Awful Execution

Is there anything worse than a mass communication piece from a company you have a relationship with that forgets your name? As a marketer and someone with half a brain I realize that they don't send out individual emails, but I also understand that my cell phone company should have a system that allows them to put my first name into the email instead of....

They executed the "Dear" part well but that is about as good as they did on this piece in which they were asking their customers for help in making the company better. I have one suggestion for them, but I'm not sure if this email was meant for me because there isn't any name on it so I guess i'll have to save my thoughts.

When you are sending out a mass email or mass communication check your database, check your system, and for goodness sakes do a test run to make sure everything will go smooth. You are sending this out to YOUR clients, I wouldn't want to embarrass myself like this.

Marketing that makes you go hmmm

How often do you receive, hear, or see an advertisement that just completely confounds and confuses you? Probably more often than the companies who employ these marketers would like. It makes me go hmmm, but not in a good, thoughtful way, more like a who the hell would approve this kind of way.

For example this afternoon I received this email from a comedy club that I had once submitted my name to in hopes of winning free tickets to a future show.

This was the whole email and the title of it was "Yuk Yuk's special Announcement"

Sooooooo, I can surmise from the local service provider that this is a new television station but other than that it really tells me absolutely nothing. The email was also just one big image which I have now copied to make fun of them for not knowing how to market, and it did not click me anywhere. Not to a page dedicated to the television channel or anything. I watch a decent amount of television and i've never heard anything about this channel, I haven't read anything online about it or seen anything in a newspaper.

As far as I know, this is the first effort they have put into marketing this channel. Fail.

Non-personalized can work too

Often you hear that everything should be as personalized as possible to make customers feel like you are talking directly with them. But that might not always be the case.

99.3 CFOX is a local rock station in Vancouver and easily has the wittiest and sharpest morning show in the province, if not the nation. They have established a brand for the Jeff O'Neill Show that never veers from its true character. They know when they will get in trouble from the lawyers, execs, and government agencies and they will do whatever they feel like anyways.

So, what would you expect from them when you submit an email comment to the show? A standard autoresponse personalized with your name? Nope...something more like this.

A well thought out and pretty hilarious way of telling people that you got their email and you are interested in what they wrote. Works with their brand and leaves a smile on their consumers faces. I wonder how many times this has been forwarded to people's friends.

Effective Email Creative webcast

I heard about this webinar through the AMA and found it incredibly informative so I will now pass it on to the 1 or 2 people that have miraculously found my blog.

It was titled "Top 10 things you need to know about effective email creative" and was put on by Jordan Ayan, CEO of SubscriberMail.

I recommend if your business runs email marketing campaigns you have a listen as Jordan brings up some interesting issues that could help you with future emailings.

I was especially intrigued by the information around optimizing an email so when the recipients have images turned off you are still able to get your message to them. I have had the problem in the past where i've received emails back from people saying our messages are tough to read, etc., etc. and the returned emails always show the recipient as having images turned off. As Jordan also points out, the majority of business consumers (90%) have their images disabled on their email accounts. As my company is primarily in the B2B field this is a huge portion of our targets that may be having trouble viewing our emails. I think its time to optimize!

Here is the full presentation: http://blog.subscribermail.com/2009/03/30/video-webinar-top-10-things-you-need-to-know-about-developing-effective-email-creative/