The (Old) Spring Creek Group Blog

Chris Dodd Campaign (Fake?) Email "Reply-All" Oops as Viral PR Tactic?

An associate alerted us Friday to an as-yet-unobserved (at least by us) clever/lame/unethical(?) email marketing tactic that it appears Chris Dodd's campaign implemented last week to get the word out.

The email in question appears to be an inadvertently Reply-All'ed "test" email to the entire Chris Dodd email subscriber base with campaign manager "suggested edits" to a forthcoming official Dodd fundraising mail, which is itself attached in full HTML below the "suggested edits". In tone, form, and content, it looks just like the kind of "oops-they-meant-to-send-this-to-just-him-not-everyone-in-the-database" that we have all gotten at one point or another.  However, our associate expressed strong skepticism about the mail, believing instead that the Dodd campaign had intentionally sent the mail to everyone as designed to simply appear like a mistake... in the hope that it would prompt recipients to at least give it more regard (the looky-loo effect, i.e. "I'm not supposed to be receiving this, so I'll actually read it") and at most to get a forward-on to someone else ("hey check out this goof!").

Well, whatever the case, we're blogging about it, so it's having the intended effect... if indeed this was an intentional "error-copycat".  2008, the year of Election 2.0.

For your review and own assessment, dear readers, attached is the mail in question.  And for further consideration by the cynics out there, note that (a) only our associate's email address was on the "To:" line, and, (b) Sheryl's "edits" appear a little more booster-y than feedback-y, to our (admittedly skeptical) eyes.

Accident?  Disengenuous new spin on old-school email fundraising?  Potentially unethical use of an opt-in list?  Wildly clever push into a bold new frontier of email marketing?  You be the judge.

But if this turns into a more widely utilized email marketing tactic over time, we want first dibs on naming it.  We'll submit, "The Fake Oops".

And we guess that like any other Web marketing campaign, the proof is in the pudding... i.e. in the CTR's and the Conversion Rate.   Hey Sheryl, SCG wants to know if you got your $40k this weekend or not.  Send a campaign fundraising status update email to Tim this week (oops, plus the whole subs base too!), so our associate can let us know...

From: Sheryl Cohen [mailto:scohen@chrisdodd.com]
Sent: Friday, November 30, 2007 9:38 AM
To: EMAILADDRESSINTENTIONALLYREDACTED
Subject:

 

Tim,

I made a few small changes to your email draft -- you'll see them below.

Would have sent to the entire list myself, but I could only figure out how to send this test.

I know you're concerned about sending another fundraising email, but we're only $40,000 short of hitting our November goal, and that money will help keep us on the air and talking about ending the war in Iraq and the Constitution. And honestly, our supporters online are so terrific and have come through for us every time.

Plus, with votes on the war and retroactive immunity coming up, our leadership will help keep the pressure on other presidentials to keep their word.

Ask people to give at this link so we can track the goal publicly.

http://chrisdodd.com/goal

Thanks,

Sheryl Cohen
Campaign Manager, Chris Dodd for President

On Nov 30, 2007, at 10:53 AM, Tim Tagaris wrote:

>

Dear Friend, Think about it for a second. Do you truly know what you'll get from the other candidates if they win the nomination? If you really want the answer to that question, don't ask a person where they are going -- ask them where they have been. Why do some candidates spend as much time apologizing for a career full of bad votes as they do talking about how they'll remedy the fallout if elected? Why can't we get the simplest of answers to the straight questions from others? And why do some just flat out skip the tough votes? From authoring the Family and Medical Leave Act to his often single-handed efforts to restore the Constitution, you know what to expect from a Dodd Administration. We set a goal about a week and a half ago to raise $100,000 online and we'll need your help right now if we're going to meet it. Please get us there by contributing $25 right now. http://chrisdodd.com/goal Thirty-four days. If you feel strongly about our fight to end the war in Iraq, prevent war with Iran, and restore the Constitution, we need your support right now. Our field operation is humming along and our current "Restoring the Constitution and Rule of Law tour" is drawing larger crowds than we've seen at any point in the campaign. But we need your help to keep it going. Thirty-four days. Your contribution right now will ensure we have the resources necessary to continue the fight through January 3rd. http://chrisdodd.com/goal You've come through for us every time. Not much time left. Let's get it done. Tim Tagaris Chris Dodd for President Paid for by Chris Dodd for President, Inc. PO Box 51882 Washington, DC 20091 Info@ChrisDodd.com To stop receiving email from Dodd for President, Inc., unsubscribe here.

Dear Yahoo Personals Product Manager,

Please note that your run-of-network display advertisements for Yahoo Personals, which greet me nearly every time I am forced to check my spam-laden Yahoo email account (that I only ever use anymore for ecomm, my address having been scraped, sold, purloined, and generally abused so thoroughly that it's effectively useless for actual personal communications), long ago ceased to be convincing as actual examples of real single people using your service.  "Megan" from "Ann Arbor, MI", the persona whose chipper blond visage must inspire the highest click-through rates since her ad seems to be the most frequently displayed, probably long ago tired of having her real friends in real life wherever she really lives say, "Hey, did you know your ad is STILL running for that Personals service in Yahoo?!".  Assuming that "Megan" actually does exist as a real human being somewhere and not as a computer-generated avatar soley for advertising purposes, please have mercy on her: remove her from the endless purgatory of your house ads inventory.  Eventually your target audience is going to note the sheer duration of advertisements which imply that "Megan" is "still single and available, if only you'll try our service!", and just stop believing that someone, anyone, could actually be both representative of your Personals service AND willing to be featured as such for so very long.  Which is just going to make the ad unbelievable at best, and annoying and off-putting to all of us who have to keep seeing it over and over again at worst.

So, YPPM, for the sake of your many website users - or just for the sake of "Megan", whoever and wherever she may be - will you please log into your house ads management application and change out all those stale old reliable rectangles? Nobody is buying the illusion anymore that Megan is hanging out in Ann Arbor, MI, waiting like Godot for the perfect new subscriber to Yahoo Personals to finally, at long last, contact her. And if I have to keep logging in to my email account occasionally to check on the status of my Amazon orders, I'd at least like to see what other kind of chops the creative graphic designers in Yahoo's house advertising department have got.

Thanks for listening, YPPM, hope the unsolicited advice isn't too harsh - and have a nice day.

[Postscript note to anyone else in online marketing who may have stumbled across this post: Even the mighty Yahoo can illustrate the point that fresh, thoughtful, original content that assumes its viewers are comprised of a fairly savvy and skeptical audience still counts in effective marketing... even in the data-driven, CTR-dominated world of Internet display advertising today.]

How to Manage Your Reputation Online

A year and a half ago, I did a presentation at a Word of Mouth Market Association (WOMMA) conference on reputation management.  At the time, the idea that an impression (skewed or not) of one's reputation could be had with a simple Google search was still new and poorly understood.  Google was perceived by most as the place to get information about inanimate objects like websites, images, places, documents, and products among other things.  It was viewed less as a channel for getting useful information about people and for the most part this was true.

With the emergence of consumer generated media publishing through sites and services like Blogger,  Flickr, MySpace, LinkedIn, and YouTube it became fast and easy for people to post the details of their lives online in multi-media format.  As the hurdle for globally distributed self-expression came down, the desire to publish content about oneself and one's life in the form of reviews, resumes,  social connections, audio, images, and video has increased.  What used to be kept in private diaries and scrapbooks under the bed, today gets posted on Facebook in real-time.  Today, this is how a whole generation of people (primarily in the developed world) connect and communicate.

Want to learn more about the girl you just met?  Look them up on Facebook using your phone.  Interested in finding out what kind of guy your boss really is?  Google him.  Want to find out what the kid you're considering for an internship does in her spare time?  Check her out on MySpace.

Amidst all of this change and empowerment of self-expression, there is an important lesson for us all.  Be thoughtful and, dare I say, strategic about the things you post about yourself online.  When you put something online, there is by definition at least one audience for it and quite possibly more than one.  Depending on what you post and where you post it, you will convey meaning to members of each of your audiences.  To people that know you in one context it might say one thing but to the people that know you in another context, or to those that do not know you at all, it might say something completely different and unintentional.

Here are some useful tips for how to get a handle on your reputation online.