As a marketer, I try to cut vendors some slack when they make a mistake in their emails or just generally don’t hit the mark. And I give kudos when they recognize their mistakes. Take, for instance, the mistake a popular photo service made in sending me a “congratulations on your new bundle of joy” email. You can imagine my shock in finding out I just had a baby when I didn’t even know I was expecting. However, they promptly followed up the next day with an apology and I respect that.
Then there are those marketers that continue to make the same mistakes over and over…and over again. Not only are they wasting my time and ensuring I will never enlist their services, they are wasting precious company time and resources in marketing efforts that will never pay off. Here are just a few of the flawed marketing campaigns that have come my way recently and my suggestions for how these companies can stop spinning their wheels and make better use of their time and mine.
The email from a competitor asking me to buy their service. Obviously someone in the data or list pulling department didn’t do their due diligence here. If you are emailing my work email and I work for a competitor, not only are you barking up the wrong tree, but you’re showing me all your marketing cards. I know exactly how you are positioning, how many touches you are sending out, and what your value proposition is. Thank you very much for the competitive intelligence, but you may want to rethink that strategy.
The “Bumping this to the top of your inbox” spam. This is a trend that is gaining popularity that I personally can’t stand. If I didn’t respond to the original email, there is probably a reason for that. And, yes, I understand that inboxes fill up and that some emails get missed, but if my email box is so full that you need to “bump” your email to the top of it, I probably don’t have time for the unsolicited spam. A better approach would be to send me a DIFFERENT email with a different subject line or value proposition to see if maybe that would pique my interest. Continuing to send the same email over and over and just adding “Did you see this?” or “Bumping to the top of your list” does nothing but irritate me and likely cause me to mark future emails from your company as spam.
The email to the wrong person. I just recently got an email saying “Hi Ashley! We think you will really like our services.” That may be true, but my name isn’t Ashley. I don’t know what to say about this one except check your mail merge features before you hit send or make sure you change the name if you are manually cutting and pasting into emails.
The “I don’t want to keep bothering you…but I will” email. This is one I’ve just seen recently. At first I thought “how nice, they’ve realized I don’t want their service and are ceasing and desisting. Kudos for good lead scoring”. But no. Even after the email saying they don’t want to bother me any more and that they understand if I don’t need their services, the barrage continues.
The form email from a company with which I’ve had contact. If I’ve already spoken to you on the phone and told you I’m interested in the product but don’t currently have budget, I should be in a different nurture bucket than someone who has never responded to any campaign. I don’t want to receive an email telling me how great your services are when I clearly told you I agree, but currently can’t afford them. Instead, try sending me some ROI documents on your product, or “ways to convince your boss to buy my product”, or something that would be useful for the phase of the funnel I’m currently in.
The solicitation email from a company with which I am already a customer. I get it. Marketing Automation Systems aren’t perfect. Web-to-lead forms don’t catch duplicates. If I request a whitepaper from a company and am already a customer, their marketing department may capture me as a new lead, prompting the sales department to give me a call or an email. While this doesn’t particularly bother me, I know some customers it would irritate beyond belief. It’s worth your company’s time to invest in de-duping records before any communication goes out so you don’t accidentally email your biggest customer asking them to trial the product they already pay thousands of dollars for.
Phew! Before you get depressed, there are some companies out there who DO get it. Stay tuned next time when I talk about email campaigns that DO work!
What are some of your email marketing pet peeves? What advice would you give vendors when trying to get your attention via email?
Author information
Cari Zoch
Marketing Manager, Brand Communications & Social Media at OneSource Information Services
Cari has over 15 years of Marketing Communications experience and has spent the last 3 years focusing on the ever-evolving world of social media. Prior to joining Avention, Cari was the Global Social Media Manager at LifeSize, a Division of Logitech, and built their social media program from the ground up. Cari is an avid Longhorn football fan (yes, even this year!), and enjoys acting, spending time with her daughter, and taking advantage of all the wonderful outdoor activities Austin has to offer.
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