Tuesday November 11, 2008
Exclusive offer? What offer? And why did you spam me?
Vodafone Fiji just sent me spam! Poorly written spam!
Here is the message in full:
Bula Vodafone Online Customers,
Vodafone Fiji is offering an exclusive online TRIPLE UP offer for our customers.
This offer is available only for $100 or $103 recharge vouchers.
Offer valid until the 30th of November 2008.
Only available through Vodafone Web Top Up service.
Come visit us at http://www.vodafone.com.fj/webtopup and make the most now with Vodafone.
Thank You
Vodafone Fiji Online
Delivered in plain-text format from store.topup@vodafone.com
What’s wrong with this email?
- It’s unsolicited! At the very least the message should have included a footer explaining how they got my address, and offering the ability to opt-out of future emails
- It does not contain any contact information or follow-up address
- It’s not branded. No Vodafone logo, no slogan, no corporate colours. Nothing that would reinforce the Vodafone brand (or lend this email some credibility)
- The ‘offer’ is obscure. What exactly is a triple up? No seriously! What is the offer? If you want people’s money, you need to explain the product and the benefit. Instead we get an abrupt dose of in-house marketing-speak. It’s incredibly arrogant to assume that your target market speaks your lingo and that your promotion needs no explanation.
- Poor grammar. “make the most now with Vodafone”?
Very poor showing … particularly at a time when they should be putting extra effort into their image and customer communications in an effort to retain clients.
For those of you interested in ethical, effective email marketing, Campaign Monitor provides some good tips
And until Vodafone gets their act together, go do like Rajan
Filed by Jachin Sheehy under Living-in-Fiji
I can’t speak for Vodafone, of course. I also don’t disagree with some of the things you’ve listed here…
However, I do believe that Vodafone absolutely has the right to market messages like this to people who take advantage of free vmail services on vodafone.com.fj. Yes, the marketing should include information about how users got their names on a list and we’ll make those suggestions but it’s a fair trade at the end of the day.
I’m not certain that it’s a legitimate reason to switch providers though…if I stopped using the services of every company that provided me a sub-par user experience, I’d be forced to sit at home all day long and never leave the house. ;p
My .02 cents.
Annoyance issues aside… a pretty smart promo I would have thought.
1/ They are direct marketing to their client base using their own SMS channel = $0.00 cost.
2/ Offering $300 of product for $100/$103 – but only via their web channel – therefore no middle man margin / commission costs.
3/ Time restriction forces customers to act – so this concentrates the revenue focus to the month of offer.
4/ The $100/$103 minimum means they are targeting only their premier prepay clients. These top-ups have a “use it or lose-it” time limit if I remember correctly, so the uptake would be by people who would use $300 of service in 6 months?
5/ Now that Digicel’s promos have tailed off for the moment while they are concentrating on trying to consolidate and recover some of the cash invested in their launch, vodafone are capitlising by inserting this promo and raising the bar by trying to lockup their premier prepay customers for another 6 months, effectively stopping them from moving across to Digicel. ie once you take up the offer – it is more likely you will use your vodafone vs. your digicel as you need to use up the $300 in the next 6 months… etc etc. This will effectively starve digicel of revenue from the heavy prepay user base.
... my 50 cents worth. Good post though Jachin.
Cheers
@Jonathan: permission marketing aside, that really was a poor example of corporate communication
@Tony: thanks for stopping by. The point I was also trying to make here is that the Email never explained that you could get $300 credit by spending $100 … it just assumed you know what a ‘triple up’ is. You’re right: the promotion itself is solid: but the way it was communicated is less than lucid.