Spam on Toast: How Not to Launch
17 Jul 2008 | Filed Under: Crankypants + Interpipes + Ireland
I started cringing as soon as the email hit my Inbox and it just got worse from there.
A fairly new business called Irish Greeting Cards has been dumping little email missives onto a number of Irish bloggers today. From the badly worded, poorly punctuated and grammatically convoluted copy, we have:
We’ve just completed a major upgrade of the site… The cards are unique in that you can personalize most cards on the outside and your own message on the inside. What we’re looking for is for bloggers to mention the offer and site to their readers (if you think it might be useful to your readers of course) and point them to the Greeting Card Site and perhaps encourage their readers to tell people who might think the cards are worth ordering.
According to Mulley, this contacting campaign was devised by a SEO strategist hired by the company. I have no idea who this SEO guru is, which is good - because if I did, I’d be sorely tempted to haul him out back and shoot him. Frankly, this company had more than enough going against it to begin with without his specialist help.
I am willing to bet that this SEO expert also advised them on their spam blog. And wrote all the “content” himself, lovingly filling it with re-constituted pork. It’s easy to see exactly how much effort went into this grand affair.
The only thing they did right was to mention in the email that “We’re not looking for better Google rankings” and invite me to set my links to no-follow. Which is the only thing they asked me to do that I’ve actually been happy to comply with.
The thing that pisses me off the most about this is that I would have used this service. I hate trying to remember occasions in advance, I hate going to the post office, and I hate filling out cards. I have been looking for a service like this in Ireland so that I can pretend to care enough to send cards by being horrendously lazy and doing it online.
What could they have done better?
- Emailed me an offer to try their product myself. I mean, it’s not like I’m going to forget I have a blog. If I liked it, I’d have blogged it, just like I do with other online services I love using.
- Dropped in a humble PS invitation to tell my friends if I enjoyed my card sending experience with them. Blatant solicitations to pimp their untried products to my blog audience is not the kind of transparency we’re looking for.
- Not shat on the entire concept of blogging with the absolute worst example of… I’d say blogging, but that isn’t anything close to blogging. That’s using WordPress as a CMS for spam.
Granted, not having a product that sucks out loud would have helped, and a little more thought about their “Irish cards, Irish diaspora” positioning wouldn’t have hurt, either.
I mean, know I’m a transplant, but I’m pretty confident there’s nothing particularly Irish about stock images of toast.
Having said that, I’m desperate enough that I probably would have become a regular customer of this outfit and sent the crappy cards to my friends and relatives, just on the basis that they’re better than the cards they are currently not getting at all. At this point, however, all I can do is tell all my friends:
Don’t use Irish Greeting Cards.
Pat Phelan says:
Just spoke to Derek the founder of Irish Greeting Cards, I really believe he is one of the few that deserves a second chance.
Thursday, 17 July, 2008, 8:04 pmHe is a little naive and the SEO guy was pitched to him by a Irish governmental agency.
I will be given him a little rope, just a little mind
I have sent you the full story in private Sabrina, its pretty much unbelievable
Sabrina Dent says:
It’s not that unbelievable. But the broader point is:
You run a company. Unfortunately, at the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter if it’s all your jack ass of a SEO’s fault because disasters like this don’t reflect badly on the anonymous SEO - they reflect badly on you and the company.
It sounds like this was a very expensive way to learn this lesson. That’s sad and very unfortunate.
Derek, if you want to give me a call, I’d be happy to help you with what you can do for damage limitation right now. And I won’t charge you a penny.
Thursday, 17 July, 2008, 8:14 pmCalvin Jones says:
Excellent summary Sabrina… and Pat, if what you’ve heard is true (and I guess there’s no reason to doubt it) then both the Irish Governmental Agency and the SEO concerned should be “hauled out back” by Sabrina and shot!
What hope of building a knowledge based economy in this country when the people responsible for dishing out advice and funding to emerging enterprise are, in a word, clueless?
Thursday, 17 July, 2008, 8:19 pmDeborah says:
Sabrina - They’ve been around since last year and spamming since then… maybe Pat’s right, but you think they might have learned something in the last 9 months? If you read his comment on Damien and Noirin’s blogs back then it sounds a lot of the same Pat is getting… nine months on. Not sure I buy the naiveté excuse at this point.
Thursday, 17 July, 2008, 8:20 pmSabrina Dent: Pixel Pushing Ireland » Inspired Exploitation… says:
[...] Dublin based marketing firm Inspiration were the SEO company behind Irish Greeting Card’s recent debacle. Their homepage proudly declares it, in [...]
Thursday, 17 July, 2008, 9:07 pmSuzy says:
Jesus this story has legs… very very long legs. Well done Sabrina! I love Twitter even more these days for the musing that turns into sleuthing!
Thursday, 17 July, 2008, 10:43 pmDamien Mulley says:
Motherfuckers. That comment is ripped off from IntertradeIreland’s Seedcorn email. Fucking thieving fucks.
See their email here
Scum.
Thursday, 17 July, 2008, 11:38 pmCalvin Jones says:
Wonder if the Derek at Irish Greeting Cards who Pat Phelan spoke to was Derek Leahy
Thursday, 17 July, 2008, 11:53 pmSabrina Dent says:
@Calvin: No, I checked :)
Emails come from an @web2print.ie email address. That site’s contact details list a Derek Moynihan as the proprietor. Not the same guy. Although that *would* be fun…
Friday, 18 July, 2008, 6:58 am3R Marketing Consultant says:
Good article and a real shame about what the consultant did, because I know the guys and they are excellent, ethical and have a real passion for business.
While I have no axe to grind, I think it fair to avoid the mark anthony saying “the good that men do is oft interred in their bones, while the evil lives on ever after”
so you might even be tempted still to use them - it really is a brilliant idea that has actually come from Ireland - and I would hope that the GBS motto - its better to be talked about behind you back than not to be talked about at all will work for them
my tuppence worth, Peter
Friday, 18 July, 2008, 9:00 amSabrina Dent says:
Hi Peter, thanks for dropping in.
I think my second comment to Pat has bearing here. Inspired may have hired in a consultant to do the SEO, but ultimately it’s their name on the tin, so having been associated with this now, it’s Inspired upon whom this reflects badly.
I’ve never had any dealings with them, but I’m perfectly prepared to believe they are normally both excellent and ethical. If that is the case, I would expect them to fire the consultant, refund a substantial part of Irish Greeting Card’s money paid for work the was clearly not fit for purpose, re-evlauate their sign-off procedures, and make some sort of statement about what’s gone on here.
If they’re assisting people with social media marketing, than I think it’s completely fair to expect them to communicate with those of us actually out here in social media who have been angered by what can best be described as a poorly formulated stunt.
Also, frankly, I want to know who the consultant is. Back tracking through this, I might use Irish Greeting Cards now I have a fuller story. If Inspired does right by Irish Greeting Cards, I might even send people to them at some point in the future if they display any native intelligence about this situation.
But people need to be warned off whomever this consultant is. Plenty of people deliver little value for money, but in this case, actual desctruction was delivered for considerable amounts of cash, and people need to avoid, avoid, avoid whoever did this.
Friday, 18 July, 2008, 9:16 amHead Rambles » Blog Archive » Advertise on Head Rambles says:
[...] my Google Reader lit up with a post by Sabrina. Hah! She had been targeted by the same crowd. She obviously isn’t such a [...]
Friday, 18 July, 2008, 10:38 amDamien Mulley says:
A marketing consultant that puts their company name into the name field of a blog instead of their personal name, would I trust them? No.
Friday, 18 July, 2008, 7:26 pmInDKnow says:
Sabrina…
“but I’m perfectly prepared to believe they are normally both excellent and ethical.” … yeah right… in a pigs eye.
I would not make such a supposition without base information. Since I have such base information allow me to rephrase your comment to something approaching reality.
“but I’m perfectly correct in believing they are normally both incompetent and totally bloody clueless”
In fact another developer friend of mine and myself actually referred to this organisation as ‘Incompetence marketing’ for sooooooo long! Too long in fact… the word ‘Muppets’ springs to mind!
Friday, 18 July, 2008, 8:01 pmfrankp says:
Hey Sabrina,
Wow, I think you were a little harsh here, I’m not saying this was a wonderful marketing strategy and they were pounced on unfairly… but…
Pat communicated directly with the company and rooted out the full story which obviously elicited some sympathy from you as you’ve gone from warnign people off the card company to admitting you might use them.
There’s (almost) always a fuller story.
An ill advised email and a use of a blogging platform you don’t agree with is hardly cause to publicly warn people off a company, certainly without at least contacting them personally about it first.
It looks like the company are making efforts to improve their efforts now, which also indicates they are well intentioned.
Fair play to Pat for contacting them personally and advising of the full story.
Anyway, we should grab a coffee sometime soon and argue about it :P
Cheers,
Saturday, 19 July, 2008, 3:47 amFrank
frankp says:
ps - to clarify, it’s the greeting card company I’m referring to at all times in my above comment!
Saturday, 19 July, 2008, 3:49 amSabrina Dent says:
Frank, my friend, the problem is that I’m really not prepared to make excuses for companies - the greeting card company or the marketing crew - on the basis that “Oh, you didn’t know what you were doing? That’s OK then.”
I’m prepared to believe that IGC has been victimised by Inspired, who may or may not have been victimised by a cowboy consultant. The problem is that when the mail comes through the door, the people getting it think “What a bunch of shitebag muppets.” The only difference is that I said it out loud.
And for the record, I still think the cards are crappy. The idea has potential, but they’ve gone a long way down the wrong road and the products aren’t there.
Saturday, 19 July, 2008, 4:43 amVicki says:
Sabrina
On another note or rather returning to one of your original comments - I have the same issues remembering birthdays etc so I use moonpig.com who are excellent and while I would prefer to support an Irish company there really is no comparison between IGC and MP! (and for the cynics I dont work for MP!)
v
Tuesday, 22 July, 2008, 10:34 amDamien Mulley » Blog Archive » Another Irish SEO “Expert” endorses blog comments to rig Google rankings says:
[...] any lesson learned from that Irish Greeting card blogger spamming [...]
Tuesday, 12 August, 2008, 6:00 pm