Other Stories Archive

I do a lot of shopping online. I buy a lot of stuff and I purchase a lot of services – theatre and cricket tickets for example.

So as a marketer what really bugs me is, when the sale is done and dusted, the confirmation email that pops into my inbox tells me nothing about the company, nothing about what I have just bought, and looks more like spam than the worst spam ever did!

The above is a snip (using the Vista Snipping Tool :-)) from my Gmail account. (Yes I have a Gmail account! I had it before I joined MS – Gotta keep up with the competition!)

These are all emails from companies I have bought goods or services from in recent weeks. What do they look like to you?

The only one in there that makes any sense is from Waitrose!

The email tells you who its from – Waitrose! The subject line tells you what the email is about. I can choose whether to open it or bin it. I don’t have to wade through wondering if it’s significant, or whether it’s just another ruse to get me to help a Nigerian vicar transfer $60m to a Northern Rock account in Jarrow!

And what are Fortnum & Mason thinking?!

At least have your company name in the From column, it’ll look so much more professional and mitigate any confusion or irritation if the mail gets re-directed to my spam folder. Also have something relevant in the subject line too – just a number is simply madness!

And another thing about aftersales – there is such a thing as over-kill! The seventh email on the list was the fifth….yes fifth!….from a plumbing company after I had received my chrome tap, telling me how great their customer service was, and that they pride themselves on it, and how grateful they were for my custom.

Hey Mr MD……that’s spam! You’ve just lost a customer because your excessive customer service is bordering on obsessive and creepy 🙂

I’m a huge fan of Banksy!

One of my biggest regrets was not buying the above print for £1000 from an art shop in Whitstable about 18 months ago 🙁

A few weeks later Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned and it came out in the press that he’d sold a Banksy print for a huge profit on eBay! That only meant the elusive artist became more notorious…….and expensive…..DOH!

Banksy’s brand of graffiti art has not just been confined to the studio – check out his book – Wall & Piece – to see where, and what his incredibly imaginitive mind has been up to.

One brave chap has decided to sell above wall Banksy once daubed on eBay with a Buy It Now price of £1m – a tad optimistic – but it has sold for over £200k……to a bloke with a 71% Feedback Rating and a reputation for not paying up! 🙂

Must have been a tricky conversation…. :-!

Made a new year’s resolution to get fit, lose weight and stay off the smokes?

Well join me in joining The Times Health Club for FREE!!!

You sign up, plug in a few details like your height, weight and target poundage, and then use the tools to track your progress.

They’ve added a Community aspect too with forums and groups etc, but the best thing is you can nominate motivators who’ll get weekly updates on your progress, so they can give you a good hiding over email if you’re slacking.

Check out my profile here – http://melcarson.timeshealth.co.uk

It all looks quite secure with some decent privacy settings – I wonder how long before a Facebook app gets written for it?

Happy New Year to everyone!

The Flying Dutchman Joost de Valk has published a wordpress plugin for Gatineau which was jolly nice of him!

Hope you all saw the update about Gatineau on the adCenter Blog?

As Joost doesn’t waste any time getting plugins out to the masses, it’d be nice to vote for him at the Search Engine Journal Awards – be nice if you voted for the adCenter Blog and Live Search Blog too 🙂

Before Christmas, Cambridgeshire Police released an article on their website by way of a seasonal appeal.

999 emergency call centres (911 for those of you in the US) have always been abused by the ignorant & the stupid, but Chief Inspector Mike Winters decided to publish some of the more idiotic nuisance calls on the internet in the hope it will help get across that abuse of the service can cost lives:

“The message is; don’t put lives at risk by calling 999 when you do not need an emergency police response.”

Although the below are hilarious – just what were they thinking!!??

What is today’s date? – 376kb

There is pole dancing at number 3! – 1.43mb

Where’s Homebase? – 2.20mb

I need a haircut… – 1.32mb

My Fave – I want to speak to the Prime Minister! – 5.76mb

My post last week about Royal Mail Direct Mail, was picked by Postman Pat himself ! 🙂

He commented:

“Opting out of addressed Junk Mail:

http://www.mpsonline.org.uk/mpsr/

Opting out of unaddressed Junk Mail:

http://www.royalmail.com/portal/rm/print?catId=400126&mediaId=500081

Feel free to visit the Royal Mail Chat website but please be aware that the site itself has no connection with Royal Mail or the CWU it just happens that most who go on there are members of the CWU and are employed by Royal Mail. Happy Christmas!”

Thanks Pat……Father Christmas does exist after all!

The Telegraph reports this morning that a whopping 3.5 million us will be hunting for delicious deals online on Christmas day.

And we’re going to spend £52m!!!

Apparently we’ll be so fed up with our families, fed up with turkey and pudding, and so eager to top up our credit card debt, that a spot of online frittery will be our favoured choice of indigestion remedy.

The Duke of York has said today that The Queen likes to watch her speech by herself.

Spare a thought for our illustrious monarch, as the peak time for this online shopping fenzy is between 3 and 4pm, exactly when she’s on the box.

If 3.5m are shopping and 5.7m are watching her highness, what are the other 50.8m of us doing?

I have a love/hate relationship with The Royal Mail

I love the way the post people send me is delivered through my letterbox, but I hate all the other rubbish they stick in with it, and I can’t figure out how to opt out.

When poking around on their website I found a page called Why Use Mail Shots?

They claim:

“Mail is a boom advertising medium. And it generally boils down to one key point. It works. Mail works because it’s personal, it’s responsive, it’s measurable and it’s cost effective.”

Erm……no it isn’t….it’s a pain, it’s a waste of paper, and it soaks up large wads of my council tax recycling it.

They go on:

“Mail has the power to change the way people think and feel about you because you can make it so personally relevant.

Mail is engaging. Consumers spend on average 10 minutes reading mailshots. Compare the cost of that length of exposure against other media such as TV. (eh???)

Mail is a tangible form of advertising. It gives you a physical presence in your customers’ home or office, and can literally put your product in their hands.

Mail can be targeted to reach very specific audiences – almost every individual, household and business in the UK can be reached by mail.

Mail can support and deepen relationships with your customers, building awareness as part of integrated campaigns, or involving customers with your business as part of ongoing, two-way communications. It can provide one of the few opportunities for people who actually use your product or service to tell you how they use it, why, and what else they would like from you.

Doordrops (unaddressed mail) offer you the chance to talk to people you don’t know. You can profile and target lists of likely customers – either in broad geographic or lifestyle bands, or through the use of highly specific street-by-street or even door-by-door data.”

Swop the word “mail” with “digital” and you have a much more compelling marketing channel 🙂

BTW – It’s 11.26am and the postie still hasn’t been 🙁

OK the Apple & iPod are pretty cool.

A sexy brand, the sort that gives you a quasi-orgasmic thrill when you walk into one of their stores, and one that is as ubiquitous as it is instantly identifiable.

The iPod is to the MP3 player what Hoover is to the vacuum cleaner – fabulous – no competition – until maybe the Zune hits our shores very soon 🙂

So with design featuring so high on the list of plaudits, why are the headphones so bad?

This morning I was on a train from Clapham Junction to Victoria – a journey of 5 minutes – and I was surrounded by four white-headphone-wearing buffoons, completely and selfishly oblivious to the leaking cacophony of rubbish pouring out from about their ears.

What is wrong with people? Why is people’s self-awareness so rotten?

I have a pair of these babies from Shure – in-ear, noise cancelling – I can’t hear anything but the music and no one else can hear I’m listening to Genesis – job done!

So many iPods will be given away this Xmas – sigh – the white wires are a great advert but a dead giveaway…