An Unnecessary Email With A Very Important Marketing Purpose

There is absolutely no need for epicurious.com to send this email-

Browsers store login information indefinitely.  Plus there are cookies.  Finally, I can always click the forgot password? link on their site.  So why did epicurious.com send this email?  Because their user data probably says something like, “users that don’t visit in over 60 days have a 3% chance of never returning”.

What’s clever about this email is the copywriting.  It suggests not clicking the link will deactivate my account.  Even though I don’t visit the site (thus the email message) I don’t want my account deleted (what if I need to look-up a recipe in the future?) so I click the link.  I bet 80% of recipients do the same.  Last week my top of mind recipe site was allrecipes.com, this morning it’s allrecipes.com and epicurious.com.