Permission Marketing: How Not to P*ss Off Your Target Market
Friday, May 9th, 2008
Posted by Jenn Lowther
An unnamed numerically branded online gambling company inspired me to write this post. It maybe slightly off topic, but in reality it relates to all of your marketing initiatives.
The first call I received on my cell phone from the spamtastic company was on a Saturday afternoon. They *HAD* to let me know of a special offer they had just for me to enable all of my online gambling needs. At this point I asked them really nicely to take me off their call list, as I have absolutely no interest in gambling online. I have no idea how they got my cell phone number, but that’s another post. If they had left it at this, you’d not be hearing about it now.
The company decided to absolutely get me furious with them and inspire me to tell the world what sort of spammy company they really are (not that this should be too surprising as they are an online gambling company). On Monday, they spam called me again. Again, I asked them to take me off their call list as they were calling during the day and I have to pay for calls by the minute - and if you could see my cell phone bill, you’d know that I need all of the minutes that I can get. Again, if this is where they left it, I’d not be writing this post.
The very next day, they had the gall to spam call me again!!! That’s it, I’d had it with them. I actually feel a bit for the spammy telemarketer on the other end of the phone. I ’sternly’ informed them that this was costing me money and that I’d report them if they continued to spam call my cell phone. This got the attention of my coworkers as they were calling me in the middle of the day.
At this point, I’d had enough. Now not only had they p*ssed me off, but I was now intent on letting everyone I know how p*ssed off I was. Given what I do for a living, this amounts to quite a few people. I have now blogged, stumbled, twittered, and facebooked the experience I’ve had with the company. Given the sheer number of online gambling sites available on the interwebs, my hope is that I’ve turned at least a couple users off of the company and onto one of their competitors. So now instead of having a new customer through their direct marketing initiatives, they have lost current of potential new customers. The exact opposite effect they were planning on when they first called me. Now keep in mind that none of this would have happened to me if they had just listened to me on their first phone call.
This brings me to the point of my post/rant. Permission marketing. When planning/executing a marketing campaign, it is always in your best interest to respect your target market. The most effective marketing campaigns are ones where your demographic have chosen (or given you permission) to send them your marketing message. Your campaign conversion rates will be significantly higher and the likelihood of p*ssing them off is significantly lower. Or at the very least…if you don’t get their permission…listen to them when they tell you that they aren’t interested and you won’t get angry bloggers doing their bit to try and ruin your brand.
**Just so you know that we had a pool going in the office to see how many times I could use the word spam in relation to 888 - Nadia you have officially won the pool:)
