If you have been receiving emails that apologize for minor mistakes made in emails previously sent from the same source, then you are not alone. This is a new email marketing tactic that is a direct result of our social media influenced marketing environment.
When I first started noticing this email strategy, my inquisitive nature kicked into gear. Was that really a mistake or was it intentional? I wondered. And so should you. Good marketers are trained to notice what other marketers and doing and ask not what is happening, but why.
I don't have to wonder any more because this tactic is becoming so commonplace that I decided to share it so that you can figure out how you can apply it to your small business marketing – which could be your email marketing, social media marketing, or any other kind of marketing.
The purpose behind these planned mistakes is they give the sender an opportunity to make back-to-back calls to action to engage with you their offered product, service, or event.
Most of the time, the follow-up email purports to fix something that really didn't need fixing at all. It's usually to clarify a partial mistake, such as inviting you to an event on Thursday the 23rd. The clarification is that the event will indeed be on the 23rd, but it is a Tuesday and not a Thursday.
But you had already figured that out, right? In marketing parlance, it's one more valuable impression.
Mistakes Make You More Human
What is clever about this tactic is how it humanizes a business, because we all make mistakes. Mistakes are believable. Mistakes sometimes create even more engagement (note the Facebook screen capture) than well-crafted marketing messages. And its all a function of this increasingly personal business environment.
Mistakes make you approachable, and more importantly, they create opportunities for further engagement. Mistakes give you a reason to go one step further toward accomplishing the next objective.
Making Mistakes Work For You
There is actually nothing new about this tactic. I used it in high school to manufacture an excuse for returning to the home of a girl with whom I had just had a first date – in the hopes of asking her out on a second date. I would "accidentally" leave a personal item behind, such as a jacket, just to have a reason for stopping by the next day. Oops, I forgot!
So, how can you apply this to your business to enhance your engagement with prospects and customers? Here are some ideas:
- Leave something out. Then return to the scene to give it up. This will feel like a bonus to your customer who was already satisfied with the transaction, and that will bring them one step closer to being a loyal customer.
- Take something back. It sounds crazy, but it will get their attention. Better yet, just mention that you were not intending to include that extra bonus, but now that its done … "enjoy it with our compliments."
- Make an upgrade. You can extend the warranty to compensate them for paying promptly, or just because you feel like it. Zappos did this in the early days with free expedited shipping. Customers were obviously delighted, though by now it surely must be known that it is SOP – standard operating procedure.
You get the idea. Be creative.
Mistakes don't just get noticed, they are remembered too.
And being memorable is the hallmark of every great marketing strategy.
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Until tomorrow, Jeff
as the resistance. That little voice that always has a reason why its ok to put off what you are very capable of doing – getting the task at hand completed and shipped.
