Check your gmail

I like the term best practice. It makes one feel like they're doing the best they can according to industry standards.

That's why I wonder why marketers sometimes confuse best practice with trends.

Take the current trend among direct digital marketers today:

Their subject lines start with a personalisation of the first name of someone they're targetting.

Yesterday I was clearing out spam from my Gmail account, and I realise that 90% of the emails there began with my first name personalised into the subject line.

90%.

When did you last check your email stats to see this?

Tired of emails

This afternoon, like countless afternoons earlier, I received a marketing email from a company I'd never heard of, selling me something I've never had an interest in and can much less afford, from a marketing firm that's starting to annoy alot of people.

Eyeofdubai.com is a firm that sends out marketing emails either by partnering on events where they barter their email service, or where companies pay them to send out their email campaign.

That's all well and good, until they send the same email 3 times in 10 minutes.

There was definitely a noted difference when I complained: they reduced it to 2 emails instead!

This is something to be wary and careful of as a marketer trying to get the word out through different media channels: remember to sign on to these vendors' newsletters, lists etc, get copies of everything they send out so that you are in your customers' shoes when they receive your campaigns.

If you're getting annoyed, chances are they're not just getting annoyed, they've already blocked you. Is it any wonder, then, that leading email tracking softwares register a minimum of 10% unsubscribes on every single e-marketing campaign?

And as for Eyeofdubai.com, I believe Click 4.0 - The Digital Marketing Event for the Middle East should do a case study on them titled how NOT to digitally market.