Who was it that said: “you get one shot at making a first impression!”?
This is no truer than in marketing:
– You research your market,
– You target your audience,
– You create a great campaign,
– And, then you send this e-mail campaign out:
We Love Your Blog!!!
[AJC: So far, I’m hooked!]
I’m writing to inform you that [websitename] has been featured on Guide to Online MBA’s Top Personal Finance Blogs list found here:http://www.guidetoonlinemba.com/tips-and-tools/personal-finance-blogs. We’ve gone through and hand-picked a list of our favorite personal finance blogs and outlined the unique reasons why we like them.
[websitename]?!
How’s that for a credibility-killer; naturally I shot back an e-mail of my own:
Dear [spammersname],
“I’m writing to inform you that [websitename] has been featured …”
LOL … and, thanks!
The website owner kindly – and, quickly – wrote back … and, it was all a mail-merge error, etc., etc.
Too late, the marketing campaign is already shot … don’t let this be you 🙁
Footnote: If you check out the “hand-picked” and “unique reasons” why they apparently like my blog, they say my blog “discusses financial strategies for earning $1 Million a year” x 7 years = $7Million7Years (!) … a research genius at work! 😛
sounds like it might be a SEO ploy? you link to their page because they’ve listed you as a featured blog. now they’ve got a bunch of blogs with “related” content linking to them. I’ll file that idea away, and if I ever use it, I’ll be sure to test the mail merge first.
[my name here]
You should take out the link in the post, as indicated by Ill Liquidity you did exactly what they wanted – gave them a link.
This is not related to this post,but I wanted to say , i am dismayed at the younger people in their thoughts on retirement.
I was at a financial web site today ,and reading the response to this article really surprised me as to how little people know about what it will take to survive after retirement. Many were proclaiming that once retired, you have no children to feed, a home paid for, and basically no other real debts , so you won’t need more than about half million to live well.
We really need to do a better job of informing kids what it will be like 40 years from now when they are retired.Because they are going to be ill prepared.
@ Ill Liquidity – it’s not just for spam, but it is a very good way to get backlinks, which google rates highly.
@ Evan – The blog seems genuine so I am happy to let the link stay, but they didn’t do a great job with either their research or their marketing letter.