Email Marketing horror?

With those errors I'd avoid letting them resend it, who knows what impact that would have on your customers. Instead negotiate some or all of the cost back.

Did she pay by cash or card? If the latter, she should contact her card provider for a chargeback. This sounds like a very sloppy and unprofessional service not worth paying for.

As for how much she paid ... I spent £600 on 3,000 email addresses a couple of months ago, and that was a fair discount. Plus I handled the campaign myself. So for 15,000 address: probably upwards of £3,000?


If she paid by cheque, I'd go to the legal section and see if any of the pro's there can advise on how to get her money back.

Elfin said:

My questions are:

• How much would you think that she paid for this? (I'm trying to work out if she was overcharged in the first place)
• What should she do now? The guy has offered to send it out again (which sounds as if he is admitting that he messed up), but I'd say that the damage has already been done.
• How can you ever be sure that an email was sent to the alleged number of potential customers in an email marketing campaign?

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1. For the design work, I'd say £200-300. For sending the email, maybe the same. I don't really know how much a list of 15k email address would cost though. Definitely less than a grand all in.

2. I presume that the email is being sent in batches, so only the 1st batch has the errors you descibe, such as HTML errors and sent from the wrong address. Therefore I'd make sure he fixed those errors before sending it the the next batch of addresses.

3. The only way to be 100% sure is to send it yourself. Of course, you could sneak a few addresses onto the list that you can check yourself, so you can monitor progress. And of course - your friend should notice a marked increase in hits/enquiries if 15k people have really been send an email about her company!

Hmm, I am really new at this, so can't offer any opinion, but would like to hear about some succesful campaigns. thanks

Spiral said:

Hmm, I am really new at this, so can't offer any opinion, but would like to hear about some succesful campaigns. thanks

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I used to be the World's biggest email marketing cynic, thinking that it was a waste of time, money and effort. However, for about a year I have been running a campaign for the company in my sig. It involves a bought-in list of about 3k names and around 1k names who have subscribed via the Web site. We send a plain text email with a link to the Web site using a piece of (free) software called phpList.

The site owner claims the email campaign has been a massive success generating genuine enquires every time. We;ve used the same list 4 or 5 times now, so it must be getting to the end of it's useful life, but apparently a dozen or so enquires, directly from each email run, result in some kind of work.

How much would you think that she paid for this? (I'm trying to work out if she was overcharged in the first place)

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No idea, I'm always astonished by the amount people are willing to pay for an email list.

However, it wouldn't amaze me if it was in the region of £3k just for the list.

What should she do now? The guy has offered to send it out again (which sounds as if he is admitting that he messed up), but I'd say that the damage has already been done.

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I doubt the damage has been done. For a start, most of the emails probably got deleted with little or no attention from the recipient. So, most of the people who get it again probably won't remember (as it's going to be coming from a different email address and was jumbled up for a lot of people last time).

What should she do? I depends what she paid and what agreement and guarantees she received. And it depends on her faith in their ability to get results on the second go.

How can you ever be sure that an email was sent to the alleged number of potential customers in an email marketing campaign?

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Aside from seeding the list with some addresses of your own (enough to give you meaningful feedback), not much.

And, if you do seed the list, you've got to make sure your email addys won't block the message. Otherwise, you could end up falsely accusing the company.

I think this is a tale of what happens when a non-marketing savvy business owner uses a non-marketing company to do their marketing.

The company assured my friend that it would be a successful campaign.

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This is interesting to me.

You can have direct mail pieces campaigns by the best copywriters in the world and they can lose money.

How can anyone "assure" a client that an untested direct mail campaign is going to make money?

It sounds like they could have guaranteed it (as it was delivered by email and it used their own list), but they haven't (they want to keep their fee).

In which case, the "assurance" they gave your friend was meaningless. It was just an empty promise that they weren't willing to back up with their own money.

I'm sympathetic towards your friend as it sounds like they made a bunch of promises that took advantage of her naivity. She thought she was making a rock solid investment when she was really just gambling.

It's situations like these that led me to decide that, wherever possible, I'd guarantee my work.

Steve

Here's what she does;

She's mails the list again.

She admits there was a technical problem.

Apologies profusely. And sends a copy of the email.

This is a common marketing technique used by
Internet Marketers.

We're on several email lists of very successful information marketers and the times we've received the same email twice in a day with a little note:

" Had an IT problem and wasn't sure you
received this so I'm re-sending it....."

It does bring a smile to my face every time I read that little message.
Like hell they had an IT problem! They just want to increase readership of their email.

heck we've even used the same tactic to our own lists for several niche markets where we sell downloadable e-books.

good luck

mark

If I was handeling that email marketing campaign and I'd messed it up I'd offer to do the whole thing again for the client for free 2 months later when everyone had forgotten about the first emails.

Mark Pocock said:

Here's what she does;

She's mails the list again.

She admits there was a technical problem.

Apologies profusely. And sends a copy of the email.

This is a common marketing technique used by
Internet Marketers.

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Think thats a bit of a wild statement. Admittedly there may be a small element (that rogue element including that very same rogue element that exist within any other industry) that do such a thing, however dont tarnish all of us with the same brush. Internet marketing is not just mail lists, but a combination of a number of different disciplines of which Direct Marketing is just one aspect.

Getting back on subject, from what you have said, it doesnt sound like a very refined list if its just his and her databases, and I would be thinking that 3K would be a bit high.

As far as moving forward, in the same situation errors do occur. However you have mentioned that recipients got gobledigook and the sender was the company she used.

Thus I would personally cut my ties with such an establishment, and find someone who would be able to advise and help, ensuring that she has established their credibility and their success of previous campaigns.