Sure, I am the same, but the problem is that for one "you" there is a hundred that aren't you, so your lost business will be well offset by the business of others. For them it's just a number game.

Hmm, this is an interesting business opportunity. I feel the same, but let me prod it further. I suspect the core problem isn't that you're emailing me - it's that you're doing so out of a focus on you, not me.

Hear me out: when I go through the email-signup hullabaloo on a website, it's usually because I really want something from there. It's probably a one time thing, and I'll likely forget about your site and brand momentarily after I receive the object of my attention. When you email me two weeks down the road with some "exciting features" or "website overhaul" or "biweekly coleslaw update of random things on your website" -- I still don't care about you or your website, and now you've annoyed me like a dinner party guest that blabs on about themselves after everyone's body language has made it clear they're not listening or caring.

What I do still slightly care about is the problem you've helped me solve two weeks ago. I imagine a neat way to engage me would be: "Hey, you downloaded these Visio stencils from our website, but check it out - we've just updated our stencils library with these slightly older pieces of equipment. If you've got something old kicking around, it's worth to have a look, instead of drawing it yourself: link. Oh, and by the way, if you want a template and some advice on modelling a building, check out this(link) post on our forums. UsernameXYZ has worked in several large corporations and has modelled enterprise-scale networks. 801 of our users thought it was good advice - it's probably worth a read!"

There is a reason people sign up for service to use it once, and that ought to be cleverly exploited to increase their engagement. The clever bit needn't be unscalable either - the majority of one-time users likely fit into several common scenarios (log in to download something, log in to post something, etc) and it wouldn't be hard to come up with a set of custom messages, each tailored for the particular scenario. That wouldn't cover every one-time use, but I imagine it'd be a fair stab at it.

Do you think this would be a good way to engage you, or would it still fall into the "annoying -> immediately delete from inbox" category?

You're spot on. If you make it about "what's in it for the reader or prospective customer", their receptivity and reaction to it will be much better. That is in stark contrast to "here's why we're great" emails which are the norm.

The ultimate user of this is Amazon who recommend you stuff based on what you've looked at or bought.

I think TylerE maybe in the vocal minority here (no disrespect TylerE) but the type of customized "what's in it for you" email your talking about works. And many users who are looking to make their lives easier actually may appreciate it.

My gut reaction is is that that's even worse. This may be a personal bias against "reaction" e-mails.

One thing that might help is to keep things VERY brief. If I see a wall of text I instantly go for the delete key. One or two sentences that DON'T look like some canned e-mail I _might_ scan.

But don't waste my time. My time is precious to me, your store (probably) isn't. Imagine if each e-mail you sent to me cost $10 to send. Do you still send that e-mail? If not, don't waste my time.

I also find behavioral targeting very creepy, so that'd be a turn off.

I agree with you and at our company we try to follow that as much as we can, but we can see other companies doing this kind of stuff and succeeding with it. They are able to generate massive email lists and most of people will never complain or report spam so... It really makes me wonder.

Yeah but in all fairness you already bought my widget.

But you've lost any chance of me becoming the one of the 10% of your customers that generates 90% of your sales.

they wouldn't care because u're in the 1% of customers who would care about these things.