Email etiquette

Ike is approaching, I’m doing laundry (in case the power goes out) and packing a few things to go hunker down at my partner’s house… so what better time to come post here and take my mind off of things?

As some of you know, I have gone back to the corporate marketing life, which has been great. I get a lot of solicitations from people selling advertising, which is fine and expected. It’s funny how people approach you, though. 

Here’s the thing: if you’re selling ads you are probably not the top priority of your prospect. Don’t act like it. 

For example…

There’s the salesperson who sent me an email every three hours, all marked urgent in Outlook and all with return receipts, saying, “have you considered my proposal yet?” No, and this is making me not want to. 

There’s the salesperson who, not getting a response from me in a day or so, starts writing to other people at the company complaining about that. 

My favorite was this morning: the salesperson who, as a major hurricane bears down on Houston, wrote to me to ask if I was ready to talk to him about banner ads today. No. 

There’s a line between persistence and annoyance, people. 

The return receipt thing really annoys me; it’s a clumsy way to say, “I’m looking over your shoulder.” (Every time Outlook pops up with that message saying, “This person asked for a receipt, should I send it?” I click “No.” It makes me feel like someone has called me with a sales pitch and then said, “Guess what, I’m recording this conversation!”

When selling, remember that it’s the prospect’s needs that drive the priorities - and whether the conversation is particularly urgent or important at all. Not your desire to make your number than month. 

And do not send messages marked urgent. Urgent belongs on things like a senior executive asking a question, or someone addressing a customer issue or a sales process issue that’s causing headaches. Your desire to sell ads is not “urgent” and dragging my eyeballs to your message with that little exclamation point just irritates me. 

Off to pack up the shelf-stable snack foods. Have a good weekend and it you’re down here near the Texas coast, a safe one. 

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