Make Marketing History

The views of a marketing deviant.

Saturday, February 28, 2009

Trusting Me, Trusting You.


So yesterday a buffoon sends out a mass email cc'ing rather than bcc'ing everyone in his mailing list. There were understandable complaints in some quarters, but quickly the tone changed as in-boxes filled with emails from various social media experts offering parodic investment opportunities in Nigeria, deals on pharmaceuticals and announcements that the email list had been sold to spammers.

Perhaps the context of a lazy Friday or the overlapping of the recipients' networks contributed to this interesting example of community forming around a shared sense of implicit (albeit most definitely not explicit or universal) permission. But, the sixty-odd contributions so far have crucially not expanded the distribution beyond the original list and there is a sense of trust that they are all sufficiently web-savvy to limit any damage that has already been done.

If you can engender that trust amongst your potential customers, it seems that people's human-ness shines through even when you screw up.


6 Comments:

Blogger Charles Edward Frith said...

I got Abba on the brain. Trusting me trusting you is the best I can do. Great philosophical line John. I mean that.

2:14 PM, February 28, 2009  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

i think dave's response won the gold star for me. nothing says 'we share something' like that kind of throw away line.

5:00 PM, February 28, 2009  
Blogger john dodds said...

Agreed Lauren - though Colman's response was even better. The whole thing has been informative but I hope the net-savvy gang realise when to quit and I'm sure a belated apology will be forthcoming. Both those things seem to me to have resonance in the broader point I was making.

3:48 AM, March 01, 2009  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I got no sodding love for that comment at the time.

11:03 AM, March 01, 2009  
Blogger john dodds said...

We were all conflicted Paul. If we acknowledged your wit, we'd be adding to you overflowing in-box the source of your complaint. So, personally, I placed the love in storage and resurrected it here.

3:04 AM, March 02, 2009  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

oh dear

9:35 AM, March 03, 2009  

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