Every once and a while I like to take a look back at my marketing initiatives to see what can be improved or simply get a good laugh. This morning I was going through some of my old files and found a marketing piece that I created over a dozen years ago.
The reason why I laughed out loud was because this particular marketing piece was one of my greatest marketing faux pas. When we created the piece we didn't have a proofing department. As is true with most marketing initiatives, we were rushing to get the piece out the door and into the hands of our prospects and some customers.
Apparently no one bothered to check the phone number on the marketing piece that was imbeded in the call to action on the post card. The number that was printed wasn't to our sales line but rather a call girl service. Hey, don't get me wrong, I'm not one to judge but I can tell you that the boss wasn't happy. Especially since the piece was printed AND sent out.
It's in situations like this that you hope that the response rate is very low :) We had to scramble to "make things right" and it was a costly but valuable lesson. The good news is that people are human and the majority of prospects and customers who received the post cards actually thought is was funny.
The obvious lesson that I learned was, proof your work. It doesn't matter how much of a rush you might be in, visit that printed URL, call that number, re-read the content. The 10 minutes you spend could save you from a major marketing mistake.
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