A Reminder to Always Proofread Your Marketing Copy
When a business makes mistakes in their marketing communications, there are several problems:
- The business looks stupid.
- The business looks careless.
- The business’s marketing communications strategy to address the mistake is inevitably complicated, because there’s no good solution to the problem.
Recently, I received a series of mistake-ridden marketing emails that illustrate these points quite well. A local business sent me an unsolicited email that contained a devastating typo– they included the wrong phone number. Trying to atone for this mistake, they sent a follow-up missive:
My first thought was, “That’s what you get for sending me unsolicited email.” I definitely have a problem with email marketing that isn’t permission-based. My second thought was that customers won’t likely trust a business that can’t remember its own phone number.
My third thought was to notice that this email also contained a glaring typo.
While apologizing for the previous mistake, the business makes another mistake in their subject line – “Our Apologizes!” It’s a bit like the Internet meme, “All your base are belong to us.”
Despite their claim, I don’t believe the cold had much to do with their typo, since this marketing email was sent on the warmest January day I can remember (with a high of 62 degrees).
The lesson here for businesses everywhere is to take care. Details matter. Your marketing communications reach many people, and it’s important they tell the story of your business without distracting the customer with mistakes and typos.
Sometimes what your customers think and value might surprise you. I had a conversation with a contractor who learned by accident that his customers preferred slightly rusty service vans to pristine, freshly-painted ones. He had purchased a fleet of used vehicles, but unexpectedly needed to put them in the field before he could get them painted. Many of his customers (most of whom were selling their homes, so didn’t want to invest too much capital in the improvements) mentioned they preferred a less expensive contractor who didn’t spend thousands on the appearance of his vans. They believed “the savings were passed on to them,” so to speak. Now, the contractor doesn’t worry so much about keeping the paint jobs up-to-date.
Dishonesty can lead to short-term gains–remember Enron?–but ultimately ends in business disaster. For the plumber, I wrote a reasonable yet scathing review of his business and chose one of his dozen competitors to be my go-to plumber. As for the roofer, I related my story to friends and neighbors, so they can make informed decisions in the future. I’m just one home-owner, but my influence extends beyond my own purchasing needs.
