Fugly is Beautiful

June 5th, 2008 Chris Posted in E-mail, Marketing | 1 Comment »

As I’ve mentioned before, I think that ugly looking, unprofessional communication hurts any business – especially a micro business fighting for credibility against bigger fish. However, the other day, I stumbled accross another effect – how being fugly can actually help business!

I was sending out an email from Colleen to the base, trying to upsell some members in one of our programs. It was a great offer and the email looked good. Colleen was out so I hit the send button.

To my horror, I found that in getting the email out, I had forgot to include the proper “from” address. Instead of Colleen’s, I had included mine. So, imagine this big blast going out with a very important (i.e. revenue generating) objective – all screwed up ’cause it arrives with a “from” address that no one has seen before. Not only did this risk the opportunity to generate some more dollars, it also risked annoying or confusing receipients to the point of being thrown into the “junk senders” abyss.

What did we do? Well, we tried to rescue the situation with a quick follow up email. It went exactly like this:

Oops! I’m sorry – I asked Chris to hit the send on this as I had to leave the office but he forgot to put in the correct “from” address. Guess who’s doing the dishes tonight?
Thanks for your understanding, Colleen.

That follow-up “Oops” email got over three times the response rate of our normal sales emails. We were surprised and definitely pleased. It reinforced an effect we’ve seen a few times now: the importance of personality.

The “oops” email we sent wasn’t pretty – in fact the whole thing was kinda fugly. But it was interesting, it was honest and highlighted that Colleen and I are real individuals. People like to buy from “real” people – people with personalities that they can have a relationship with.

And as a micro business, this is also a key tool against larger competitors. They are too big to have a personality. Who is the personality behind IBM, GM, Walmart, etc… Some try (think Wendy’s Dave and that Dyson vacuum guy) but the vast majority don’t. It’s pretty easy to match bigger competitors’ polish these days, but it’s hard for them to match your personality.

So, it’s important not to be ugly but it’s equally important not to sacrifice personality in your customer communication. Beautiful but boring is a killer. Highlighting your personality is what will build a relationship with your customers for on-going success.

Your challenge: Read your last few pieces of customer communication. Do they have personality?

C.