Readers tend to enjoy angry or sputtering “unsubscribe” demands. This could be the earliest example — it’s from December 1997.
First, How I Found It
While looking for something else in deep files, I found an interaction I had with a very high-end marketing professional who had offered to try to help market This is True for far less than her usual rates — she was the girlfriend of a friend of mine who loved the newsletter.
As part of her information-gathering process, she asked if I had any examples of readers complaining about the newsletter, as “Sometimes they are chock full of good ideas!” She also wanted an example of how I responded to a complaint.
I saw my response to her, which made me go find the original message.
The Whine
It was from a guy at Stanford University — no idea if he was a teacher or a student.
Back in those days, I had a horrible system for tracking the subscribers: I had to keep the list offline in order to keep it private, which meant list maintenance was manual.
Read: the “unsubscribe” requests had to be emailed directly to me.
Raymond was at least good at following instructions.
On Sun, 8 Dec 1996, Raymond wrote:
unsubscribe leland.[username]@stanford.edu
Of course, I could see his address in the From: line, but this method allowed the reader to submit the address they actually used, even if it wasn’t exactly where they were sending from.
“Leland” was not part of Raymond’s name, but rather was the given name of the founder of Stanford University — Leland Stanford (with his wife, Jane), in memory of their deceased son, Leland Jr. Indeed the institution’s formal name is Leland Stanford Junior University — not a Junior University, but a University to honor Leland Stanford Junior.
I knew all of this because when I was a kid, we lived a few miles down the road from Stanford, and I knew it was very advanced in the sciences, including computer science.
And because I was allowed to audit an intro to computers class there at just 13 years old, which really helped me get into computing early, which is the foundation of my secret for success. [I told that story as part of this post.]
My Reply: “No such address on distribution. However, I did find YOUR address, so have deleted that.”
Raymond had made a dumb mistake: he had put his server’s subdomain as part of his user name, rather than the subdomain: his actual address was [username]@leland.stanford.edu.
But no harm, no foul. Yet he even got his username wrong! He put it in as leland.lastname@, when it was actually first initial+lastname@ 🙄
The foul came because he couldn’t help but take a potshot as he left after being one of the first subscribers:
I can’t any more [sic] of the dry commentary at he end [sic] of each snippet. Who told this guy he was funny? He’s *not*.
My snarky reply:
Since you asked: The LA Times, the NY Times, the Washington Post, CNN, Newsweek, Internet World, the Bravo Channel, the Nikkei, the Wall Street Journal, .net Magazine (UK), the Detroit News, United Press International, Editor & Publisher, American Bookseller, Internet for Christians Newsletter, Denver Post, The Champaign-Urbana (Ill.) News-Gazette, The Knoxville (Tenn.) News-Sentinel, National Public Radio, The Arizona Daily Sun (Flagstaff), The Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle, The Times Leader (Wilkes-Barre, Pa.), The Democrat and Chronicle/Times-Union (Rochester, NY), The Dallas Morning News, The Journal Gazette (Ft. Wayne, Indiana), The Virginian-Pilot, KFRX-FM (Lincoln, Neb.), WTTM-AM (New York), KBVD-AM (Boulder, Colo.) and THOUSANDS of readers from dozens and dozens of countries who have sent appreciative comments.
One would think a guy from Stanford would 1) know his own e-mail address; 2) be able to construct a grammatically correct sentence; 3) take less than *18 months* to decide he didn’t like a particular brand of humor. But one can’t go around making assumptions, can one?
The naturally occurring snark, of course, is another part of my “secret” to success.
The Secret to True’s Growth
Looking back, that’s one hell of a list of press coverage for the first 18 months of any business. It’s because True was so pioneering that it got amazing coverage in the news, which is of course how it grew so large, so fast:
- >1,000 subscribers after just 7 weeks,
- >10,000 subscribers after 24 weeks,
- >50,000 subscribers by November 1997, and
- >100,000 subscribers by January 2000.
…so apparently, Raymond’s cranky exit didn’t seem to hurt growth.
All of that growth came without a single press release: I didn’t have a PR person trying to drum up coverage. All of those news organizations found True on their own, and most wrote (or talked) about it without even interviewing me.
Yet it wasn’t just press coverage that led to growth. The real factor — the real “secret,” if you will — is word of mouth. While True definitely has a copyright notice in every single issue, the free edition has, since Day One, encouraged forwarding to friends. Sharing. Spreading the word, so your friends can get their own subscriptions.
That is the ultimate reason True has succeeded. Not just for the first month, year, or even decade, but for well over 30 years, and counting.
Please do send a sample of the free edition to anyone you think might like it with your own recommendation that they subscribe.
But Not Everyone
I know True isn’t for everyone. (In fact, I got irate complaints the first time I said that!) And I know not everyone can afford “just a few bucks” a month for the Premium edition, because I’ve been there myself — and have said that again and again, along with “If you truly can’t afford it, you’re welcome to stay on the free distribution as long as you’d like.” — dozens of times over the years.
Of course not everyone will love it, and I don’t just mean the obliviots who are featured in the stories. Everyone has different senses of humor, and different ways they want to spend their time and attention.
I appreciate people trying it out: it’s one of many reasons why I still offer unlimited free samples, aka the free edition. I don’t expect or even want everyone to say why they unsubscribe, but I thank them for giving it a try.
Even Raymond from Stanford in the 1990s.
To Circle Back…
But what of the very high-end marketing professional who had offered to help guide True’s early marketing? It was getting such good press, and thus huge growth, all by itself that she didn’t think she had anything of value she could effectively add, even at a reduced price, so she bowed out.
Thanks anyway!
I never did hire anyone for marketing or PR.
Oh, and the “final” “secret”? I’ve chosen to not take any of this whining seriously. But sometimes, it’s pretty entertaining.
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