Roman Reign
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I'm typically a patient person. I'm typically a tolerant person. However, it is now at the very tail end of 2011, and some businesses just can't get their act together. The Internet has been around for nearly two decades, and grave mistakes are still being committed. I'm not sure if it is because social media's popularity and accessibility allows everyone to think that they can market their business on the internet (or start an internet business for that matter); or it could be some other reason. Lately, I've become very disappointed with the level of internet marketing sins, and this post just had to be written. Many other blog posts about how to market on the internet exists, but there probably aren't that many covering what NOT to do. By the time you actually recover from the holidays and start thinking about your business practices, it'll probably already be 2012. For your 2012 business resolutions, please follow these handy tips. 1. The CAN SPAM laws aren't there just for kicks. They are there to keep consumers (like me) from receiving too many obnoxious emails. Please adhere to them like the law, because they are the law. 2. I know my email address is readily available online. Having a public email doesn't mean I have given you my permission to send me spam. Having a public email address does not mean I have given you my permission to spam. 3. Do not be a rude because I ask to be taken off your list. Being rude makes me not want to get back on your list, ever. 4. Do not force me to register on your website to opt-out of your spam. Chances are, if I have to registered to unsubscribed, I probably never gave you permission in the first place. You should have an easy one-click method of unsubscribing. 5. I get press releases on a very regular basis. I don't mind press releases. I do mind spam. Don't add me to your spam list just because you send me a press release. Even more odd is when I get added to the spam list but not the press release list. And when I can't unsubscribe, I have to resort to tweeting employees of the business to take my name off the list. That's bad. That is bad like contracting a staph infection in the middle of a tropical jungle with only stale water left for drinking. Those are the pretty tame missteps in email marketing. Here's some even worse ones. 6. Whatever you do, do NOT share client information. I think people tend to forget that this can happen unintentionally. For instance, you might throw a holiday party for all your clients using a popular e-vite website. You might also forget to set the list to "private," and with a click of a mouse, you have unintentionally shared your entire client list with all your other clients. For some industries, that type of mistake is illegal and potentially costly. Could you imagine if an oncologist, fertility doctor, or a clinical psychologist made that mistake? There would be some serious hades to pay. Even if the medical provider claims that all the patients had made their conditions public via the internet, the provider has no right to disclose his/her clients to anyone. Disclosing his/her client list to other clients is even worse. Even exposing a media list is a serious no-no. It is very public that our privacy has been invaded by big companies like Facebook. They are watching our every clicks, and in turn, we have access to their free services. Protecting our privacy from other businesses is something that we also need to think about these days. Businesses, regardless of type, should not be sharing our personal information with others without our explicit consent. If you're wondering what sparked this blog post, here's the short version of the story. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Last week, I received an email to two of my private (not public) email addresses. It was a local business asking for reviews. I didn't think anything of it, except that when I saw in the "To" line, there was a long list of email addresses. While I was slightly annoyed that someone had to ask for reviews, I didn't put too much thought into it. Given the name of the business, I thought it was someone I had hired to do the tile in my house about six years ago. When I looked at the website, I realized it was someone I didn't know. Then I received another email from the same business asking for reviews on a different website. Again, my private email addresses were shared with everyone else on the list. There was no unsubscribe button on the email. There was no introduction or "thanks for being a cherished client" in either email. The emails simply asked for reviews on websites. By this time, I was really annoyed. I already have severe dislike for people who ask me for reviews. But the nerve to ask twice after exposing my email address to everyone? So I did just that. I wrote a review about how I disliked the marketing method and lack of privacy. Instead of emailing me privately about the issue, the business owner posts my personal information (phone number included) as the owner comment. Furthermore, for some odd reason, he posted a copy of the CAN SPAM laws as a comment on my blog. Apparently, this person just does not understand the concept of privacy, nor has he followed the CAN SPAM laws. He's now written four owners comments to my review, though they'll probably continue to be flagged off. And for some reason, he thinks stalking me on my blog is the correct thing to do. Because four wrongs make a right, right? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ If you're in marketing, you might ask "How do I fix this?" Easy. Stop spamming. Stop stalking. Make communications meaningful. I'm always open to email or phone calls. And unless I think you're an absolutely jerk, I'm open to talking. If the business owner reached out to me personally to fix the situation, I would have gladly taken down the review. After all, everyone makes mistakes. How one reacts to the mistake is a statement to their character. |
