How NOT to use Email for Follow Up

I am on the board of directors for our local Advertising Federation. Last year I was the V-P of Communications which included the website and email campaigns.

As I prepared each of the emails, I learned early on to send a copy to myself to check the links and layout, before I sent it to the masses.

Email is an accepted form of communication for lots of business transactions and yet sometimes we get sloppy.

What follows is a poorly edited form letter I received recently when I told a website/email provider that we would not need his services since we were doing it ourselves.

If he had read what he wrote before hitting the send button, he would be spared the embarrassment of my placing his email on this site. Instead, his email became an example of how NOT to use email for follow up.

All of us should learn to proofread before pressing Send:

Hi Scott,

Thanks for your email and the update. Good luck with your new association management tools and website. If for whatever reason they don't meet your expectations in the future and you'd like to explore other options, please email/call at your convenience. Since AssociationMagnet is an off-the-shelf product, it's likely that we (1) have a better feature set (i.e., it's not just "the website," and people generally underestimate the cost/time required to really build all that they need for running an association chapter); (2) can launch for you within a few weeks; _and_ (3) can save you quite a bit of money on an ongoing basis. I'd welcome the opportunity to have a more detailed conversation with you about what you need and what we could do for you.

By the way, since AssociationMagnet is an off-the-shelf product, it's likely that we (1) have a better feature set; (2) can launch for you within a few weeks; _and_ (3) save chapters in normal situations quite a bit of money both on the launch and on an ongoing basis. If/when the time is appropriate, I'd welcome the opportunity to have a more detailed conversation with you about this and what we could do for you.

Best,

Jeff