No, no, no.
Don’t send out unsolicited CDs.
TODAY’S MAIL brought a direct mail offer mail containing a hand-labeled CD. I threw it away without bothering to read the accompanying materials.
Here are three reasons never to send out unsolicited CDs:
- Ever heard of computer viruses? Only the minimally informed will take a chance on a disc from a stranger. There’s no telling where that thing has been.
- A good many recipients will not have a CD drive or player handy. Though not yet obsolete, they’re obsolescent.
- It takes precious time to insert a CD into a drive, wait for it to load, and navigate through it. Most people won’t bother. A few will set it aside for later, “later” meaning “they’ll rediscover it in a few days or weeks, wonder why they kept it, and toss it.”
I once lost a client to an agency whose first effort for them enclosed an unsolicited CD. The mailing went to established customers who trusted the sender, so virus fears weren’t necessarily a problem, but Items 2 and 3 above still applied. Worse, the agency had used a blob of glue to affix the CD to a card, and some customers ended up with said blob inside their CD drive. I am told they found it displeasing.
That may be how I learned the word schadenfreud. Oh, and guess who won back the account.
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