When Email Pings Hurt
Do you ever feel really tired after learning a lesson through experience? I do. Very tired. The Irish Breakfast tea is just not cutting through it today. And on each email ping into my inbox, I feel even more ready to crawl under the warm protection of my quilt.
Maybe you are thinking I went ahead and began my next university degree in neuroscience. Yeah, that would be me. Not. That would probably also feel more like tired in a positive way. My tiredness does not feel like the exhaustion of something well done, but of something that has gone totally amiss.
I recently participated in a women’s expo, setting up a booth and all that. Part of my rental package included a list of emails of event attendees of whom I could entice with marketing. It sounded good. Basically the emails came from people participating in the hourly door-prize drawing. We each had to supply a prize. For those participants who wanted the opportunity to win said prizes, they signed up in agreement that they would be marketed to by us.
How has that all worked out? Rather poorly. I sent my first email out to these 200 people, introducing myself as a vendor from the expo, gave them a special offer, and of course added the disclaimer about unsubscribing to the future emails. After a few weeks what has been the response? Only those people who signed up for more information at my booth were worth the trouble. The 200 sum-marketing list proved a disappointment. I had more interest for “unsubscribing” than anything else - plus a few outraged husband-types who told me to leave their women alone (okay, that is priceless) even if they called for an appointment. Granted, this is the Bible belt, but for goodness sake….
Now I am just so sleepy.
