Adam Kalsey

This is the blog of Adam Kalsey. Unusual depth and complexity. Rich, full body with a hint of nutty earthiness.

Business & Strategy

Email marketing stupidity

9 Jul 2002

I just renewed the domain registration for kalsey.com through Register.com. Right after I did so, I received a couple automatic responses from them via email. Neither response had a subject line. I have to open each message to see what it is about. That’s just plain dumb.

The subject line of a message is what your customers first see when they receive your message. It’s also the only part of your message that stares them in the face the entire time the message sits in their inbox; even when they have someone else’s message open, your subject line is still in front of them.

The second dumb mistake they made is in not tailoring the email message to me. Here’s an excerpt of the first email they sent. I’ve added emphasis and munged the email addresses to protect me from spam.

From: renewals AT register.com [mailto:renewals AT register.com] Sent: Tuesday, July 09, 2002 11:17 AM To: adam AT kalsey.com Subject:


Dear Adam,

Thank you for using Register.com to renew
kalsey.com

You may be interested to know that we offer a wide variety of
products and services to help you build your Web site, protect
and build your brand online, and enjoy the use of your domain names:

...

***Adam AT kalsey.com CAN BE YOURS***
Get your personalized email box to accompany your domain names!
Build professional boxes such as sales AT kalsey.com
or create a memorable email account
at Adam AT kalsey.com.

Register.com took the time to create a personalized email by inserting my name into the message, but failed to do a simple check to see if their marketing message might apply to me.

They sent the message to adam AT kalsey.com, but still included a marketing message that tells me I could get the email address adam AT kalsey.com. I obviously already know this.

It is a big pet peeve of mine when a company tries to market a service to you that they know you already have. I get postcards every other month from the local cable company offering me their broadband Internet service. I’m already a subscriber. In fact, that’s probably how they have my name and address, since I don’t subscribe to any of their other services.

Recently Written

Your OKR Cascade is Breaking Your Strategy
Aug 1: Most companies cascade OKRs down their org chart thinking it creates alignment. Instead, it fragments strategy and marginalizes supporting teams. Here's what works better than the waterfall approach.
Your Prioritization Problem Is a Strategy Problem
Jul 23: Most teams struggle with prioritization because they're trying to optimize for everything at once. The real problem isn't having too many options—it's not having a clear strategy to choose between them. Without strategy, every decision feels equally important. With strategy, most decisions become obvious.
Behind schedule
Jul 21: Your team is 6 weeks late and still missing features. The solution isn't working harder—it's accepting that your deadlines were fake all along. Ship what you have. Cut ruthlessly. Stop letting "one more day" turn into one more month.
VC’s Future Lies In Building Winners
Jun 21: AI and megafunds are about to kill the traditional venture model, forcing smaller VCs to stop hunting for hidden gems and start rolling up their sleeves to fix broken companies instead.
Should individual people have OKRs?
May 14: A good OKR describes and measures an outcome, but it can be challenging to create an outcome-focused OKR for an individual.
10 OKR traps and how to avoid them
May 8: I’ve helped lots of teams implement OKRs or fix a broken OKR process. Here are the 10 most common problems I see, and what to do instead.
AI is Smart, But Wisdom Requires Judgement
May 3: AI can process data at lightning speed, but wisdom comes from human judgment—picking the best imperfect option when facts alone don’t point the way.
Decoding Product Leadership Titles
Mar 18: Not all product leadership titles mean what they sound like. ‘Head of Product’ can mean anything from a senior PM to a true VP. Here’s how to tell the difference.

Older...

What I'm Reading