EightBlack.

It still staggers me that people don’t get this.

Take this example. I received this today from my insurance brokers. If I offend them with this, then too bad. They need to be told. They’re cheap arse bastards.

I’ve been a client of theirs for 8+ years. I think they know who I am - that is, they know my name and obviously have my email address.

So this is what they sent. This is a pure extract.

“We  hope you enjoy reading our second newsletter for 2008, where we have covered the following interesting topics –
* The importance of insurance for women - only 20% of women are insured!
* Cash Offsetting – how it can work for you.
* Self Managed Super Funds – new rules.
* Wills and Superannuation – who inherits your nest egg?
Please click  http://www.lakesideconsultants.com.au/news/no16.pdf <blocked::http://www.lakesideconsultants.com.au/news/no16.pdf>   to download this quarter’s newsletter from our website.
For any queries or financial assistance please don’t hesitate to call our office on 0510 0788.
Kind regards,
GARY KENNEDY”

First mistake. It was all text.

Second, it was sent from someone called Ros Walsh. Never heard of the woman. But it was signed Gary Kennedy. Again, don’t know the man.

More importantly, the fools at Lakeside then wanted me to visit their website and download their freakin’ newsletter. As if. Why the hell should I?

To add insult to injury, they then admit that email marketing is way too hard because this is only the 2nd newsletter sent out this year. The first one I never received. It probably asked you to drive to their office and pick up a copy of it from reception. Or something like that.

They even made a mistake with their own phone number. Idiots.

My advice is simple. If you haven’t got the skills to do this - pay someone to do it for you. If you only email every 3 months or so and have a customer facing business with hundreds of clients (like Lakeside does) - then don’t do it all. Sending email once every 3 months is SPAM. What possible relationship could you have with such little frequency?

Get the basics right. Like spelling, grammar, accuracy of information presented. Make the content relevant to the recipient. And above all, make it easy for your clients to consume your content. Making someone go to your website to download the newsletter is rubbish. People won’t do it. Lakeside probably dont run analytics on their site so its no use probably asking them what their bounce rate is from this email. (they don’t - I just checked).

And to make matters worse, if I was a real narky prick, I could ping them hard for not adhering to the SPAM Act. In their actual newsletter (on the last page), the MD rambles on how Lakeside is in total compliance with the SPAM Act of 2004. Except for the fact that they aren’t.

You see, the email they sent (the text based one), needed to have the functional unsubscribe link in it (not the actual PDF).

There’s no excuse for lousy marketing. Companies like Lakeside are going to get blown into oblivion if they don’t embrace change. Companies like this are already turning the industry upside-down.

Hooray is all I say.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, June 12th, 2008 at 11:29 pm and is filed under Analytics, Email Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.