Looking back over my posts here, I notice that a lot of them are negative in nature. I’ve gotten some private kudos for calling out people giving bad advice (and hey, leave a comment or two instead of sending me a message on Twitter!). It’s not really my favorite thing to do, but needs to happen from time to time.
Many of the things that I write about come about because I’ve been talking with colleagues or just looking at what is coming in my mail reader. On an average day I receive around 1,000 emails. Much of it is spam that never gets looked at, but many of the messages are from mailing lists, but others are from clients, prospects, friends, and then there are those from my wife’s business venture which sends me receipts for products sold and requests for assistance. It takes me a lot of time to get through my email and I see lots of examples of what not to do.
If you wonder why your open and click rates are not what you hope them to be, perhaps there is a good lesson for you: It is really easy to be angry. In fact, it is much easier to be angry than it is to be impressed. I get a lot of email, and with few exceptions, I spend only a few seconds on each one. Most email gets a pass (I don’t care enough to do more than glance, but I don’t unsubscribe). Of the email that gets a response, I tend to be angry about what see because best practices aren’t being followed, or I notice that a former client is now selling my test addresses to other vendors.
It takes something truly wonderful to grab my attention and make me take a closer look. And, unfortunately email like that does not come around very often. It is why I always try to take a moment to read when someone points out a campaign that they think is really doing it right. And it is also why the majority of my posts are about people doing it wrong.
So, if you want to help me be a more positive person and I’m on your mailing list already (please, I get enough email as it is without people adding me to their lists without my permission), do me a favor and really work on doing things right.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Mickey Chandler. Mickey Chandler said: Blog post: It's easier to be angry than impressed http://bit.ly/bsFPDf [...]
I signed you up for my mailing list, so you can see how truly opt-in it is!
You're a real pal, Al.
Alright I'll comment on your blog! I do love your posts, Mickey, they are so spot-on. I agree that being angry or pointing out the negative is the path of least resistance, but I often get asked by clients for examples of marketers that do things right. With deliverability, especially, it is difficult to spot the companies doing it right, that work hard on providing stellar content that's valuable to their subscribers and hitting the inbox because of it. It's much easier to cringe when we see companies that don't have permission or "batch & blast" and end up in the spam folder for bad behavior.
I say kudos to those silent heroes that work hard to do it right everyday!
Cheers,
Kelly
Thanks!
What I'd really love to do is find some of those silent heroes and see what things we can learn from them. That would make a great series of blog posts.