Latest in the “Archives of Ridiculously Bad Marketing”: I received this email with a From name that matched the name at the bottom of the letter, but the address looked spammy and from a different person–and the subject line was someone else’s name. Oh, and there was no signature or even URL—just the person’s probably-fictitious name. Here’s the content, exactly as I received it. I found at least 8 grammar and usage errors in the four-line first paragraph. How many did you spot?

This Morning I was on your website and I can see a few issues affecting your website Ranking I would like to send you a no-cost proposal on your website that will give some vital insight as to why you aren’t on page 1 yet and to show you some bigger issues. This is totally no-cost you’ll not be charged for any of this
Does this sound good?
Regards,
[Name]

Normally, I wouldn’t even respond—but somehow, I felt that maybe this person was teachable. And I know how hard it can be when it feels like your communications fall into the abyss. So I wrote back:

If I could give you some unasked-for advice: sending an ungrammatical mess with three different identities isn’t a really effective marketing strategy.

Why am I sharing this? Because I see a lot of people making mistakes like this—and I believe one of the best ways to do better is to dissect the failures.

It’s not just the bad grammar, punctuation, and capitalization. What other problems do you see in this 70-word message?

Here are a few that I notice:

1. The writer failed to be specific. The letter is generic and could be applied to any business owner in any industry.

2. There’s no attempt to engage with me as an individual business owner, e.g., “I love your focus on business succeeding by solving the world’s biggest problems”—or even “On your About page, I noticed that your use of the phrase, ‘extravagant cookie monsters’ could be costing you search engine rankings because [insert brief explanation].” If I had seen some indication that my correspondent had actually gone to my web page and spotted a problem, I would have been willing to gamble the time to read the report. (And just in case you go looking, that was a made-up example. I’m pretty sure that the archive of this newsletter will be the first time “extravagant cookie monsters” has appeared on any of my sites 😉 .)

3. While it has a call to action, it has no third-party validation (like testimonials or reviews). It has no URL for me to check it out on my own (and a generic Gmail address that doesn’t give me the website). And it has no credibility.

4. There’s also no differentiation. What makes this service different than the dozen other SEO services that pitched me this month? The only differentiation is the sense that this is a low-skill individual that I cannot trust to do a good job.

So there’s a quick four-point list of how to turn a pathetic email into a useful one. Go out there and make it happen! And if you want expert help with your copy, visit my contact form (on my main site, Going Beyond Sustainability), and let’s talk.

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