Not a test! But a good catch on a definite mistake of some sort! I’ll get that taken care of. Thanks for pointing that out.

That’s quite a story! What a great example of how an occasional, honest mistake won’t ruin us.

On the other hand, it is possible to *over-test* (believe me, I know this!), checking for every single little thing that ultimately might not make or break our campaigns.

That’s where I think a good checklist comes in handy… to cover the crucial aspects efficiently, allowing us to move on to other things.

Thanks for sharing.

The build up was huge. Teleseminars, direct mail, emails, voicemail blasts, YouTube videos, you name it. We spent 90 days to build up to the launch.

The day of the launch I was in another city getting ready to fly back (lesson #1 - make sure you have access to everything you need in case an email snafu occurs). I had just enough time to check my email to ensure there were no "emergencies" before I checked out of the hotel to fly home. (I’m not a brain surgeon. What emergencies could there possibly be? No one will die if I don’t answer an email, right?)

My inbox was literally FULL of replies to the launch email I’d sent out saying, "The link in your email doesn’t work"…aka no one could find/buy the product we’d been building up to for 90 days!

Turns out my old webmaster had misunderstood my instructions on how the launch was to ‘go down’ and didn’t turn on the special sales page I’d made for the launch. D’oh! (Lesson #2 - It was my fault as much as hers for not double and triple checking beforehand.)

And the bellman is standing at the door waiting to take my bags to the front desk…and my plane leaves in two hours…and what could I do?

I put on my ‘big girl pants’ and dealt with it. Was I upset? DUH! But the world didn’t end, we’ve done several successful launches since then, and I got an even better webmaster out of the deal. (Lesson #3 - Snafus happen and life goes on.)

In the end, as long as you let your customers know what’s going on and keep them in the loop, ‘oops’ email or whatever, they are still YOUR raving fans and will stay with you.

Seth knows that (I’m one of his raving fans) and that’s why his post was accepted. It was sincere and real. People can read that.

If every other email you send out starts with ‘Oops’ or ‘My bad’ people will become suspect. They find you because they connect with you. Honesty, in the end, is still the best policy.

Long post, but good lesson learned on our end.
Rachel Young
Big Cheese Marketing

It’s psychology, you see, people are intrigued to learn "what went wrong".

When I compare the original email with the "Oops" one, they are often the same, but the marketing purpose was fulfilled - I went through the email with a fine-tooth comb, i.e. I read it!

More on this on Vertical Response’s blog:

http://blog.verticalresponse.com/verticalresponse_blog/2008/03/the-oops-mailin.html

What I often find on this end, is that they haven’t been reading the emails with the free content in it.

Sometimes I think you can get by with a mistake because the ISPs seem to be filtering so much I question the deliverability anyway. I often wonder what would happen if someone filed a class action suit against the ISPs for their indiscriminate filtering methods, comparing it to obstruction of physical mail.

Don’t know why we (me included) think we can’t goof up on occasion, but this post is a good reminder that it does happen - and life goes on.

In the end, most people really value their double-opted-in subscribers and go to pains not to offend or lose them. I find this pretty refreshing.

Jennifer

Thanks for stopping by and for feedback.

The point was/is to show that we’re all prone and likely to make mistakes in our professional lives, despite our efforts to avoid them.

Here, it seems I may have even made a mistake in titling this post, which I promptly corrected. In the post, I go on to clarify that it was an associate of yours, and not you yourself, technically.

I would have to bet that most of your readers have taken the mistake in stride, especially since your apology post has value of its own for your blog readers.