My father-in-law passed away just over a year ago. It was a sad event for all of us, but he had been ill for some time, and though we miss him a lot, it was not unexpected.
What does that have to do with marketing?
Recently, my now-widowed mother-in-law received a couple of marketing letters directed to my father-in-law. The first piece was from Bell Canada, and it said, almost verbatim, "Where is (my father-in-law's name) today?" We had moved my mother-in-law to a different provider when she moved into a new appartment.
Another letter recently arrived from a State Farm insurance agent, that read: "It's easy to figure out that you want home and auto insurance that fit how you live."
Now I'm not a marketer. I don't claim to have great knowledge in this area, or expertise in finding new prospects for my own business. But would this not be a great example of how companies waste millions of dollars on sending out marketing materials to people that aren't their prospects. And to make it a double-whammy, they have now alienated someone (actually several people) who were upset by their correspondences - all because they were using an out-of-date mailing list!
I wonder what Seth Godin would think of this?
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