'Imaginary Friends': Why Fakey E-mail Messages Turn Off Your Prospects

At first I thought I was just weird. I don't fit the norm.

Okay, I guess I've always known that. I have a highly tuned BS-o-meter. I can smell phoniness a mile away.

So last week, when I got 12 personally addressed e-mails from perfect strangers with my name neatly inserted with some program's merge function, I was prompted to write this letter:

Dear Email Marketer:

I know that mass e-mail marketing is a numbers game. You are looking for a 1-3% favorable response.

And yes, with a B.A. degree in psychology, I understand what's at play here. People like to get messages from other humans, not robots. We like to feel special. Unique.

But we also get it when we are being, well, used.

Manipulated.

Problem is, when you insert my name randomly, I don't feel all that special. In fact, it screams SPAM!

But personalizing the message gets you more opens and clicks, you say. 

Well, yes, it might. But too many times the message that follows the "Dear Judy" is stiff, formal, stilted, and highly impersonal. So you lose me.

Don't pretend you know me

Judy, save 40% if you act today!!!!

Hi Judy, I have some terrific news for you! 

What would you think, Judy, if I told you could take a luxury cruise to Puerto Vallarta for just $99?

When I get a hard-sell email from someone I don't know, and they have inserted my name in the first line, I'm not really all that impressed. It's not like I say: Wow, they know my name!

It's more like: Who the H*** is this?

I'm a real person

Finding my name and sprinkling it throughout your sales message? Profoundly simple.

But gathering enough information about me to know the kinds of products I like, my fears, my deepest needs? Not so much.

A truly personalized e-mail marketing message, one that hits me in the perfect spot at the perfect time, is built with careful attention to things like:

• which emails I have opened before

• which parts of your website I clicked through to after receiving, say, a particular e-newsletter

• how I found you in the first place and what kind of relationship I already have with you

• what offers I have responded to in the past

• and a zillion other details

Call it what you want. Target marketing. List segmentation. Or something else. Just don't think you know me because you know my name. 

It's so superficial. 

Comments

[Blogger Dad/David Wright]

Hi Judy,
This is a great post, Judy. I like how you, Judy, dress down the spammers who plague our email boxes like a swarm of locusts, Judy.

Your post, Judy, is a post as could only be written by someone who has a couple of career detours in school leadership and third world development management, Judy.

Thank you again, Judy, for this wonderful Judy post.
Judy.

[Genuine Chris Johnson]

Judy, Nice Post, Judy.

What Judy needs to realize is that there's a balance between intimacy and overuse. Just like being cordial and friendly, everything has balance.

[Judy Dunn]

Okay, Blogger Dad, I'm already loving your sense of humor. That's just 9 Judy's you've sprinkled in. What merger program do you use?

Seriously, thanks for visiting. That's very cool. I'm glad I connected with you on Twitter.

[Judy Dunn]

Genuine Chris,

I agree about the balance part. But even one single "Judy" without any relationship established first still irritates me.

To me, it's not genuine. It's manipulative.

[Bruce Colthart (@bccreative)]

You've written down what many of us have been thinking - spammers are not only annoying but also careless, in that they are so transparently playing that numbers game you mentioned. And in the process, forfeiting any useful relationship once the reader has decided, "this is spam."

The false sincerity ("Hi Judy..") is so obvious as they immediately demonstrate their ignorance of you as a real person with real needs...which they're clearly unaware of.

Funny, but I just finished my own blog post that builds on this very spam topic, with a little more emphasis on spam from my very own chamber of commerce colleagues! http://blog.colthart.com/2009/06/chamber-spammers/

I hope that small- and micro-business marketers are reading all your posts, but this one especially. Hopefully they'll avoid alienating real people like us.

[Judy Dunn]

Bruce,

Thanks for adding to the conversation. Good to see you back!

I thinks it's that "false sincerity" that I object to most. We work so hard in our business to build relationships and then someone comes along and pretends to know me with the first email, which, of course, is always a sales message.

Now I need to hop over to your blog and read your post.

[Kate Phillips]

LOVE the post, Judy! I feel the same way.

Maybe it's a dumb marketing decision, but I decided NOT to ask people who sign up for my mailing list for their names (they just enter their email addresses), because I hate the "Kate, our June special ends tonight!" emails for the same reason.

I'd rather get an anonymous email telling me "Our June special ends tonight!" than a personalized one from a stranger, even if I DID at some point opt in to get a teleseminar link or a "special report."

[Judy Dunn]

Kate! Glad you stopped for a visit.

We don't ask for names when people sign up for our weekly e-newsletter, either. I figure we're in for the long haul (hopefully) and if I can help them out down the road with copywriting services, I'll eventually learn their name.

Even when you sign up for a silly newsletter, you are placing incredible trust in a business. Trusting that they won't sell your name to someone els. Or bombard you with hypey ads and other sales messages.

I think you are taking the right path, Kate.