The Infinite Dial

Recently I have been thinking a lot about EMail marketing (see How to Behave on a Date, and Getting Past First Base, metaphors I have promised Larry never to use again). While some companies seem to always get it right, many continue to stumble at the gate. With so many competing media channels vying for our attention, it is critical that radio stations learn from both past successes and mistakes of others.

Mistakes happen--no company, big or small, is immune to the occasional gaffe or misstep. Often, customers can learn as much, if not more, about your brand from how you recover from these mistakes as they do from the mistake itself. Here is a recent example I got in my inbox:

VIP Invitation to the EMail Insider Summit

Dear Tom

I would like you to be our guest for the 2006 Email Insider Summit. As a Summit VIP, the cost of your airfare, hotel accommodations and conference registration will be paid for by MediaPost.

The Email Insider Summit Advisory Board has identified you as a senior level marketer or agency executive decision maker within your company. You are among a select few to whom we are extending this special VIP opportunity.

Well, sign me up! After much cajoling, I convinced my wife that maybe she, too, would like a weekend at a spa in Scottsdale, and we could make a little holiday out of it. Seconds after she agreed, however, I got this:

Register Now for the EMail Insider Summit

Dear Tom:

We apologize if you received an email from MediaPost earlier today inviting you as our VIP guest to the Email Insider Summit. That email was intended to be sent to a list of 50 top brand marketers in the industry, that have already agreed to attend the event. The email below is the email that you were intended to receive. If you would like to be a part of the inaugural Email Insider Summit please read below about the summit and how to register. Again we apologize for the confusion and inconvenience that error may have caused you.

Register now for MediaPost’s Email Insider Summit so you can surround yourself with the most-thought provoking minds in the industry as they school you on the new modes of enhancing your email marketing campaigns.

Not only was I not going to Scottsdale on someone else's nickel, I wasn't a "top brand marketer" or VIP after all! Not being the most secure egg in the carton, I went into a deep funk over this, but came out of it seconds later with these three tips for recovering from your mistakes, may they be few:

• First, if you are going to send an immediate apology (and you should), then put the apology in the subject line of the email. Don't put a "call to action" there like "Register now..." You screwed up--be upfront with it. I will not be registering for the EMail Insider Summit--why should I? I am going for free as a VIP!
• Second, I didn't need to know that the mistaken email was intended for 50 top brand marketers in the industry, and therefore not for me. I am not delusional enough to think that I was in that top 50 before the email, but if your intent is to apologize, don't tell me that I wasn't intended to get the VIP invite because I wasn't good enough. Just tell me you made a mistake and sent me the notice by accident. That would have covered it just fine with me.
• Third, if you have to issue a mea culpa, then just send me an apology--end of story. Admit your error, say you are sorry, and (if warranted) make amends. Do not follow your brief apology with a canned sales pitch to purchase your goods or services (in this case, 6 more paragraphs trying to sell me a ticket to this conference). It seriously devalues the apology.

Everyone can make a mistake (unfortunately for the folks in my example, they were trying to sell a conference on...EMail Marketing). Sometimes the apology can make you more friends than the original pitch.