We’re not stupid

You need to treat your customers with respect.  They’re not stupid, and can see through all of your fancy marketing ideas.  For example, here is a shortened version of an email campaign i was sent from a company that sells sports training books.  All names are made up to protect their identities…

First email (sent to ENTIRE customer mailing list…)

From: John Johnson (Marketing manager)

To: Sarah Sarahson (CEO)

Hi Sarah,

I just had a thought.  Why don’t we increase our 30% discount to 50%.  That’s right, i said 50%.  We have such great books so why not do everyone a favor for the holidays!

John

Second email (sent to ENTIRE customer mailing list…)

From: Sarah Sarahson (CEO)

To: John Johnson (Marketing manager)

John,

Are you nuts?  that’s far too cheap! I know we love our customers, and our books are great, but the company simply can’t afford 50% off.  Lets stick to 30%.  That’s still a huge discount!

Sarah

Third and final email (sent to ENTIRE customer mailing list…)

From: Sarah Sarahson (CEO)

To: Entire mailing list

Dear valued customers,

I’d like to apologise for the emails you received yesterday.  A gremlin in the system must have delivered them to you all, so I’m sorry.

I have recieved hundreds of emails calling me a Scrooge for not agreeing to the 50% discount, so in light of this I’d like to finally agree to it, but only in the run up to Christmas!  We can’t afford to offer such a CRAZY discount for any longer!

That’s right, we are now offering 50% off all books until the 25th of December! You lucky people!

Have a great Christmas,

Sarah Sarahson (CEO)

_____________________________________

There we go.  This email apparently “accidentally” slipped onto the mass email server and was sent out to thousands of contacts.  No, I have no idea how this happened either.  It’s either one INCREDIBLY unlucky accident or a completely obvious and lame attempt at a marketing ploy.  As I said earlier, please don’t think we are that stupid..

Emails are like Christmas

Was is it about emails that are so exciting. Sure, I receive hundreds of emails a day, but the majority are simple status updates from staff and general low content stuff that needs to be read but are fairly similar day in, day out. However, I absolutely love getting back from a meeting to find several emails waiting to be read, and then scouting through them looking for something exciting or new.

Everybody has a need to receive regular updates, whether it’s your Mum or Dad calling from abroad (or even around the corner), finding out what your old friends are planning or even how your favourite sports team is doing, we love being connected. I think it’s this constant desire to be connected thats driven the growth of social media. We all loved recieving post back in the day, and then emails and text messages, so it’s been a natural progression that has driven our desire for more regular updates using social networking (Facebook and myspace), blogs and forums.

However, after spending a day at work, regularly checking Facebook, reading friends blogs and surfing through forums, I’ve begun to wonder if this is all going to get a little stale. If everybody continued to use status updates such as “making a sandwich”, or inane blog posts, we would all lose interest. However, social media is constantly changing and re-inventing itself. There is a reason businesses struggle to work within SM, and that is the fact that trends change in an instant, new ideas are created every second, and things are always moving on. As a business, you can’t hold it down, you have to grab your preverbial surf board, paddle for your life and then enjoy the ride (and hope like hell you don’t get bitten..)

By the way, we make surf boards…