gurus. I first learned about him in the mid-70s, when he released his first hit, self-published, Winning Through Intimidation, and shortly thereafter a second one, Looking Out for Number One. In those days, I was a green real estate broker, and I put to use many things I learned from those two books, which I read more that once, mostly because they were hilarious.

Ringer's writing style has changed a lot over the years – now it s much more conservative, in fact, a little too serious for me, but, never forgetting his two early works, I always read his subsequent stuff as soon as I found out about it. When I started seeing some of his articles in Early to Rise (ETR), I subscribed to a weekly thing of his called A Voice of Sanity in an Insane World, a nice motivational/business letter.

[By the way, ETR publishes the best daily letter I have ever seen, no exceptions. I have been reading it every day since mid-2005, and will continue to do that. Highly recommended: http://www.earlytorise.com].

In mid-2007, I started often receiving each issue of Voice of Sanity more than once. That didn't bother me too much, I just kept deleting – until one time when, over a period of about a week, I received the same issue over and over. Receiving it the fifth or sixth time finally made me a little cranky, so I sent an email to Ringer's Customer Service which read [paraphrased because I threw it away in a recent Outlook house cleaning]: "I have received xxx issue of yyy letter six times, and, frankly, it's getting to be a pain in the ass. Could someone in your organization do something about this?" I didn't say "Take your fucking letter and stick it up your ass", like I have had one or two of my mailing list members write to me.

Granted, not the most polite message, but not vulgar. What I think is really ludicrous, is the reply I got [again, paraphrased]: "Sorry that our ads bother you but you have been reading our letter for almost three years now, and you have not bought anything, so we see no reason to continue sending it to you. You have been unsubscribed ..."

I don't – nor want to – remember the name of the moron that sent me that message. I know it wasn't Robert Ringer himself, and I like to think this is not his policy.

If I wanted the letter that bad, I could probably subscribe again with the same email address, and probably start receiving it with the next issue and nobody would ever know. Or, if I were afraid of the idiot, I could subscribe with a different email address of any of umpteen mailboxes I have in several domains.

So, is this the latest way of building an email list? Now, really, is this advanced marketing? Just spam the crap out of your subscribers; then when they balk, if they haven't sent you some of their money after two-three years, just kick them out. You will have a short list, but at least it will be one of very well-qualified prospects.

I guess I still have a lot to learn. I don't think this was my loss. Do you? I would love to see some comments and would appreciate them.