Written by: Melina Iacovone
The World Wide Web has had a profound impact on us as a world community. The many wonderful features of the Web allow us to shop for just about anything from any country on the planet, research everything from a layman’s explanation of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity to finding a complete discography of our favorite bands’ recordings, and, of course, reaching out to customers, co-workers, friends and family through email.
But with this newfound expanse of knowledge and instant communication comes a dark side as well, namely the “oh-no-I-accidentally-sent-that-email-to-the-wrong-person-and-now-I-can’t-get-it-back!” syndrome. With one quick keystroke, a lot of damage can be done.
Just ask the University of California San Diego’s Admissions department. This past March they accidentally sent a “Congratulations! You’ve Been Accepted!” email to the wrong list: They sent it to the rejected students by mistake. Imagine what that must have felt like to be on the receiving end of such good news only to receive a follow-up email announcing, “Oops – sorry. You haven’t been accepted after all.”
There are measures to take to prevent this from happening in your email-marketing efforts. Follow these three simple rules to avoid a UC San Diego-sized disaster of your own:
Labeling Your Target Groups
Give your target groups easily identifiable names such as “students_ACCEPTED_spring2009” or “members_DO_NOT_MAIL_2009.” Use capital letters and dates in the titles of your interest groups when naming them so that if an outside person were to come in and take over your email campaigns, he would have no trouble identifying the correct target group for the email.
Double Check
Whether you’re sending an email to a few people or to 10,000, always, always, always look at the names (or the group name) in the “Send to” field. This simple step – these five seconds of your life – can spare the aftermath of a potential tidal wave if you accidentally send the email to the wrong people. Seriously: take a moment to confirm that the people in the “Send” field are the targeted ones. Be sure to note that john.s.smith and john_s_smith are NOT the same person!
STOP!
Before you go any further: go back to step two and do it all over again.
We all love email. We all love getting email! We all use email as a means of keeping channels of communication flowing and getting our messages to our subscribers. However, for as wonderful a tool that email is, it can also instantly turn into the enemy if your note falls into the wrong hands. Don’t be a victim of this new 21st century pitfall; check your target groups often and carefully and most of all…be careful out there.
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