I am very sore this morning. Pretty much everything hurts from my knees up. It’s the result of my attendance at a “Boot Camp” workout early yesterday morning. Imagine 8th grade P.E. class on steroids. Lots of steroids. I attended the workout with my neighbor who invited me. She’s a 50-year-old, very fit Latina. And apples to apples, she kicked my @$$.
But that’s not the point.
Later in the afternoon, I was sitting in my office and I received an email from my neighbor. It was a forwarded message from the Boot Camp trainer. He had written to his class members to thank them for attending and to welcome “the new guy” (me). That’s cool and all, BUT what’s not cool is that he included each class member’s email address in the TO: line.
That’s the problem. Two problems actually:
- Privacy. Some of those classmates may not want their full names and email addresses distributed to the rest of the class. Sure, some of them may be friends, but others are most certainly strangers.
- Missed Marketing Opportunity. By sending the email message to so many people at once, he has no idea who opened it, who read it, who forwarded it to friends, etc.
Mr. Trainer could have used Twin Bees’ solution for email marketing. For only $15 per month (or less) he could have sent a professionally-designed, trackable, personalized message, individually to each class member, thus avoiding privacy issues altogether.
He would know who opened it, who didn’t open it, and who likes his message so much that they forwarded it to a bunch of friends. He could have also included a message about “One-on-One Training Opportunities” and allow people to click over to his website or blog.
Sure, every day lots of people (and businesses) send out mass emails and include all the customers’ names in the TO: or CC: line. So Mr. Trainer is not alone. But he sure could be doing things in a more private, more efficient, more professional manner, all for less than the cost of a single training session.
I guess I will have to go back to Boot Camp and mention these things to the trainer. I’ll be sure to be nice about it so he doesn’t work me twice as hard.