Postmortem on a Simply Terrible Email Marketing Campaign

As an email marketing consultant, I read more than a normal amount of simply terrible email marketing campaigns. I don’t mean junk email, because nobody reads those. I mean breathtakingly feeble attempts at online promotions that sincere business owners or wannabe marketers deliberately compose in hopes of selling somebody something. (Somebody? Anybody?)

Usually my suppressed lizard brain activates my delete key finger within seconds of a subject-line scan. But today I came across this message which may win the Nobel Prize for Most Violations of Common Sense in a Single Email Marketing Campaign.

So in homage to a spine-tingling, gruesome Halloween in Marketingville, I offer up this 8-point postmortem examination and dissection in  hopes that you will strike these transgressions from your email marketing repertoire at once. I promise, this patient was already dead before he reached my Inbox.

1. A Yahoo email address on a business email? Really? Dude, on first glimpse, all I read was “glob.” [Delete]
2. Who the H is Josh Walker? And how does he know what I’d be interested in? [Delete]
3. First, if Josh wants me to see his webpage, I’m much more inclined to click on a text link rather than this gnarly HTML (too intimidating). But if he must flash the entire URL at me, can he not think of something better to call it than “advertising-information?” [Delete]
4. There’s Josh again. And now he wants me to hurry? Josh, why do I care about your brand new program? [Delete]
5. One word: Proof Read! (Oh wait; that’s 2). AND QUIT YELLING AT ME WITH YOUR ALL CAPS. (We learned this in 1998.) BTW, you’ve exceeded your exclamation point quota…and, um, please tell Josh I’m still waiting for the “why do I care” part. [Delete]
6. Another URL? Which one do I click? You haven’t explained either one. Josh, you’re confusing me. And confused readers [Delete].
7. Well, look! It’s Josh himself signing off on this email. Note to Josh: Pick a narrative to write in– First person or third–unless you have multiple personalities. In which case, get 2 email accounts. [Delete]
8. Uh huh. I made it to the bottom of your email, Josh, and I trust you less now than I did when I first opened your message. So I kept scrolling down to see if I could find your CAN-SPAM footer and opt out. Not surprisingly, the only way I can opt out of receiving anything from you is to reply to your glob Yahoo address. I’d rather right-click and tell Microsoft to “add sender to blocked senders list.” Or just [Delete].

Now, stop haunting everyone’s email inbox until you can show us why we should care about anything you have to say.

Tagged as: email marketing campaigns, junk email