Archive for the ‘Marketing’ Category

Here is an example of how not to do email marketing. I recently signed up for a FedEx account. Frankly the experience has been less than stellar. Their user interface for technical resources needs a serious overhaul, they’ve had a service outage for getting a developer key for over 36 hours, or at least they’re telling me that’s what the problem is. When I tried to have an online chat with them Citrix’s GoToAsist never started the session, but just sat in continuous load mode. Needless to say, when they sent me an email asking me to fill out a survey I was ready to jump on the chance to finally get to complain. Then I clicked on the “Survey” link and got the message “This survey is currently closed. Please contact the author of this survey for further assistance.” Don’t feel bad if you’re laughing at my hardships, when I am not pulling my hair out over this I am laughing too. Who shouldn’t be laughing is FedEX. I don’t know how many new customers they get daily but it has to be a large number. How many of these people are having similar experiences? How many of these people will complain on Twitter, LinkedIn their blogs? That number is not so huge, but it doesn’t have to be. UPS, DHL, USPS, people have choice and ultimately they’ll go where not only the cost is right, but where the company makes their life easier not harder.

Here’s how not to do email marketing. Read the rest of this entry »

Carol Tice, writing in Entrepreneur’s Daily Dose this week takes to task the nearly 50% of small businesses who don’t have web sites.  She says, Read the rest of this entry »