The events we are talking about happen to be related to email, marketing, and the messaging that hits the people you are trying to reach.  In partcular, with the title of this email and the fervor around CRM 2.0, it is this concept that we are going to not only trust the messaging going out but also have to live with the consequences...good or bad!

Around a week or so ago I received a message from an organization that was addressed to me by first name (not a big deal but it did get my attention).  Apparently this person (whose email address was a company@company.com) had been trying to reach me but been unable to do so.  I felt badly.  Had I not returned a message? Had I neglected to call someone back?  I checked my missed calls on the phone system and nothing from that company or their area code and no messages?

I assumed I had done nothing wrong and decided not to respond to the email because the information didn't seem relevant to me...we will come back to this one later.

Then, in the middle of last week another message from a different company.  This one was easier to understand because I am a customer of this health care provider.  But, the message was an open invitation to a very nice and expensive steak house here in the city.  Now this is health care coverage I could get used to.  I even called the steak house and asked if I needed to respond and they said, "No, there is room reserved, just show up!".  Wow, I don't know what they are selling but I will certainly take them up on the pitch while I enjoy a free steak.

One day later I get a second email which explained that this invitation was erroneously sent to all contacts in the database and to disregard the invitation.  Not a big deal since I was surprised that I would be mysteriously invited to a $100 dinner for no reason from a very large health care provider.  But, it did get me thinking about the impact of what the impact would be when all of my CRM users have the capacity to send the same type of blunder to my customers.

Now, back to the first situation.  After disregarding the prior email I went on my merry way and didn't think twice about it until this morning.  I received yet another request for a meeting from this company this morning and this person who still does not have their own email address at this company mentioned more attempts to try and reach me.  And yep, you guessed it, I went back through last weeks calls to find nothing from this company and no messages.

As I read throught he second email I began to laugh out loud at the content of the second email (although I am sure it was not intended that way).  If I may, here are a couple of the key points that struck me to be funny.  First, this person said that in just the past week they had "dozens of conversations with executives".  Really??? Dozens???  Since they couldn't pick up the phone to call me once I thought that was incredible (or at least incredibly funny).  Next, the company made claims of being able to produce incredible results for many household names. I thought this was funny because we aren't exactly a household name and would immediately shy away from solutions that are targeted for larger organizations (it's a price thing that I am sure many of you can understand).

I couldn't help myself and responded to the company with a terse email stating that they should evaluate their messaging, methods, and target list.  I also wished them well and said that I hoped the rep would be able to make a living with the way that they market themselves.  And finally, I told them that if they were able to connect with "dozens" of executives on a weekly basis they should be in telemarketing and not the line of business they currently promote.

So how does all of this tie back to Socal Media and CRM 2.0?  Well, quite frankly, it is the concept that whether you are marketing directly or enabling front line people to represent your company, there is an inherent danger in exposing your reputation and your company to careless and/or misguided messages to the prospects and clients that you work with.  More importantly, with many of these people you will not get a second chance at making a first impression (especially if the message is poor or misguided).

When people use technology and tools as part of their craft there is an overall responsiblity to understand who you are trying to reach, whether or not they fit your target, and to make sure that the person receiving these messages will be positively impacted by your efforts.  In one instance the company has what I believe to be poor marketing knowledge and in the other an unintended error may have impacted their customer base negatively.  While I was not surprised that the invitation was sent in error there may have been other executives at much larger customers that have a sour taste in their mouth from this incident.

There is no zero sum game in the world of sales and marketing.  Everything you do will ultimately have a positive or negative effect on your prospects and clients.  At a minimum there should be a vetting process with others in your organization before team members engage in various initiatives.  There is no doubt that in both these cases that if other people had been involved the results could have been much better.

In the world of CRM 2.0 people are spending way too much time worrying about connecting to people.  Maybe they should take just as much time worrying about the messages that they send to those same people.  To the best of my knowledge no one has created a method for how to use CRM to connect with people that no longer want anything to do with you.