Over time I have developed a bias regarding email addresses. As you can imagine, I get my share of subscribers and un-subscribers to my lists. When ever any of these actions happen, if the person has a generic address such as yahoo.com, gmail.com and msn.com, I immediately determine them to be “not serious business people.” I believe these generic addresses does harm to their brands not to mention short changing their promotional opportunities.
My peers remind me that this is done at times to provide a privacy to the users. True, it would, but shouldn’t we stand for something? If I sign up for material using a generic address, then I’m really being deceitful in some small way (in my mind). So a sales person might connect to me – is that so wrong? Fact is, it’s what we all do-sell – at some level. For myself, I watch their follow up (or not). I learn from it.
To be honest, it is a pet peeve of mine. But when I see that someone has un-subscribed, I’m more disheartened when it’s a corporate email address than a generic one. Perhaps it is just me.
