So, we sent out a bunch of emails to the many, many people Robby has met over the years to announce the book. We learned a lot about email failure.
First, let’s discuss the failures anyone could have predicted:
It’s also tough to characterize an email like this. Is it marketing to send a message to your friends? Certain kinds of email messages are classified under the CAN-SPAM act. A few people responded that they wanted to be “taken off our list.”
However, is an address book really a list? We haven’t been assembling all of these names for email marketing purposes. Rather, these are just contacts from people Robby has met over the years that are in his electronic rolodex.
In this age of information overload, unwanted messages are failures. Yet sometimes we have to try to send someone a message to find out if they want to hear from us again!
The best part of our “email campaign?” Hundreds of people replied. Robby’s still going through those messages to say hello to old friends and colleagues. So, our failure led to success.