Posts Tagged “email”

Yes, today is my birthday. Nothing remarkable there…everybody’s got one per year. For those who don’t like birthdays, consider the alternative. I’ve had some bad birthdays before, but never one so bad I’d consider death as a way to avoid another.

Since this is a marketing blog (and I’d like to get back to enjoying my “special day” [insert ironic pause here]), I’ll simply remark that I find that the leaders in one-to-one marketing seem to be…online forums?

Yep. That’s right. Online forums. When you sign up for one of these online forums, they routinely ask for your birthdate. The software then obligingly kicks out a “happy birthday” email automagically. Nice. It’s a great way for the board to remind you that they exist, and a nice thing for the recipient, even if you know it’s not the thought, but the programming that counts.

Honorable mention in the birthday email sweepstakes: Jack in the Box. I received a “personal” email from Jack Box today, along with a coupon for a free desert. Way to extend your brand – and your tongue-in-cheek marketing attitude to Jack-lovers around the country. Nice job, Jack!

…I knew you could. Every now and then, there are pardigm shifts – “game-changers,” if you will, that remake the landscape and Change Life As We Know It.™ I suppose the first one was the asteroid strikes that sent the dinosaurs packing. Like that one and hundreds since, most paradigm shifts occur in ways that are hardly noticeable – at first. It’s only later that you realize what kind of tectonic shift occurred because of one, seemingly insignificant factor. For instance, the advent of television largely killed what was left of live, variety shows in theater (vaudeville), radio plays (serials, dramas, comedies, game shows), and hurt movie theaters. Home video tape players almost killed movie theaters off, and the internet and Tivo have conspired together to remake the television landscape.

Other inventions or innovations are a lot more obvious. You can instantly understand how they will change everything. Today, I learned about one such innovation, and lemme tell you, it’s Katie bar the door time in Telecommunications Land. I speak of the imminent release of Google Voice. Read the rest of this entry »

When the ‘net hit critical mass, email was the biggest thing to hit marketing since third-class postage. Suddenly, you could reach millions of people for next-to-nothing. It was huge! Amazing! And then, the spammers killed the golden goose. 

I remember when I received my first piece of spam. 

I was incensed. Outraged. And I protested – to the sender, to my ISP, to the company that sent the mail – to everybody I could think of. And of course it dies absolutely no good. Because, believe it or not, spam actually works. Sort of. It’s a numbers game. Send out a million pieces of unsolicited crap, and some idiot, somewhere will respond. Since it cost you all of about a buck ninety-five to send it, get a couple of dozen people to respond, and you’re makin’ some real money. Who cares that you have essentially killed a valuable tool for communications and marketing. Read the rest of this entry »