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Don't be the tomcat
Our tomcat, Grover, wants to go outside. He wants to go out the side door, so he’s been sitting in front of it, looking at me, then staring at the door. He’s been doing this for about half an hour, intermixed with occasional sad yowling.
The back door is open, and he can get from outside the back door to outside the side door in a minute, tops. But he wants to go out the side door.
(I’d get up and open the side door for him anyway, but I have another cat asleep on my lap and it’s not fair to move her just because Grover is being difficult).
I’ve been having a discussion with him:
Grover, the back door is open.
But I want to go out the side door.
You could go out the back door and then go round to the side door.
But I want to go out the side door.
Grover the tomcat
What makes this more than just Friday Cat Blogging (not that there’s anything wrong with that) is that the conversation I’m having with Grover reminds me of the discussions Laura and I both regularly have with clients with delivery problems.
I want to go in the inbox
You’ll need to clean up your subscription process, and set recipients expectations better
But I want to go in the inbox
And you need to handle bounces properly, then you’ll start to go in the inbox
But I want to go in the inbox
And you need to send mail that looks like your real email, not just test messages, to get to your customers inboxes
But I want to go in the inbox
And it may take a week or two for all the changes you make to really affect your reputation at the recipients ISP
But I want to go in the inbox now
When you hire someone to help with your email campaign, you’ll need to actually follow their advice before they can help you.
Don’t be the tomcat.
I feel your pain. It is frustrating to watch clients have to be coerced into not only doing the right thing, but completely embracing it to the point of setting new BCPs, not just grudgingly nudging up against them.
Give Grover a pat, he is only a cat. Clients may need a litterbox.
I think the point about managing expectations is so important yet so frequently over looked. Your relationship with your subscribers evolves over time and should be seen as a journey rather than event. Nothing is perfect first time round. You have to keep working at improving every aspect of your mails, from content to style, to delivery reputation to keep people interested and engaged. All relationships need attention or they wither. Your relationships with your subscribers and members are exactly the same – dont take them for granted. My cat refuses to go anywhere she doesn’t want to. I guess cats and people aren’t so different!
the cat is okay he is just being a cat being unhappy
but your client makes other people unhappy
i prefer the cat