Tracking consumers
In an effort to more closely observe the group’s buying habits and personal behaviors, a growing number of corporations are turning to tag and release programs to study American consumers, sources confirmed Friday. The Onion
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A good example of 3rd party email
This morning I received a great example of a 3rd party email that I thought I’d share with all of you.
What’s so great about it?
Losing friends and influencing people
I download a lot of ESP white papers. Not because I’m looking for an ESP, but because I think it’s important to know what’s happening in the industry and what topics people think are important. I understand fully that white papers are a lead generation tool and I can expect followup from sales people at the places I download papers from. This is all well and good.
Generally the emails I get are polite, introduce the company to me, and ask if I have any questions or would like to talk. I tend to respond that I’m not looking for an ESP, and that I appreciate their contact. If I’ve blogged about said white paper, I will mention that and give a link to the post. I don’t want to waste a sales person’s time when said person can be working with potential customers.
Overall, these interactions have been pleasant and cordial. That makes the unpleasant few stand out even more.
There’s one memorable case where the first email from the sales rep had the subject line, “Meeting Time Tomorrow at 10am.” Wait. What? As I was checking email from bed before getting up, that subject line had me dashing out of bed to figure out what I had forgotten and work out how badly my schedule was messed up. Thankfully, my schedule wasn’t messed up, this was just an aggressive sales person optimistically claiming we had a meeting set. The email assured me that said sales person would continue to follow up with me until “we were able to connect.”
There is a place for aggressive selling techniques. This is the kind of sales drive that will work in certain situations. But I’m not sure it’s the appropriate opening when nothing is known about the target. In this case it certainly wasn’t a good opening. A number of companies ask me for ESP recommendations, and I tend to recommend those I know. I don’t think I’ll be recommending the above ESP to any customer. Their sales process was just that off putting.
Not quite the result Mr. Over Eager Sales Person expected.
The power of email marketing
Email is a helluva drug. That must be why I’m sitting here in a hotel room in Chicago where it’s minus something-a-lot outside and the roads are full of ice, salt and dingy snow.
It seemed like such a great idea at the time. Virgin America sent me an email advertising a 20% off sale for 20 hours. Al has been bugging us to come visit him in Chicago for months and I could get a storming deal on tickets. I poked around various websites and found a decent deal on a mini-suite at a hotel in downtown, just a block off Michigan Avenue.
It will be fun! The lights! Christmas Shopping! Maybe see some snow!
Well, we got the lights. We got to watch Christmas shoppers hurry along the avenue. We got to see the ice on the lake and throw snowballs. We even got to walk outside in a gentle snowfall on Saturday.
I realized, though, that I no longer have outerwear appropriate for midwest winters. I remember my years in Madison fondly, but I seem to have forgotten that I lived in 2 – 4 layers between September and March. I have forgotten that gloves and a scarf are not a fashion accessory, but are a necessity.
It was email marketing that reminded me of all that. And I have my fill of cold and snow and ice for a while.
Had a great time in the city, and Al was a wonderful host. But I’m ready to go back to my warm California, where as a friend of mine commented, “we keep the snow in the mountains where you can visit it.”