Seek to Misconstrue + a
Failure: The Blog 
August 2018
- When This Executive Was Fired, He Took Charge
- Obeying The Speed Limit Has Never Been More Fun
- London Black Cabs Helped Uber Grow
- Bette Graham Created A Product To Fix Her Mistakes
- Flamin' Hot Cheetos Had An Interesting Start
July 2018
- Fear This Instead Of Failure
- Re-Releasing Songs Created Success
- A CEO's Purposeful Mistake
- The Tardy Student And The Unsolvable Problem
- Fixing Potholes Through Graffiti
June 2018
- A Surprising Mistake In The Oxford English Dictionary
- US Army Embraces Mistakes
- Blocking A Hymn
- Eddie Shore Was Truly A Tough Guy
- [Video] Elon Musk Didn't "Pivot" He Failed
May 2018
- 8 Examples of Mental Toughness Part 2
- Necessity Turned Accessory: Allen Iverson's Sleeve
- This Doctor Has Continued To Fail
- 8 Examples of Mental Toughness
- MIT Accidentally Creates New Smelting Process
April 2018
- Johnny Cash Quit Singing Lessons
- Cruise Control Came Out of Frustration
- Time Spent Gaming Pays Off In The Navy
- Rock Around The Clock Was a Commercial Failure
- Sigmund Freud Should Have Been Discouraged
March 2018
Email Marketing Failure
Nick Carter, the founder of AddressTwo, explained one of the most successful ways to use his product. The secret? Make a mistake.
For the uninitiated, AddressTwo is CRM for Small Business. It’s a web-based tool for managing your list of customers, prospects and contacts. You can use it for many things, but one of the most popular features is the ability to send bulk email marketing messages. Here’s Nick’s explanation:
However, Carter will be the first to admit that email marketing is not easy. The majority of bulk emails go unread. It’s incredibly challenging to write clear, compelling messages that make people want to click and learn more. Two of his customers, however, independently discovered an incredible technique for generating responses: accidentally send a test message to everyone you know.
When you accidentally send out a message that just says something like “test” or “blah blah blah”, you get all kinds of responses. People write back to make fun of you, or to tell you that you sent the test message, or even to complain.
Nick Carter made it clear that this is user error, not a design problem with his software. But nevertheless, the story illustrates just how successful you can be by making mistakes.
Should your email marketing campaign include the occasional test message “accidentally” sent to everyone in your list? Perhaps this is a strategy worth considering! As we’ve seen before, failure is the secret to success. Screwing up is sometimes the best way to find new opportunities.
