Kibo …

A couple of weeks ago I received some spam.  I get a lot of spam – some of it’s well-produced, some of it’s garbage.  This spam was garbage.  The email content was poor and the layout uninspiring.  It also linked to a PDF (archived).

I sent this tweet to the agency behind the spam:

@helen350 shocking grammar on this: http://t.co/y9d9SVt

A short while later I got this back:

@intermanaut shocking grammar on this: goo.gl/XTCHp — what’s more vital? Grammar or getting people to act? I know which I’d choose!

Now, I realise that the whole point of spam is to get people to buy your stuff or services, but from an exceptional-thinking PR/marketing company I’d have expected the following sort of reply:

@intermanaut – thanks for the heads-up!  I’ve fixed it now, and have given myself some lines to do after school!

I replied with these, but heard no more.

@helen350 that makes no sense, and fundamental errors like that drive business away.

@helen350 it’s a very poor example of “exceptional thinking”

@helen350 here you go: http://goo.gl/dornE #badspelling

That last link is to a BBC Education article on how poor spelling can affect your business.  It drives customers away, and someone paid Exceptional Thinking for their services.

Since then, the creator of the dodgy PDF and marketing “campaign” has posted this video to YouTube.  The channel is chock-full of advice to small business, but this particular video is absurd.  It tells people to delete negative feedback and forget about it.  That’s stupid.  How you respond to negative feedback is critical.  It’s far more important than how you deal with positive comments.  Any business that attempts to avoid handling complaints is doomed to fail.

Detail is important, especially in language.  A simple stray comma can change the meaning of a contract that could cost millions of dollars.  At the very least it says to people, “I did this in a hurry, and I don’t care about your business or the image you’re putting across”.