Data flowing fast
Copper wires singing bold
All there is to learn
Tag: tech
Wow, the most annoying email marketing fail I’ve received…and I’ve seen a few
With 7 years working in Real Estate, I’m on tons of email lists. I don’t mind this much, as I get to see what’s going on out in the market. Today, though, got one that violates all my marketing skills, understanding and wisdom.
- It was a jpg dropped into an email. I’m not a fan (mea culpa: I’ve done that in the past, mainly out of time, or, sadly, that’s all I had to work with).
- In the jpg were several urls. Note: I don’t say “links”. The links were NOT CLICKABLE! Simply text in the jpg.
- As I was interested in the property in question, I manually typed the links into a browser. Nope! No worky. Not even the bit.ly one. Not a single link worked.
- I saw the project name in the email addresses in the “contact us” section. That was the right URL.
- The creme de la creme, the piece de resistance (insert cliche of your choice here): there was no address. No city. Not even a state, region…nothing. When I finally made a url work, I could see that it was on the Washington Coast. Please note: this was for a new real estate development. “Location, Location, Location”?
It seemed like the creator of this campaign worked really hard to ensure I not only didn’t connect, but actually ended up annoyed with them. Amazing how well it violated every tenet I have for effective email communication.
So, do:
- Location. Events: have a date, location (address, venue…at least a city), and times. Drives me nuts to get an email for a property that looks interesting, or an event that looks really cool and, well, sorry, it’s it Atlanta. And it’s not until I’m in the registration section that I find that out? Geez!
- If you can at all help it, don’t just email jpgs. FYI, spam filters hate them.
- Links. Oh. My. Gawd! Making me TYPE your link…from an email?
- Links, part ii: Links MUST WORK. Test them! Most people won’t do anywhere near what I did. I was curious at that point and choose to dig. They may have got a click, but they didn’t get a sale.
- Segment your market and sell accordingly. I’m not working the Washington Coast market. It’s hours of driving away!
- Your main call to action cannot fail. If clicking on the link takes you to a Google page saying “sorry, sparky, no frickin idea what website you’re trying to find”, every erg of energy expended was wasted. Your goal is sales, right? Customers gotta get to your page. Gotta!
Keep your eyes on the prize, folks. Sales pitches to the right people, in the right way, is a splendid thing. Spam? Yeah, no.
Go forth and do great things!
Ah, Wingdings and Useful Fonts
I regularly use Wingding elements such as check-marks. And I regularly forget the letters assigned to those characters.
I’ve used this chart in the past, yet need to Google it every time. The last time I needed it, I spent several minutes digging through the Google to find it. Scared me. So, here we go. Now I’ll never lose it again.
A vlog post: Pokemon Go
Pokemon Go is quite the thing right now. There’s stuff to learn with all this.
Loathsome Malware Makers
Brutal impulses
Brought forth by deep frustrations
Malware crafters: ugh!
Autocorrect Woes
Deeply frustrating
My autocorrect errors
Failure of my eyes
A Binary Haiku
One zero zero
Zero one zero one one
One one zero one
Packet Transfer
Drifting, tired,
Mind wandering aimlessly,
Pointlessly, disjointed thoughts colliding,
Packets of disconnected data
Glance off each other,
Ultimately unimpacted,
Though perhaps slowed.
Vista
Ballmer: Vista a ‘work in progress’
Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer called Windows Vista “a work in progress” on Thursday, but he stopped short of committing to extend the life of its predecessor, Windows XP.
This might sum-up Microsoft’s problem’s here. Customers were expecting the “work in progress” to have progressed further.
Microsoft Challenges the iPod (Again) – New York Times
Microsoft Challenges the iPod (Again) – New York Times
I’m glad Microsoft is getting going in this space; it’ll serve to keep Apple honest and not take us for granted. Competition is good, blah, blah. Apple is (hopefully) not going to make the same mistake as they did in the desktop wars of the 80’s.