A losing proposition
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about how half the battle with direct mail or e-mail is getting someone to open up the piece and seeing what you had to say.
Well, I just got a direct mail piece that won half the battle, but abysmally failed the other half - and irritated me no end in the process.
The direct mail piece that I received came in an envelope designed to make you believe that you were getting a letter from the IRS. It had a big, bold “2009″ in the return address, some official looking numbers, and a mention that it was from the “Records Processing Division.” There was also something printed on the envelope that indicated that it was “Documented Mail - Confidential - Time Sensitive - OFFICIAL USE ONLY.” I noted that while this was printed on the envelope, there was a coy pretense that this was a sticker, similar to what you might find with a registered or insured mail receipt. The printed on fake “label” went so far as to have this printed on the reverse side of the envelope - fakily acting as if it were a sticker: PLACE STICKER AT TOP OF ENVELOPE…FOLD AT DOTTED LINE.
Well, I’ll fold you at dotted line alright.
I was especially sensitive to hearing from the IRS, because a day earlier we’d received a check from the state because we had made a mistake on our tax form, and had over-paid by $800. So, I was thinking, damn, we have to refile our Fed, since we deducted state tax, or remember to include this as income next year….
Anyway, when I opened the envelope, the missive was from Colonial VW of Medford, telling me that they are very interested in acquiring my car and turning it into a pre-owned, pardon me - pre-loved, car. And letting me buy a new one at up to $6,000 off the MRSP at 0% APR.
Perhaps they aren’t aware that my VW is post-loved, and was given to Volunteers of America two years ago. They, in turn, sold it at auction.
In any case, I know there’s a recession on, and things are tough for auto dealers, but I really don’t think you do yourselves any big marketing favor by sending a flyer out in an envelope that most folks would interpret as coming from the IRS. (And I’m not crazy here: I showed the envelope to a handful of folks, and they all had the same impression.)
I’m sure that this one is on someone’s clever “10 Tips for Getting Someone to Open Your Mail” list, but if they were really clever, they would have made some reference to the IRS-look-alike-ness in their copy. How about, “We know, we know, you probably thought that this was from your friendly IRS, and we apologize for that. But we really wanted you to know about this program….” That, I would have found entirely acceptable. I still don’t have a VW to turn in, but it would have been a not bad way to get my attention - and acknowledged (wink, wink) their little ruse.
As it stands, I’m just plain annoyed, and not feeling pre-loved at all.
No way to treat a prospect, I’m afraid.
Ask and you shall receive (mostly). Don’t ask and you might tick someone off.
A while back, I got minor-ly embroiled in a little “situation” with a customer of one of my clients.
Here’s the story:
As part of my work for this client, I have frequent conversations with customers. Someone in the marketing group, whom I don’t usually work with, let me know that she was planning on using quotes from a couple of customers in some collateral she was pulling together. The quotes were taken from posts that these customers had made on a customer forum, not for the interviews I’d done with them. Anyway, because she knew that I had recently spoken to both of these customers and, thus, “knew” them, she asked me to contact them to get their pictures to use with the quotes.
I was happy enough to do this - they are both great guys, very pro-my-client-company-and-its-products, and fun to “do business with.” So I dropped them each a line (including the quote that was being used, and the context it was being used in).
One of the guys got his picture off to me right away; the other one wrote back and kinda-sorta asked why we were using a quote from him without his permission.
Yikes!
I let him know where the quote had come from - which is at least a semi-public space - and ensured him that we would let him see how it was being used before we published the piece, etc.
I understand perfectly how the marketing person ran with these quotes. But even though they were already on our website (albeit in a password-protected section), we really should have contacted both of the folks whose words we were going to be using to get their permission. And, before I reached out to these guys for their pictures, I should have checked to see whether permission had been granted. (I did have a suspicion that we hadn’t bothered to ask.)
All is now good, and both customers have okayed using their words and their pictures.
But lesson learned: never assume that a customer is going to be okay with your using their words, unless they’ve explicitly given you their approval.
I don’t think you need to be completely obsessive here. If someone has allowed you to publish a case study, or they’ve participated in a webcast that’s “out there,” or has provided a press quote, I do think it’s okay to re-purpose what they’ve said for use in a PowerPoint preso. It really depends on how you’re going to use it. You should never use material from another source in a press release. No one wants to se their name go out over the wire without knowing in advance that it’s going to happen.
When you do re-use quoted material, you have to be very careful that you aren’t taking something out of context, or implying (deliberately or not) more than the customer has actually said.
Bottom line, you’re really better off letting a customer know what you’re doing. (”Just wanted to let you know that we’ll be using this quote from the webcast - ‘this is the best mousetrap in the world’ - in the new data sheet for Mousetrap 2.0. It will be used in a sidebar, with your name and company name. Let me know if you want to see a copy before we post the pdf.’”)
Most of the time, it’s going to be a case of ask, and you shall receive.
You can, of course, follow the ‘better to ask forgiveness than permission’ philosophy. Personally, I don’t think it’s a great idea to take customers for granted.
