We’re all familiar with the old saying about “how the ship was sunk but for a ha’penny of tar”. It refers of course to the small area of the hull that wasn’t tarred properly and, which in the force of the seas, led to the ship being holed and then sunk.
Well, I discovered last month what the modern day equivalent is – and it’s a staple. Yes, but for a single staple an entire marketing piece was sunk.
The consequences were not too damaging for me but I tell the tale, not in any way to brag, but to show the fragility with which we all live and from which none of us are exempt. It was me a few weeks ago but it could be you next month. Here’s the salutary tale in full…
So we were finally ready to unveil our new completely done-for-you service, which we’ve called EC Premier. It takes everything that’s part of Club Plus but literally does it all for you.
It’s simple and elegant but it has one big drawback, in so far as it requires people to make it all happen.
Therefore, we had to manage the pace of rollout really carefully so, the only people we were going to tell in our initial mailing were the couple of hundred who indicated, back in January, that they’d like to receive details when this new (Gold) service became available.
Consequently, a letter was written and 200 copies were fully personalised, using mail merge, and were ready to be sent out.
However, I wanted to make sure that all of my Mastermind members heard of the service, not so much to offer it to them, but just so that they knew what we were doing and also so that they could learn from our marketing copy, etc.
I decided that the simplest and best way to do this was for me to get 54 letters printed off in a “raw” state, i.e. no personalisation at all (because I don’t want them to even think that I’m trying to sell to them – because I’m not) so, it just says, “INSERT NAME”, etc. in all the right places.
What I then did was to handwrite a little cover note, explaining that we were launching this new service and that, as Mastermind members, I thought they ought to be aware of it. I then said that if they had any interest at all, they could call Phil Wintermantle (who will become the Marketing Manager for the first 50 Premier members).
It was a beautiful plan but, of course, it required that handwritten note to be stapled to the seven page letter that had no personalisation in it. That’s when I got sabotaged.
I didn’t check how the things were put in the envelopes to my Masterminders and, unfortunately, the member of my team that undertook the task, didn’t pay attention to my request that they staple the covering note to the letter.
Instead, they simply inserted the covering letter in the envelope with the letter but as two separate pieces of paper.
Not a major problem, you wouldn’t have thought, except that the covering note was on a much smaller piece of paper so, when the seven page letter (which was stapled together) came out of the envelope, in many cases, the handwritten note stayed behind and, was never seen.
The result, 9 of the 54 people that got the letter, contacted me to alert me to my mistake in sending them a nonpersonalised letter.
Now, my most valued customers think that I was trying to sell to them, that I couldn’t even get their personalisation correct and that my team and processes are a bit rubbish.
All but for a staple, the ship was sunk.
There are dangers lurking for all of us every single day. We cannot assume that our thoughts, wishes and designs will be implemented by our staff unless we rigorously check and enforce it.
It’s exactly the lesson that Rick Stein taught me all those years ago in Padstow (see NBTV Episode 2) and it will never ever go away.
Whatever happens in my business is my responsibility and, no one will ever think – or care – as much as I do.
