“I want to talk to you, but I don’t want to hear from you,” say most brands.

I want to ask such brands, “What is it that you really want? Do you want to hear from us or not?”

The paradox of brands that scream on their contact page how much they’d love to hear from you. 

Then when you contact them, they send you a confirmation email with a DO NOT REPLY email address asking you not to reply to them.

Their stance – “I love you, I value you, I want to engage with you, I want to hear from you, etc., but I don’t want you to reply to my emails!”

Tim Ferris explains in his blog posts that if he were to read every incoming email he’d get thousands of emails every day. 

So he doesn’t give a real email address but at least he explains why and he is Tim Ferris.

If we’re not that famous, we shouldn’t be using DO NOT REPLY email addresses! Period.

Listening to your own people who write to you voluntarily is the greatest free gift to understanding your own community better.