google reminds me how not to market

cj — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 18:47:12 +0000

Nobody’s perfect, not even the company that runs with the motto “don’t be evil”. Google wrote me a letter, dated October 7, that gives me, a user of google maps, a €50 voucher to advertize using Google AdWords. So far, so generous. The voucher is valid until 31 October … and only arrived this afternoon, a day before expiration.

No matter how you slice it, not a great marketing campaign.

They tell me I only need three minutes to get going. If a decent adline only took three minutes to write, then we’d only need about 4.7 copywriters world-wide to meet all needs.

If they’re trying to push me to sign up quickly, they need to learn some more about how different people tick. I’d be happy to introduce them to the Enneagram. If they were truly interested in my custom, they might even have invested the much less than three minutes to find out who lives at my address.

The letter and voucher provide a wonderful example of how you can push the buttons of someone with my personality structure, the Peacemaker in the Enneagram: leave my name off the letter (being overlooked), put me under pressure for a quick decision (hello, Mr Passive Aggressive!)

It gives me pause for thought about how I market my services to clients. Do I take care to get their name right? Do I give them time to take decisions? Am I respectful about their time?

What have you learned from marketing that rubbed you up the wrong way?

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google reminds me how not to market