Are You Making This Embarrassing E-Mail Mistake?

As an Internet marketing consultant with several Web sites, I'm always interested in knowing what the current market pricing is for hosting, so I let the guy give me his pitch.

He asked me what kind of server configuration I needed, then told me he would send me a quote and some information about his company.

He made no attempt to qualify me at all -- other than knowing I had some Web sites. He eagerly offered to "send me something" without any idea of whether I was interested in changing hosts, what my budget was, or how soon I could make a decision, etc.

Then I received the following email message from him about a month after he had called me: (Name changed to protect the guilty.)

Hi Nick,

I just wanted to touch base with you. I haven't spoken to you in awhile, and I just wanted to see if you had any questions.

Please let me know, my contact information is below.

Best Regards,

Albert De Salvo

Enterprise Solutions Manager

Since I get email like this just about every day, and since this particular time I had a charitable urge to make a point with this person, I composed the following reply:

Thanks so much for writing!

Yes, I do distinctly remember the last time we spoke. I don't get many calls so yours is indelibly etched in my mind.

In fact, your call was so important, I made a note of our conversation and put it in my tickler file as follows:

"Albert from toasterhoster.com called. He had no idea about my needs but that's okay. He works for a big company so I guess that should be enough to impress me.

"If he hasn't called or tried to contact me by June 20th, I should call him to see if there's anything else I don't need from his company."

In the meantime, I've been anxiously waiting for you to "touch base" with me.

You see, I really have nothing better to do than to read pointless follow-up email messages from people who have no idea whether or not I really need what they have to offer.

By the way, your company overview was fascinating reading. I can't tell you how glad I was to get it. I printed it out and put it up on my bulletin board just in case I ever need to refer to it.

When friends visit my office, I always make sure they see it.

No, I don't have any questions. I'm terribly sorry about that. I tell you what, why don't I take a few hours and think of some for you -- so you can send me more pointless email messages in response.

Once again, thanks so much for wasting my time. I really appreciate it.

Nick

P.S. What's an "Enterprise Solution?" Are you related to Captain Kirk?

Harsh? Maybe. Amusing? Possibly. Instructional? I hope so! Email follow-up is no different than telephone follow-up in that it must be relevant, it must provide some kind of new information, and it must have a strong call to action! This is crucial!

One final rant: Aren't you getting tired of hearing about "enterprise solutions?" The concept is so broadly applied and overused it really has no meaning anymore.

I urge you to review your email messages and other marketing communications and be mercilessly brutal in excising any and all meaningless jargon.

Replace it with customer-focused, benefit-oriented statements, and I'll bet your sales get an immediate bump upward.