goose@goldenegg.com
01:00 PM Feb 28, 2006
At the Sephora in downtown San Francisco, you'll need to look sharp
and move fast upon ingress to avoid the sunny inquiries of a greeter --
not bereft of pulchritude -- concerned to know whether you have "yet"
signed up for sephora.com.
Yes, Sephora wants your @hotmail
address where you send all your business junk, or some made-up thing
you think of on the spot, and they're willing to manufacture free
samples by the thousands and pay an outgoing underclassperson to hand
them to you, and a (perhaps) more acne-bespotted one to enter them into
a database at day's end. A fine thing, for a firm dedicated to
distilling revenue from the erogenous effervescence of musk ox mist, to
lay down cash on the nail for these diaphanous threads by which we
moderns hold one another at bay.
This is a company that values e-mail addresses.
And
when you think about it -- and watch it in action, harvesting, let's
say conservatively, an address every 90 seconds, 40 per hour per store
for some multiple of minimum wage and a penny's worth of crap in a
sample jar, what a bargain! (The managerial glare of a bald-headed worthy whose arched eyebrows
rudely demanded justification for my interest in the machinations of
the company acquisition program forestalled a sub rosa interview with the sample-wielder that might have yielded firmer data, or at least a phone number.)
For a list self-selected of people proven to have sufficient interest
in and means for the beauty industry's extract to walk in the door, and
to have given you e-mailing permission besides. For the prospect of a database-filtered "relationship" that will yield sales of rose-water at $30 an ounce.
Think the petitions, surveys, and
bother-Congress-about-some-bill-Frist-will-ram-through-regardless
campaigns you've been running out to ramp up your list are so much revolving of the hamster wheel? Pay a visit to your Sephora and see what
corporate America, seeking no change in the world but its market capitalization, thinks an e-mail address is worth.
Or, ask Cravers, Matthews, Smith.
This invaluable lode can be yours, too, with witty application of DIA tools and opposable thumbs. Beltway denizens can moot more particular suggestions at the NPower Greater D.C. IT Working Group lunch March 2, where our Kelly O'Neal will talk about "Growing Your List."
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