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3-2-1 Blast Off!

September 28, 2009  

If you read many email marketing blogs, you've probably noticed their authors tend to hate the word "blast." Scott Cohen is no exception, and—in a post called "The Naughtiest Word in Email Marketing"—he discusses "its general evilness and lack of thought about the recipients."

Here's why he believes the word should be banished:

  • It dehumanizes your message
  • It devalues your customer

"Let's face it," he says. "There's nothing in my mind that's positive about saying you're going to send an email blast. There's nothing personal about it, either. So why does the word still have relevance?"

Fair enough. But how does it matter to the subscriber—you might ask—if a marketer refers to an email offer as a blast instead of using a preferred term like campaign? After all, it's not as if she knows which word you use.


Cohen anticipates that logic with a quote from Justin Premick, who wrote this at the AWeber blog:

Terms like "blast" are dangerous, not only because they make you sound like a spammer, but also because their repeated use can influence how you view your subscribers and campaigns. Words like "email blast" to describe campaigns suggest the sender doesn't see subscribers as people, but rather as targets to shoot offers at until they score a hit.

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Comments

  • by Dylan Boyd Mon Sep 28, 2009 via web

    I cringed just this past last week when I saw 2 emails from clients with subject lines "About our e-blast". We go to such lengths at eROI to educate and try not to use any of these negative terms. So what do you say when it happens. Like a bad manners issue at a dinner party... who will make the correction in public? Or should you?

    The best part was this campaign that they were referring to was not a BLAST but a segmented and targeted campaign. One of our co-workers made a comment a little while back that in some cases they are blasts in the client/marketers mind no matter the tactic. It stems back form old terms that I think collectively we might be able to work out over time, but they will be around for a while.

    I wrote this post about these type of words:

    http://theemailwars.com/2009/09/10/why-we-use-war-words-to-describe-email/

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