Thanks again for the birthday wishes! I felt very special and celebrated, due almost
entirely to the fact that I have an amazing husband who thought of absolutely
everything I would like. Lucky me! I also super appreciate the calls, texts,
emails, Tweets, and Facebook posts.
THANK YOU!!! That was
awesome. I feel super special and not at
all depressed about my Milestone Birthday.
Today I will attempt to make you laugh by showing you a
series of completely random texts I got from a wine store that is using texting
as a marketing tool. This is not the
same wine store I mentioned last week—this ANOTHER wine store that I tried
before I realized that Costco on the east coast sells wine. I’m not exactly picking on this wine store
because I do think it’s good when small businesses make ANY effort toward
marketing (many of them don’t), but this one is so random and funny, I thought
it belonged on here. You'll notice that I cleverly used my advanced knowledge of PhotoShop to hide the name of the wine store so it doesn't look like I'm picking on them.
First of all, I didn’t ask to be opted in to SMS/ text message marketing, from this store so I found it super random one day to just receive
this text:
HEY THERE FROM (wine store), A LIMITED AMOUNT OF BRECA OLD
VINE 100% GARNACHA IS IN, ALSO THE EMPLOYEE PICK FAVORITE LANDER JENKINS
Um…..ok.
As I mentioned, I didn’t opt in for this advertising, so I’m
wondering—what if this message had been sent to a non-cell type phone? How much time do they spend removing people
from this list? This seems like a
strange way to build your client base, to say the least. Also, I think they might actually be
violating an FCC ruling by using my personal phone number to market to me.
Another thing that’s funny about this message (and all of
the ones that came after it) is its strange grammatical structure, almost as if
someone drank too much wine before composing it. It’s all caps, has very little punctuation,
and seems to trail off without finishing its thought. It almost seems like I am being drunk-texted
by this wine store, does it not?
TODAY IS THE DAY (wine store) GRAND TASTING SUPPORTING
WILDLIFE FROM 1-5 PM
Supporting wildlife?
What? What does wine have to do
with wildlife? Also, I am unlikely to
drive to a wine store to attend a tasting at one in the afternoon, because then I will have to drive
home. Shouldn’t this text mention
bringing a designated driver to accompany me to this tasting? Perhaps that person will also be interested in
supporting wildlife, thus killing two birds with one stone (but not really, since birds are wildlife).
Here’s the other weird thing about these texts—they come at
completely random times during the day, NONE of which are times when I am even
thinking about buying wine, which I usually do after work or on the weekends. I don’t spend time during the regular
workday thinking about wine, and if I did, I suppose that would make me a wino,
and winos are unlikely to have cellphones that could be used for this kind of
marketing campaign. This is a marketing fait accompli, people.
To recap so far—these texts are unsolicited, have poor
grammar, and arrive at random, inappropriate times during the day. This is the opposite of a successful text
campaign. This is now a campaign that is
making me laugh at the wine store and not want to go there.
GOOD MORNING (wine store) IS FEATURING U’CUMPARE NERO
D’AVOLA FOR WINE OF THE WEEK. SMOOTH
RUBY RED AND BALANCED WITH SUPPLE TANNIS.
BACARDI TASTING TODAY
This one reads like a World War II news dispatch. “Smooth ruby red and balanced, STOP. Bacardi
tasting today, STOP.”
Is now a good time to mention that this wine store obviously
knows nothing about me, since I don’t like Bacardi at all? When you’re marketing, a good idea is to
segment your list into “People who are likely to buy certain things,” then
market to those people. This all caps,
random-times, shotgun approach is not accomplishing that.
This strangeness got even more strange when I finally went
to the store and asked them to take me off the list (no, in case you’re
wondering, texting “STOP IT,” or “STOP” or “UNSUBSCRIBE” was not successful),
and the wine store did not know how to do this.
This means they hired an actual marketing company to do this, which is
even worse because marketing companies should know not to do all the things I
just mentioned. Because I own a
marketing company, I am now embarrassed for whomever is sending these texts.
GOOD MORNING! WE NOW
HAVE A LIMITED SUPPLY OF BOURBON FROM THE LOCAL DISTILLERY. BATCH
Again—huh? You’ll
notice that the text INCLUDES the words “Good Morning,” so they know that this
text is being sent out at 9am. Who buys
bourbon at 9am?
I don’t want to criticize without offering something
productive, so I will say that if you have a small business and you know you
should be doing some marketing but you don’t really know what to do, I think
you should take one of your lower-level employees (like a receptionist or
assistant) and have them take either this class or this class, then have them
do your social media/ email type marketing during non-productive times. I have found that an in-house employee, even
if you have to train them up a little on grammar and tools, is a more
cost-effective advocate for your business than a marketing company who is
probably costing you too much and is texting me about sales on bourbon at nine
in the morning. Neither of these
courses are mine, but I have taken both of them, and they are definitely worth
the money. Note: these courses are both geared toward
consultants who are trying to learn new methods and work with more clients, but
I actually think small business people should take the time to look into this
kind of stuff, because it saves time and money (and costly mistakes like the one
I’ve described above). That’s my two cents.
Take it or leave it, or GO BUY SOME BOURBON AT NINE AM. Whatever you’d like.