Battening down the hatches and doing my “panic buying”.
If you’re on the east coast of the US (and in a low-lying area) be careful and stay safe.
See you on Monday, after Irene passes through.
Author Archives: Jodi Kaplan
Here’s to the Crazy Ones
Thanks Steve.
Don’t Make This Dumb Autoresponder Mistake
Image by fireflythegreat via Flickr
Email autoresponders can be a great tool. Just set them up, and you automagically send messages to your subscribers.
You can send product information, helpful tips on how to use your services, sales messages, special offers, all sorts of content.
It can be a great tool which can help you build relationships, nurture potential clients, and keep your current clients loyal.
What’s not to like?
There’s a small catch
It turns out there’s a nasty surprise lurking in that autoresponder. I discovered this recently when I went to update an autoresponder series. I had expanded the content, revised the existing emails, and added new messages. I uploaded all the new material to AWeber. And, it immediately started sending them out – to everyone on the list!
DRAT!
I (somewhat frantically) called AWeber. They said in order to fix it I had to put a large number as the “last message” in the series in each and every record. That took quite a bit of time. Ugh!
Important autoresponder safety tip
If you want to add to a series that’s been in place for a long time, do one of the following:
- create a whole new list
- delete the “old” subscribers first
- add 1001 (or some other large number) to the last message field (this is the most time-consuming, but probably the best option if you want to contact those subscribers again for another offer, or add new content)
If you do mess up
Send an immediate email acknowledging the mistake. Apologize for the error, and explain that you’ve now fixed it. Fortunately, everyone on my list took it well (no complaints). Whew!
Has this happened to you? Have you been frustrated with an autoresponder or email setup? Tell all in the comments.
Tuesday Travels: Freebies!
Image via Wikipedia
The chief scientist at Hubspot (web marketing experts) has written a new book on how to spread your message with social media. It’s free (kindle version, which will also run on a computer) today (August 23) only. Get your copy here.
Free webinar (about the Hubspot book) at 2PM US Eastern time today. Details here.
Bernadette Jiwa has put together a free ebook (with contributions from Chris Gillebeau and Derek Silver) called You Are the Map Maker. Get the book here.
Can a Great Guarantee Be Worthless?
My brother (the geek) told me that one of the big computer memory manufacturers offers a two-year guarantee. If their memory fails, call them up and they’ll replace it.
Image via Wikipedia
It sounds great, doesn’t it?
And refreshing too, since so few companies seem to want to stand by their products lately.
When I first heard this, I was ready to write down the name, and tell other people how great this business was.
They believed in guarantees, they took care of their customers, and it all sounded wonderful.
Almost too good to be true.
Turns out it is too good to be true. The company will fix your problem, but there’s a “cost.” Not in money, but in something else that’s valuable (and not replaceable).
There’s a catch
Apparently, it takes two hours to convince them to honor the guarantee. Two hours that could be spent on something a bit more… billable. So, he’s stopped asking for it. If something fails, it’s faster and cheaper to just buy a new one.
Yes, you can get more sales by offering a refund. But you have to honor it in a way that helps your customers, not hurts them.
The idea behind a guarantee is to make your customers and clients feel good about using your products and services, even when something goes wrong. This company may have a two year guarantee, but the way they “support” it makes that guarantee worthless.
If this company honored the guarantee in a meaningful way, my brother would be singing their praises (as would I). This way, well, they just go in the crappy company file.