Spam…. No, not the meat in the can. I’m talking about spam in the form of emails trying to sell you timeshares and pills to make you better in bed.

The kind that makes its way to your inbox everyday creating a fog around the emails your truly want to open. Also referred to as “junk” or “trash”, human beings have accepted spam as a part of daily life. Like sitting in traffic or waiting in line to buy coffee, people seem to think that spam is unavoidable. Every morning when you get to work and fire up the ol’ computer the first task of the day is always the same…. Open Outlook, Gmail, or any other email client you prefer and start the spam filter. Great… Out of 20 emails in my inbox only 1 is something I care about. Oh well. After 19 box checks and “delete” clicks my inbox is back to its pristine, clean self. Now I can actually start to work…

I used to be this way. Thought spam was just a part of my day. I never had to think twice about it. Just delete the random emails and move forward. Then came a day that would change my life forever. On February 14, Valentine’s Day, I began my career at WDM Group as an Email Marketing Coordinator. My eyes were forever opened. Since that day I’ve never looked at emails or spam the same way. I learned that in dealing with spam I didn’t have to sit in traffic or wait in line. I could skip the traffic altogether. I have the power to fight back against spam and take back control of my Email world.

Since my job deals extensively with sending mass amounts of emails, it would make sense that it also involves reading and responding to lots of emails. This is where my light bulb went off. In going through the hundreds of automatic “Out of office” and “Vacation” replies after one of our newsletter sends, I found a diamond in the rough. It was a reply titled: “Please unsubscribe”. Once opened the email read: “Kindly unsubscribe me. Thank you.” After removing the person from our mailing list I began to think more. It had never occurred to me that you can reply to commercial emails. You can’t just tell a TV commercial that you don’t want to see it anymore when your favorite show is on… So why should you be able to tell which emails you do and don’t want to receive? This is the beauty of the internet. It’s the last free medium of information left. A person can decide what he or she wants to see. You have control of your digital world. I had realized email Nirvana. I have never looked back since.

When I got home from that fateful day I logged on to my personal computer and took back my inbox. I must have written 50 unsubscribe emails. I couldn’t believe this had never occurred to me before. These days, life is sweet. No more insurance offers, win free iPad messages, and new credit card applications. My inbox is spam free and happy. Email marketing changed my life. All is now well in my universe.

Now I may seem to be making a big deal about this. I mean how can fighting back spam be so important? Those you asking yourself this, just know one thing. I work in email marketing. Anyone has to be a little OCD for this job.