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Mr. Stewart leads demand generation programs for Demandbase and is a recognized thought leader in the B2B lead generation and lead management space. He founded and leads the Salesforce.com user group in Salesforce.com’s headquarters location (San Francisco) and was one of the first 500 people to complete the Salesforce.com Certified Administrator process. He has spent 10+ years in B2B telesales, demand generation, lead management and marketing operations with a variety of businesses including Maxager Technology, MarketLive, and Inference Corporation. Mr. Stewart has advised emerging software companies including Spoke and Kieden (acquired by Salesforce.com). He earned his BA in English from Rutgers University.
Chris Golec
Mr. Golec is CEO of Demandbase – a provider of On Demand Software and Services to improve demand generation at B2B companies. Prior to founding the company in 2005, he co-founded Supplybase in the mid-90’s. Supplybase was a successful supply chain software company that created significant customer value before being acquired by i2 Technologies in 2000 as part of the largest software merger in history. Before entering the software industry, Mr. Golec spent the previous 10 years of his career with GM, DuPont, and GE serving in engineering, sales and marketing roles. He holds a B.S. in Chemical Engineering and an M.B.A.
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by Jason Stewart
So I got a "Happy Holidays" email just now from Microsoft adCenter, and was immediately struck by the irony of the fact that a Microsoft product prevented me from reading an email from Microsoft. Click on the image below to enlarge, and always remember to make sure your email templates don't rely too heavily on images. I have no incentive to view the images, so emails like this usually wind up in the trash...
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HAHAHAHA! HAHAHAHAHA!! This is great!
Off to Twitter land to tweet this one!
It's not just the delicious irony; you've got entirely valid points about (a) email marketing best practices, (b) the difficulty of reaching people with email, therefore (c) the value of nurturing what you've got, with post-click marketing.
Every existing valid lead is gold. In 2009 that'll be more true than in recent memory. It's sure affecting our plans for the coming year.
Posted by: Dave deBronkart | December 11, 2008 at 05:37 PM
Wow, This is great stuff. Thanks for reminding all of us not to rely too much on images.
Thanks.
Posted by: myhome-myoffice | December 29, 2008 at 09:54 AM
Dumb and funny. The irony is that isn't unique. With a bit of thought, we'd all be able to come up with Microsoft products that don't work with Microsoft. Fortunately, there are fewer now than 10 years ago.
Posted by: Nwest | December 29, 2008 at 10:49 AM
This is so funny and yet sad too. The first thing I tell my clients is that the email needs to be able to stand alone without pictures in case there is a problem with clicking on them. I can't tell you how many of these I get from people who have converted a flyer into a jpeg and sent it out without any other info. This is also true with email signatures. Images are so great but they must only compliment your message! It's the first tip we share with our clients that have us design e-newsletters and send them out for them. I know they appreciate it as soon as they see what can happen if they don't. From Microsoft Country in Kirkland, WA - SB
Posted by: Susan Burnash | December 29, 2008 at 05:55 PM
Hmmm...a great demo of how NOT to construct an email....
Posted by: personalised number plates | December 30, 2008 at 03:54 AM
Come on folks, it's just a Christmas card for goodness sake.
I find most of the comments to this post a little over-the-top.
All the email would have contained is suitable Christmas images (as expected), not important business-related textual information.
If the author couldn't be bothered clicking a bar to download the images he probably would not have really been bothered to reading a little Merry Christmas textual message either. No loss to either party.
This would make a good example of what not to do when sending a usual business email but as it is just a Christmas card it's no big deal.
Sometimes, jumping onto the anti-Microsoft bandwagon indiscriminately just makes YOU look like the one who is being a little silly.
Posted by: Mark Jones | December 31, 2008 at 05:35 AM
This is priceless, defeated by their own technology.
Posted by: Nick Stamoulis | January 05, 2009 at 08:06 AM
A good example of perfect email marketing...HAHAHA
Posted by: Xavier Rodriguez | January 08, 2009 at 09:28 AM