Dissecting bad marketing: When people forget WIIFM

The golden rule, cardinal rule, absolute must do, total imperative of marketing is this: it is all about your customer.

There's an acronym: WIIFM. What's In It For Me? When a prospect reads your copy they should know what the BENEFIT will be to them from buying your product or service.

It is that simple.

I got this email recently from a company. I started reading it, got bored and deleted it. Then I thought 'Actually, this would make a case study of poor marketing.'

Here's the email with the identifiers removed:

Dear Jon,

We are delighted to announce that in 2016 we shall be celebrating our 30th Anniversary.

To mark this significant milestone we have given our brand, website and literature a complete makeover; one that we believe helps reflect our heritage and our aspirations.  Our new logo is simpler and cleaner whilst continuing a theme that has represented our business for the past three decades.

We are very proud of our staff, our customers and our products so it is important that our brand represents this; indeed it is through our brand that we get to share with you who we are, what we do and where we are going.

We work across a number of industries and sectors, delivering expertise and software solutions that meet our customers’ needs, which, in turn, helps them achieve their own goals.  We believe our customers have their own unique requirements and they deserve a friendly, adaptable and professional approach.  It is this that drives us and is core to what we do.

We are all very excited about our new look and the opportunity to share more about the work we do and where we are going.  Please take a peek at the new website: [redacted] where you can learn more about our products and services and gain an insight into our mission and goals.

We would like to take this opportunity to express our appreciation for choosing [redacted] and for your continued support.  We look forward to working ever more closely with you for many more years to come.    

Regards,

So here's your challenge. Tell me:
a) what does that company sell?
b) what benefit I will gain from using their services?
c) what is the point of this email?

Seriously, someone bothered to send me an inbox-clogging email telling me all about how excited they are about their new logo. Wow, a new logo. Big furry deal, as Dogbert would say.

Let's dissect this and see where exactly it falls down.

It starts with my name. That's actually good. Email personalisation helps make emails more readable.

Then it says they are celebrating their 30th birthday. OK. Not important to me.

Then some blah, blah, blah waffle about how great they are and how they plan to celebrate. They use 'our' 10 times and 'we' 6 times before the first use of the word 'you'. That's how much you, the reader matters. The ideal marketing copy would be the reverse of that.

In fact, here are the total word uses
'Our' = 16
'We' = 15
'Us' = 1
'You' = 3
'Your' = 1

That's a ratio of 8:1 (32:4) words about me compared to words about you. There are some glaring missed opportunities to rebalance this. 

"We work across a number of industries and sectors, delivering expertise and software solutions that meet our customers’ needs, which, in turn, helps them achieve their own goals.  We believe our customers have their own unique requirements and they deserve a friendly, adaptable and professional approach.  It is this that drives us and is core to what we do."

could be rewritten as

"By working across a number of industries and sectors, your needs will be met through applied expertise and software solutions that help you achieve your goals.  As a valued customer, you have your own unique requirements and you deserve a friendly, adaptable and professional approach. You'll find this drives us and is core to how we work with you."

That replace a 6:0 ratio of me-you words with a 2:8 ratio. Still not great, but much more compelling and it means exactly the same thing!

I'd also question whether it is through their brand that they share with me who they are, what they do etc. They will probably have to explain all that stuff. Brands are actually very poor communicators. You know what are good communicators?

People.

There is a tendency to see email marketing as less selling and more about building relationships. But this email doesn't even do that because it is totally one-sided. It's not a relationship; it's just them saying stuff, completely oblivious to the needs, wants, feelings of the people they're talking to.

It is also a wasted contact. What is gained by sending an email to all your prospects about something as pants-boringly useless (to me) as your new logo? I can understand you wanting to go 'Squeee!' with excitement, because having a new logo is a BFD to you. But it means nothing to me. Why would I care? What's in it for me?

And even if I accepted this was a useful and relevant thing to be communicating with your customers with, it's not even a good communication because it's all about you. But if you want my attention it should be all about me.

It's the golden rule. Tell me the benefits. Tell me what's in it for me. Otherwise it's just a crap waste of inbox space.

Read more
Put your benefit front and central
Analysing takeaway menus for marketing fails

Interesting developments in communications

I've been seeing some interesting charts and diagrams on Twitter over the last few days, which anyone who works in Comms may find useful. Here are three of them. Obviously all the copyright remains with the organisations who created the diagrams, but as they've tweeted them, I hope they won't mind me reproducing them here with proper attribution.

First up is this breakdown by Microsoft of PC v mobile usage. (Edit: the blue is PC and the pink is mobile in the graph.) The main learning point is that very few people use mobile devices for email. In work we have recently talked about optimising our email newsletters for mobiles, but I now wonder how much we should be concerned. Obviously we want to make sure they are readable, but the assumption that everyone gets email on their mobiles isn't accurate. 

Click the image to embiggen it to readable size

On the other hand, using social media to drive traffic to websites requires making sure the website is optimised for mobile as 66% of social networking usage is on mobile devices. Two thirds of  SoMe consumers will potentially be clicking through from a mobile device. That has implications for website design.

The next graph is from The Economist and shows how Whatsapp is overtaking SMS text messages. What’s also interesting is how SMS has plateaud and even fallen back slightly. 

This usage graph suggests that Whatsapp may give you as much reach as SMS if you were exploring a new comms channel. Although you’d need to know more about user demography. I suspect Whatsapp is still very much an under-30s medium, a bit like Instagram. (These are my suspicions, I haven't checked to see if there is data out there. I'm basing my assumption on the people I know using either Whatsapp or Instagram.) 

We also still don’t know if Whatsapp’s growth is a bubble that may burst when something new comes along. But what it does show is how quickly a new comms channel can develop. In three years it is reaching the heights it took SMS almost 20 years to reach.

The third diagram has been created by Hootsuite and I really like it. It’s a honeycomb of user experience to guide the creation of web content that will engage people. 

I don’t think this is limited to creating content for websites. I have seen a lot of material produced that tick off none of these characteristics. I may even have been guilty of producing some myself - that web-page that someone has requested because they want a web-page rather than for any compelling user-oriented reason.

As a final thought, I wouldn't have seen any of these if it hadn't been for Twitter. People don't often regard social media as a learning channel, but I find more and more interesting stuff that makes me think turning up in my feed these days. There is a lot of data out there to drive good comms. It's just a question of noticing it.

Counter-intuitive Communications Knowledge

I've heard a couple of counter-intuitive pieces of knowledge that interested me from a professional point of view this week.

The first was from my friend Kate, in a guest-post for a comms blog, talking about communicating with young people. Her counter-intuitive finding is that regular through the letterbox snail mail is quite attractive to teenagers. There's a tendency to assume that the only way to reach young people is through social media, but if everyone is piling on there trying to get noticed, maybe a good old-fashioned, co-ordinated, well-written marketing mailing might be the thing instead.

The second thing was an article from CopyBlogger I saw posted on LinkedIn that cites research showing that the more emails you send the fewer people unsubscribe from your list.

I remember having an argument with an incoming senior manager at a place I used to work who said  people were complaining about 'getting too many emails'. As a result he wanted us to cut down the frequency of our regular newsletter. I said I thought that was a bad idea as even if you mailed every week, the most you would spend 'in front' of the reader was 2-3 minutes per email. Even at five minutes for a lengthy email newsletter, mailing once a month gives you an hour's exposure per year. That's not much at all if you want to use it as a relationship-building tool.

Anyway, seniority trumped common sense, as it often does and the newsletter got scaled back. The organisation that relied on relationships with the people who supported it suffered badly in the recession, and eventually the senior manager left in an undignified manner. Depending who you talk to he quit or was given the boot.

The thing with comms is you can't argue with the science, even the counter-intuitive stuff. I meet lots of people who don't get comms, and that's the main point they don't get. Good communications don't just happen.

Return to work (the aftermath)

Bit of a tiring day really, going back to work after just over two weeks off - with 8 days being sick leave. I had a clogged inbox to deal with, and a 'to do' list of mammoth proportions.

It's kind of funny that so many "urgent" emails sent to me two weeks ago don't seem so urgent now. Tomorrow I think I'll be phoning a few people asking 'do you still need this thing you were asking me for...?' With any luck the answer(s) will be 'No'.

I also got lots more praise for the panto and because we were having a 'goodbye' thing for our outgoing CEO this afternoon I got to see a few of my fellow panto stars on a social level, which was a bonus on an otherwise hard day. So far I think the only negative feedback any of us have had is that some of the characters were hard to see at the church shows because the stage isn't high enough. I guess in a way that's a positive - when people say they couldn't really see enough of what was going on.

And I got asked if I'd like to go on an Elvis-themed day trip on New Year's Day, which sounds intriguing. I guess the white jumpsuit outfit may see action again...

Annoyance

Grrr. Today I had a bit of a strop when my boss got copied in to a memo from one of the high ups suggesting a REALLY OBVIOUS thing we should be doing when interacting with the media.

Long story, cut short: we already do it. If relevant high up had bothered to check with us first we'd have told him we do it already, and in the case he referred to had done everything he'd suggested so 'helpfully'.

I sent a 'helpful' email of my own to my boss pointing all this out. Fortunately, my boss toned it down before responding to the memo which kicked all this off.

As Alice would say: Never compose an email while snarling...

I don’t know what people think I do in my spare time

I got back into the office today and walked right into the middle of a media problem. Someone has told assorted media types to phone us about something we don’t comment on. And there’s plenty of brown stuff hitting the fan and you-know-who is trying to clean it up.

In the middle of this chaos, I get this email from the person who inadvertently set the whole thing in motion, which says:

Also, on the subject of my press coverage, [your boss] wants a three-way with you, me and him poss on [suggested date]. Would you be able to set something like that up please?

I think the answer to that has to be no, doesn’t it?

Gripped

Sometimes people use weird phrases that don’t really make sense but sound super spiritual. Like for example, this grateful email I received this morning:

Good morning Jon
Thank you so much for this article which is great. We appreciate the support in making the magazine as real as possible to a wide audience and for His glory
with kind regards
in His grip
Rosie*

*name may have been changed to protect identity, or it may not, who’s to say?

I feel like writing back and saying:

Good morning Rosie
Glad you liked it.
Best wishes
in his clenching grasp
Jon

Another post about spam marketing and stupid names

Another trawl through the bulk mail folder has revealed yet more names that have been especially selected to dupe unwitting idiots to open a spam email. I've done this twice now and it’s still entertaining.

How stupid would you have to be to open an unsolicited email from…
Bella Kimball
etti miguela
Ronda Dodd
Ottilia Hilliard
ramona cyril
shoshana flores
Nelly Mcbride
zozo momoh
Shavonda
Estella Mcnally
Jasper Buck
Zander Gonzales
Luciano Sprague
Lovetta Lavera

and what is the point of sending spam with one word ‘names’ like…
cowgirl
clang (!?)
cholera (!?!?!)

My favourite from this haul was jennifer bran, who sent me an email titled Sweeter Tasting Sperm. Mmm, yummy. What is the recipe?

Stupid spam names

Inspired by Tez, the Tokyo-based hurrah maiden, and her comments on stupid spammers, I had a look through my yahoo bulk mail folders (yes, I’m that lucky – I have two). I have to agree with TLB that the people who set up spam are obviously idiots, and all the evidence can be found in the names they use (culled and presented below for your amusement) to try and convince you that they’re genuine. Losers!

Hmm, yes, I’d open an email from someone called…
Hung Mahoney
Octavius Herbert
Aurora Law
Geralyn [that’s not even a name!]
Gertrud Nanette
Henriette Frost
Claudius Le [Roman mum, Chinese dad?]
Jonah Rodriguez
Clementina Pratt
Aurelia Wylie
Adalbert Jensen
Benedikta Dantzler
Jolene Jeffers
Yesenia Cullen
Kresten League
Edna Gore
Barra Spikes
Montagu Fuller
Swapnil Moffatt
Bozidar Downey
Prem Scoggin
Cronus Mosier
Gunhilda Danko

But this stupidity has given me a certain amount of inspiration – now when I’m looking for potential characters for a story, I’ll just refer back to this post. I’m already imagining glamorous lesbian private detective/part-time lapdancer Benedikta Dantzler investigating the evil crime syndicate run by Septuagenarian mob-boss Edna Gore, whose deadly assassins Hung Mahoney and Gunhilda Danko killed innocent bank-clerk Adalbert Jansen, when he inadvertently discovered the mob’s money-laundering plan. Can Dantzler foil the bad guys, console Adalbert Jansen’s grieving grown-up daughters Clementina Pratt and Aurelia Wylie, avoid the amorous advances of Jansen’s estranged thrice-married bi-curious wife Yesenia Cullen, and find out more about the alluring and enigmatic Aurora Law – a fatally beautiful femme with her own score to settle with Gore. And who are Cronus Mosier, Swapnil Moffatt and Barra Spikes, and why are they sitting on Benedikta’s couch drinking espresso at 7am?