I like to think that writing the content for clients’ marketing to schools campaigns has turned me into a finely tuned email marketing machine.

I’ve even written several selling to schools whitepapers preaching about how to get responses from teachers. So it must have been complacency that led to me momentarily forgetting one of the golden rules of email marketing.

It was last Saturday afternoon around midday. I’d just finished perusing the new TV guide, when I came to the conclusion that I couldn’t stomach another Saturday night of Strictly Come Dancing followed by The X Factor. No, I simply could not take it.

So I decided to send a text to six of my friends asking them if they would fancy a drink at the local pub that evening. Now, most of my friends are either married, have girlfriends, or addicted to Strictly Come Dancing and The X Factor, so I knew my chances were not good.

So I thought I’d go for the sympathy vote, tug on their heart strings a little bit. Nothing wrong with that.

“Hi Everyone, I know its late notice but does anyone fancy a drink tonight? I don’t think I can stand another Saturday night of watching TV on my lonesome :( I was thinking The Royal Oak around 8pm?”

2pm. No replies. Not the end of the world; Gaz is probably still in bed nursing a hangover, Paul and Alex are probably out doing the weekly shop with their wives, and Dave is probably waiting to see if he’ll get a better offer.

4pm. Still nothing. This is worrying. Why haven’t any of them replied? I was just checking my Sent Items to see if there had been a problem with the delivery of my message when it dawned on me… finely tuned marketing machine though I am, I’d forgotten what is possibly the golden rule of email marketing.

I’d made it so obvious that I was sending a ‘group text’ that nobody who had received my message felt they needed to reply to me. They probably all thought, ‘I don’t need to reply because it wasn’t like he really wanted a drink with me personally. I’ll see how I’m feeling later on and just turn up if I fancy it.’

You fool John, you absolute fool! So I slapped my wrist, cursed my ineptitude, slipped into email marketing mode, and got another group text out there!

“Hi mate, nobody else replied to my text earlier. Do you fancy a drink later on? I haven’t seen you in ages and it’d be really good to have a catch up.”

10 minutes later, 6 replies. 2 yes’s and 4 no’s.

So I ended up going to the pub with Paul and Andrew. We had a couple of drinks, reminisced about the old times and promised to do it again soon. I’d just learned another important lesson in my quest to become an email marketing guru!

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Marketing to Schools Selling to Schools Emailing Teachers Email Calls to Action How to Sell to Schools

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