Famous Dave’s whets my appetite but I’m still so hungry…
Posted by Rob Ropars on August 11th, 2009
A few days ago (8/7) I received an email from Famous Dave’s, a favorite local BBQ restaurant, and I was looking forward to a coupon for my next visit. The subject line appeared to have some problems and I opened the email knowing there might be an issue. Thus began a journey that would last another three days. Three days before I was able to see the actual offer, and based the nature of the offer I won’t be able to participate any way…
The subject line really stopped me dead in my tracks. As someone who works on clients’ email marketing efforts, I know there’s always a risk a test version might accidentally deploy to a recipient list. That definitely appears to be the case here as the subject line included some internal reference to the fact that it was a test: “##TEST##TECH 1 HTML##Treat the Dave in your life to a free meal!”
I had an inkling that whatever the offer was, the name “Dave” was involved. I was hopeful that this generically meant a “Dave” as in a Famous Dave’s lover. A BBQ lover. A lover of all things Famous Dave’s… Then I opened the email…
…And was staring at a blank page. All I could see was “Problem viewing? Click here., then the personalized intro “Robert,” and then nothing until the graphic button for a fellow email service provider. Nothing in between. Well I did have that link that was asking me “Problem viewing?” answer “Yes!” so I clicked it… And was taken to a…another blank page.
So surely within a few minutes to an hour, someone must have realized that the message to an internal seed/test list had gone awry. Instead of a small test group, a full file deployment had occurred, unless…maybe they’ve graciously added me to their test list for my feedback? So what should they have done at this point? Most of the ESP industry cautions against sending apologies for mistakes as it draws more attention to them.
The logic behind this is that most people might ignore or miss the issue and you’ve minimized the damage. An exception would be something that announces and event with incorrect date/time/location information. If it’s a matter of sending the wrong message to the wrong people-you might have to honor something or answer some confused calls and emails, but the majority probably won’t notice or react.
But I think in this case, maybe they could have sent something, short and sweet, acknowledging the misfire and building some anticipation for the real email like, “Watch your inbox next Monday for the offer.” Instead I had an email with a subject line clearly referencing an internal test, an offer of some kind involving a free meal and a “Dave,” and a blank message within.
As I was composing this post and preparing screenshots-the updated/final email magically appeared in my inbox by absolute coincidence (unless they’re bugging our offices). It was a bit creepy actually. Now I feel like I’m in a GEICO commercial but I don’t see that weird pile of money with googly-eyes anywhere, but I now have Rockwell singing “Somebody’s Watching Me” stuck in my head…aauugghh.
So now I can see the offer. It’s actually an interesting anniversary special offer. The final subject line is “Dave’s Eat FREE! Come Celebrate Our 15 Famous Years!”. To celebrate the Famous Dave’s 15th anniversary on August 30th, anyone named Dave will receive a free entrée. If your middle name is Dave, you get 50% off an entrée. The rest of us…free smells (oh wait that’s Quizno’s, no Jimmy Johns…but now I’ve got an imaginary oven saying “Toasty! Toasty!” in my head…anthropomorphic toaster or Rockwell…which is worse!?!).
Well now I know the whole story and I’m still hungry with no offer I can use… Wait.. maybe I can still find some benefit in this targeted offer. Maybe August 30th is the perfect day to finally take my colleague and fellow blog poster Dave McCue to lunch. It’s on me buddy (and Dave Anderson), you’ve earned it!
And I won’t even get started on a review of how the Famous Dave’s email could be better (i.e. it’s all image, no call-to-action in the preview pane, etc.). Just moving from a blank page to a picture was good enough for now.
