I don’t know what to say to the marketing team at Borders other than that they really, really need to test their mailing database extraction rules before they send out a major announcement. Maybe it’s just me, but this doesn’t motivate me to go to the store:

In case you can’t see it, the promotional mailing enthusiastically crows “Redeem your Borders Bucks Now You’ve Earned It!” and then goes on to tell me that my balance is a thrilling $0.00.

This is embarrassing for Borders, but it’s surprisingly common how in this digital age we get mailings or promotions that have values so small that they’re quite counterproductive. A gift certificate for $0.03, for example, isn’t going to make you jump up and run to the store and use it.
I also see this with some of the advertising networks I’m involved with too, actually, where I get a Paypal statement that I earned $1.37 for the month, or similar. (The lowest earnings I get on a monthly basis, by the way, is from feedburner.com, an amount that wouldn’t even buy me a chai).
Maybe this is the result of the micropayment economy we’ve been talking about in the business world for at least ten years now? Imagine, if you could be paid a fraction of a cent for a single transaction, but if millions of people in China jumped up and down at the same time, oh, no, that’s the wrong collective behavior metaphor. Sorry! 🙂
Anyway, am I the only one suffering from this experience, or do you also find yourself getting oddly small or even zero-value promotions from companies that should know better and should be able to test for zero-values and omit you from their mailings?
Meanwhile, sorry, Borders, the $25 gift certificate I got a while back from Amazon.com is far more exciting than my zero-balance Borders Bucks.

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Update! As I finished typing this in, I got another email from Borders with the subject “Correction: Dave, You’ve Earned $5.00 in Borders Bucks!”. That’s more like it, chaps!