Epic Personalization Marketing Fail

Happy new years! Hope everyone had an awesome holiday, found some time to relax, spend time with family and friends, and maybe even let loose a little bit. Usually, I bring you guys Epic Marketing Fails, and that won't stop, but today as a 2012 bonus there is also an epic marketing win!

THE EPIC MARKETING FAIL

Apparently my name is N/A

This might not look like much at first glance, but trust me, it belongs on this blog. This is an email I got from someone who did not have my permission in regards to sponsoring some conferences in cities that are not even in my continent.

Those are all pretty bad, but even worse, is the personalization they use at the very start of the email. It tells me a few things:

• They don't know who I am
• They don't have a good email/marketing automation program
• They don't really know what they're doing

Can you imagine calling someone and as they answer the phone you say 'Hello Not Applicable, how are you doing today?'. I don't think that call is going to go very well, and neither did this email.

THE UN-FAILURE

I'm going to do this one a little differently, here is an example of how to do personalization properly:

Epic Marketing Win

This postcard was sent to me on my birthday this past winter by a guy who sold me my Volkswagen. In fact, he wasn't even the guy who we ended up ultimately buying the car from, but one who helped us along the way. Not only was it the only postcard I got on my birthday (my "friends" all wrote on my Facebook wall okay?!) but it was handwritten, included my finacee and arrived right on my birthday.

Here is a car salesman, who never got my business, who now lives in another city [I know this because he also sent me a separate letter about his whereabouts] and is really leveraging some direct marketing best practices. This kind of stuff blows me away.

It's kind of sad that with all of the technology that some marketers have, they are still missing the boat on how to use it to their advantage.

Here are 5 tips to avoid some common email marketing fails:

1. Use permission based marketing - get people to opt in to your emails. It will make a world of difference for everyone involved.
2. Have a clear and compelling call-to-action - you have a matter of seconds to communicate value and get your prospects to make the next step. 
3. Leverage good content - if you want people to take the next step, there needs to be some value in them doing so. Value for them, not you.
4. Subject lines are key - if your prospects don't open your message it doesn't matter what is inside.
5. Use personalization... properly - personalization can definitely help your email marketing, if used properly.