Behind the Scenes - 9/5/2024

Dear Friends,

 

For those who are new to our emails, I try to do an email once a week where I go into the details of what is happening behind the scenes of our small business. If you want to catch up on prior messages, check out the blog here or just jump right into the story below.

The race to Christmas is beginning in earnest for us here. This morning I had a meeting with Meryle and Anna to point out that we have about 60 days until November is upon us. That is when the Christmas rush begins to pick up as businesses looking to buy presents for their employees, and those early shoppers amongst you get to work.

With such a limited time ahead we have a lot of things that need to be done, so now is of course the perfect time for me to lose my mind.

This idea started as a little worm of a thought while I was at the beach last Sunday and my phone buzzed. I truly blame Rory Sutherland for this (please go back and read last weeks email for more explanation as to who he is and why he is to blame for this idea). He has me wondering about those "Newtonian" solutions that I take for granted as being a good thing.

For those of you who run marketing agencies reading this, I'm sure you will feel I have gone completely insane. I want to try something that seems very counterintuitive.

I want to stop doing text message marketing...

What's worse is that I want to stop doing them on principle. I find them very annoying. Everyone I've asked about also finds them extremely annoying. Not one person has said that they have gone and bought something because a company texted them, except when the company gave them a large discount (which I think is more related to the message than the medium).

Beyond that, I find those popups (the very one on my site now I'm ashamed to say) where you give them your email and your phone number for a discount to leave a sour taste in my mouth. It certainly is irritating to enter your email only to find that you must also enter your phone number to get the code.

I get bombarded from every side with marketing. It would be nice if my text messages were one place I could be assured were only filled with practical communication from important people.

Now some may say that "But text message marketing works!" to which I say, "so what?"

Generating revenue is not the only factor that matters in a marketing channel. You also need to consider how the method you market affects your relationship with the customer (and by extension the brand identity and equity). If the way that you are marketing has a negative effect on your customer relationship, that is a bad long play, even if it generates revenue in the short term.

I also think that those that sell us SMS marketing services (like virtually all of my digital marketing tools) vastly overvalue their contribution to our sales. If you sign up for our emails and text and then you get our welcome flow emails, see an ad from us on Facebook or Instagram, get a text from us, what of those things made you buy? Well each of those channels are counting it for themselves if you do buy. So sorting out the revenue generated by text messages alone is actually impossible let alone useful.

So I am going to change things, even if only for us.

I also hate the popups in general. I think they are deeply annoying and interrupt my scrolling just as I am getting interested. It honestly comes off very desperate. It's like the guy at the party begging for the girls phone number because he thinks he will never see her again if he can't text her. This is not the way to begin a relationship if you want it to last.

So we are also going to be removing our popup from the website. I am not however totally insane enough to not give a way for people to sign up for emails.

At the moment, my best idea (which I hope will work) is to put a small thing directly below the "hero" image when you land on the page that has an offer and a place to put your email down. Once you supply your email, you will get the offer right away. It won't "popup" merely be part of the flow of the website.

I don't want to use the same discount offer as everyone else as I feel it is both lazy and sets the wrong tone for the brand anyway. Thus I am experimenting with new offer ideas and I would welcome your feedback! What offer would you want to give us your email that is not a discount.

For the moment we are starting with "Free Name Engraving" for your first purchase. In light of how I much I appreciate our old customers, I will also be allowing them to use the code even if they have already given us their email for their next purchase.

Unfortunately as of this writing I haven't got all the of the needed technical back end finished to make this new vision live, however my hope is to have it done and launched early next week. At that point I will be sending out my last marketing text explaining that we are done with SMS marketing and letting people know that they can still text us if they would like at our usual phone number if they need help.

There is one final caveat to this.

We are keeping one form of text message "marketing" but there is a reason I put it in quotes. We currently send a follow up text to those who have bought from us asking what they think after it arrives at their house. This has been a big help for us and for our customers to help solve any problems right away. We will still be doing that.

I don't really think of that as a marketing text but more of a customer service text, and I hope everyone feels the same way.

Stay tuned for more letters on Thursdays in the coming weeks and be sure to go subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you like and watch the videos it helps us get promoted more by the algorithm to people who may never have heard of us.

Ever your servant,

Colin Murdy

CEO/Owner

Murdy Creative Co.

Cell: 414-434-9001

MurdyCreative.Co