Imagine that a typically obnoxious B2B-marketing email has come to life—and he wants to talk to you even though you can't remember where you met or why he has your address. In a highly entertaining video, Mark Brownlow of Email Marketing Reports adopts the off-putting persona, and shows us why we never want to be "that guy."
"Hang on! Hang on! Hang on!" he says as the video begins. "Don't press the spam button. This is not spam. This is me. Remember? Remember Me? Recognize me? Face. Look at the face. Good, it's coming back to you? Excellent. We met at a trade show about eight months ago … I think. You were maybe expecting me to come around a little earlier. Yeah. We had other priorities."
Brownlow, as our personified email, then proceeds to break every single rule in the book:
- He acknowledges that Tuesday morning between 9 and 10 might not be the best time for the recipient—but he's not going to argue with statistics that say it is.
- He explains why the salutation "Hello, First Name" should suffice for the purposes of this conversation.
- He then segues seamlessly into the purpose of the email: "Let's talk about the important thing, which is … us."
It continues in this vein until he begins to wrap up with the telling statement, "It's been fantastic talking at you."
Brownlow puts a compelling spin on "don't do this" recommendations—and delivers plenty of Marketing Inspiration—by imagining every bad email cliché as a living, breathing, smarmy human. And it isn't pretty.
More Inspiration:
Paul Williams: The Benefit Of The Benefit
Robert Lesser: Job Search 2.0 Meets Lead Generation 2.0
Matthew Grant: Change Minds by Changing Feelings
by Christina "CK" Kerley
