Some of Alan's views on this digital marketing malarkey ... there's more on: AlanCharlesworth.com

Tuesday, May 1, 2007

putting-your-foot-in-it practice

This has been an issue with me for some time - I must write something more substantial about it some time - and I noticed it again when writing the previous entry to this blog. I'm talking about email footers - hence the poor play on words in the title of this entry.

The email from Tesco had, after the message, the following [and remember this was generated by an auto-responder]

Points to note:

(i) "Confidential" - you mean I cannot tell my wife. Oops, maybe I'm not supposed to be telling you?

(ii) "Monitor and record ..." - no great problem with that, it might even work in my favour.

(iii) "Views expressed ..." I'm sorry, the email's 'from' box says 'Tesco Customer Service'. Looks like Tesco is the sender to me, and as in the point I make in my previous 'practice' entry [good - but impersonal - practice] - the message is signed 'Tesco Customer Service' - and not by an individual who might be expressing their views.

Oh I know its all a legal thing - and it might be good legal practice. But it is bad marketing practice.

The aforementioned article I must get round to writing is on that subject - the message element of an email might be trying to foster a [business] relationship with me, then the 'legal' footer makes me feel most unwelcome.

Sorry businesses - you can't have both.

Sorry Tesco - I'm not picking on you, you were just handy at the time - most organizations have these footers.

No comments:

Post a Comment