"A personal message for ...

We haven't met, and I am not in the habit of reading unsolicited marketing messages received by email, but your marketing message was direct, and presented so well that I COULDN'T RESIST."

That was the beginning of my response to a very well written PRE-SELL message. 

It might be a little hard to understand my response out of context, so rather than give you the whole thing, verbatim - let me just tell you about it.

As I said, the initial contact message was very well written, and made me WANT to visit the web site to learn more.  The product being sold on the web site was so unique that you wouldn't guess it in a million years. 

Now you need to understand that my background is technology, and I get really excited every time I see a real live business trying to use internet technology to expand their market beyond their geographic boundaries.  (I once called a woman who was trying to sell Chesapeake Bay Crab over the internet to volunteer free help with her web site.)  I digress.

Anyway, when I got to the web site (not the crab one - the original one), I found that 

• the sales letter was as well done as the initial pre-sell message,
• the product fit a fair-sized niche market (as a guess I would say 10-15% of American households)
• the product was for a home-use consumable product that was easily shipped, so there was good potential for repeat sales,  
• a free trial offer of 3-months' supply was being offered with no commitment, and
• there was a good explanation of the product, its use, and its benefits to the buyer.

So, I immediately ordered a year's supply,  and even wrote a glowing recommendation for the product before receiving my order, right?  Not hardly!  I didn't even take them up on their free trial.  But why not?

After all, there was a good pre-sell message presented in the email, the product was intended to meet the needs of a fairly large demographic, the web site did a good job of satisfying the curiosity that the pre-sell message had created, and a good freebie was offered.  Am I really that picky?  I don't think so.  I think I react pretty much the way most would.  

You see, the problems started very early on.  Do you remember me saying earlier that I was responding to an "unsolicited marketing message"?  Well, that response was to explain to them all the reasons I would not be taking them up on their offer and to offer some constructive criticism on their marketing techniques.

Now, besides the fact that I had not asked for any information on their product, they had committed a couple of other mistakes in their sales campaign that prevented me from responding favorably. 

1. Even though they had a paid domain name with a well-done web site installed on it, the email was from a free email address.  

   Did they expect to get "flamed" by all of the unsolicited mail they had sent out?

2. The email was not personalized.  In fact, it was not even addressed to me (I was in the CC: list)

   I'm Hurt!

3. My email address (along with all of the other recipients) was visible in the CC: list

   I wonder how many of those other recipients I subsequently received SPAM from.  Hmmm...  I don't have any of the other recipients in my address book.  Maybe I could come up with something to sell to them.  Do you think they would mind receiving an offer from me?

4. The list of email addresses they bought/rented for the sales campaign was not very well targeted.

   The email address where I received the initial solicitation is a business, rather than personal address.  That aside, there is no question that if my home were served by a septic system, I would have at least taken them up on their free offer.

Most people think of their email addresses as they would an unlisted phone number, and don't desire contact with anyone with whom they have not shared that information. 

If you offend any of your recipients with your email technique, do you expect that they will buy from you?  It only takes a few disgruntled recipients to get your entire site shut down for spamming - and all the hard work, time, and money you have put into getting your online presence established will go up in smoke. 

Summary - If you use email for marketing, do yourself a BIG favor, build a legitimate opt-in list of people interested in receiving news of beneficial offers from you and market to that list - not 25 million email addresses from an overpriced CD.

An interesting footnote.  As we went to press with this article, I checked to see if anything had changed at the web site that prompted the article.  The site couldn't be found!  They may have gotten shut down for spamming, or maybe they just found little success with their chosen method of marketing and abandoned their efforts to sell on the web.

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About the Author: Sid Hale is the founder of ad-CLiX, publisher of the ad-CLiX eZine, and has been satisfying client needs as an Information Technology Consultant for decades.  As a consultant, he constantly experiments with "bleeding edge" technology to maximize value to his clients.  His latest project is the ad-CLiX Network, offering FREE Banner and Exit Page exchange in a personal effort to try to replace spam as the predominant means of advertising on the web.

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