• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, November 11, 2019

Somewhere, somehow, I must have given Newsday my email address. And now I’m paying the price.

The Long Island daily is barraging me with emails once and sometimes twice a day, several days a week.

I don’t subscribe to Newsday. That’s no comment on the newspaper — it’s simply that I don’t live on Long Island and have little interest in its “News, Sports, Things to do.” 

It's possible I signed up for a Newsday newsletter once for national news and maybe even opened it a few times until they began attempting to charge me for it. Then I decided it wasn’t worth it, and failed to reply to their threats to cut me off. No hard feelings.

But these guys don’t give up.

Today, Monday, I received this email: Newsday Specials – all in love with this deal. What is it, Valentine’s Day? 

On Sunday, I got this: An Exclusive Offer For an Unforgettable—4 weeks free.

There’s no real effort to personalize any of this. At the least, you’d think they’d detect I’m a non-resident and offer me a different package. Instead, I get this: LIMITED TIME! Just 50¢ for Home Delivery.

During Halloween week, they let loose with both barrels:

Monday, Oct. 28: 

50¢ a day + FREE GIFT!eee

Tuesday, Oct. 29: 

What a treat! Only 50 CENTS A Day1 

Wednesday, Oct. 30: 

[WOW] Newsday for just 50¢ + FREE gift!

Thursday, Oct. 31: 

50 CENTS A DAY + FREE GIFT = SCARY GOOD DEAL! 

Apparently they skipped a day on Friday, Nov. !. (Either that or I erased the email). But they were at it again on Saturday with LIVE: Get ’90s House Party tickets,” and with another email on Sunday.

On Tuesday Oct. 15, I received two offers: 

[WOW] JUST $70 FOR ONE YEAR OF SUNDAY DELIVERY! 

FLASH SALE! ONLY $70 for a full year! 

And at other times, there were any number of final offers and last chances.

Some marketers may admire this series.

But you’d think that Newsday’s algorithms would detect that I’m not a candidate after months of non-response.

Go on any website to see anything, and they try to sign you up for a newsletter. But how many can you read? And why does that make you a prospect for a stepped upgrade to a paid subscription?

Not that I’m really annoyed — Newsday’s are the least of the many emails I get every day, many of them far more irrelevant.

But I’m an unusual case: I won’t lift a finger to clean out my inbox or unsubscribe to things.

Twilio’s recent survey shows that 29% of consumers want to be contacted once a week by businesses offering promotions. Only 17% say they want to be contacted once a day, and a mere 8% want to be contacted several times a day.

What do they do when they are tired of receiving messages through the wrong channels or of getting too many? They unsubscribe — or at least 41% do. 

So sorry, Newsday. I’m going to try something new today. I’m unsubscribing.