Not a lot of people advocate giving out your email address to brands mainly because providing your email address to companies often results to more spam and cluttered mail boxes. However, by taking certain steps, consumers can actually benefit from online subscriptions, as brands often send out coupons and special announcements to their subscribers first.
Quality over quantity
Don't want to get flooded by emails from merchants? Then only choose which brands to subscribe to. This may sound obvious, but you'd be surprised by the number of people that just blindly give out their email address only to complain about spam later on.
Subscribe to the brands that you're actually loyal to, and you'll receive goodies that you actually want to get. In contrast, if you keep signing up for meaningless subscriptions, then you're bound to get flooded with messages that you'll never read.
Don't provide your email address to merchants if you're just planning to buy from them once. You want your email subscriptions to be with the companies that count.
If the only reason you've subscribed is because of a freebie, and you don't really have any intention of following the company's updates, then just give your email address, redeem the freebie and unsubscribe to prevent and future inbox clutter.
Use a special email address
It's also a good idea to use a separate email address for your email subscriptions. Only give out your "official" email address to trusted people and websites. This not only enables you to stay sane and not get flooded by email, but it will also ensure that you don't miss any important emails from that people that really matter, because your inbox is too cluttered with unimportant messages.
Try out subscriptions first
There's really no harm in providing your email address and testing out a subscription if it's worth it. So go ahead, hit the subscribe button, and read that company's emails for a couple of weeks.
A lot of companies really do offer great coupons and savings in their emails, so be sure to keep an eye out especially if you shop with them on a regular basis. However, if you find that they're sending you messages that provide little value (i.e. if they're all promotional, but don't offer anything substantial) then just hit the unsubscribe link.
Image credit: Micky.! on Flickr
This content was created by AI