Tag Archives: fail

Email Marketing Fail By TigerDirect.ca

Everyone who knows me and who has ever spoken to me about email marketing knows that the one thing that I preach over and over again is that ‘content is king’.

It is the content that keeps people opening your email each time and it is the content that ultimately prevents people from unsubscribing because they feel like they are getting some ‘value’ by spending time reading your email.

With that being the case, it’s pretty obvious that your first few emails to a new contact are vitally important because, as they say, ‘you never get a second chance to make a first impression’.

None of this is earth shattering and it’s all pretty obvious, but I guess maybe it’s not obvious to everyone….read on…!

I recently made a purchase at a Tiger Direct store and got an email asking me to confirm my subscription to their mailing list. (Good job so far Tiger Direct!)

After confirming my subscription, I got an email with the subject “Welcome to the TigerDirect.ca Stores List”.

Here is a full unedited screenshot of the email:

Email From Tiger Direct

No need to check your eyes because this email is actually blank.

I’m all for brevity in a welcome email, but this seems a bit extreme!

I’d say this is an epic fail of the ‘content is king’ principal. I wonder if the next email I get will be blank, too? If it’s one thing I need more of cluttering up my inbox, it’s totally blank emails!

Epic Email Marketing Fail > Live Nation

I’ve been in the email marketing industry for so long and in that time I have seem both big & small companies do some amazing and some disastrous things.

But, it never ceases to amaze me when such an epic email marketing fail is brought to my attention, especially when it’s from a company I know and respect. In this case, the company who made an epic fail and proved they really don’t have a clue what’s going on is Live Nation.

Here is the story…
A Simon & Garfunkel concert was scheduled for May 12, 2010 at the Air Canada Center in Toronto.
On April 29, ticket holders were sent an email from TicketMaster saying the following:

Dear Simon & Garfunkel Fan,
Simon & Garfunkel originally scheduled on May 12th 2010, at Air Canada Centre has been rescheduled to July 19th 2010, due to a vocal strain recently sustained by Art Garfunkel.
Tickets originally purchased for May 12th, 2010 will be honored, no action is required.
Customers who wish a refund may obtain one by one of the following methods:
…etc…

So far everything in the story is fine. We are seeing a good use of email to report a very urgent and time sensitive announcement to a mass amount of people.

And then things take a turn for the worse…
This morning (May 17), Live Nation sent out an email with the subject “Thanks for attending Simon & Garfunkel at Air Canada Centre!”

This is the email content:

Live Nation Email Fail
UMMM… hey Live Nation… you didn’t realize that your concert didn’t happen?

No one thought that maybe under the circumstances (since the show was postponed) that sending out a survey asking for feedback might be a little stupid, embarrassing, silly, <insert adjective here>!

I don’t know who Live Nation uses as their Email Service Provider… and I’m not saying they should be dragged in the streets, but someone somewhere seriously screwed up because stopping an email campaign from sending is usually no more than a few clicks.

So, what’s the overall lesson: If you cancel a concert, don’t send out an email thanking people for attending and asking for feedback.

[Special thanks to my good friend Dean M. for bringing this to my attention!]