There is a car dealership in town that I occasionally do business with and as a result, I am on their email list.  They send out information on promotions and new “used” inventory that comes in from time to time.  They don’t send out information often and so I haven’t taken the time to opt-out of their list, although I should.

A month or so ago, I received an email from them saying that Mircrosoft was going to pay me (and them) for every friend I could forward this email to.  The request was “Please please please  forward this to everyone on your list.  This time it’s true and they really are going to pay.”  Ok, I can be pretty gullible at times but even I didn’t believe this one.  It seems, however, that about 1/4 of the people on their list were.  Maybe it was because the request came from a business rather than an individual that made it more believable.  I don’t know.

You are probably wondering how I know that roughly 1/4 of the people on their list were convinced to send this email out.  Well, their list showed the email addresses of everyone they sent to and, as a result, I received the same email from about 1/4 of the list.  All of them believing they were going to get paid great sums of money for all their friends.  I guess I was one of their friends.

I knew the car dealership was sending their emails this way when they first started sending them to me but didn’t think too much about it.  I didn’t much care for it but didn’t think that anyone on their list cared about my email address and I certainly didn’t care about theirs.  After receiving all of those emails though, I cared – a lot.

Almost immediately, I sent an email to them letting them know what I thought of how they handled their email addresses and that I did not appreciate being spammed by them.  If they couldn’t learn how to handle email addresses correctly they were to immediately take my name off their list.  While I was surprised by the fact that I did not hear back from them with an apology or something, the next email from them came through an email service provider and did not disclose everyones email address.

The point of this story is simple.  We all need to realize that our lists are very valuable assets.  Our customers have entrusted us with their personal information and it is our responsibility to protect that information as though it were gold.  That means doing everything in our power to make sure their email address doesn’t get out to anyone else.  It also means having enough respect for those on your list not to send junk to them.  We all get enough of that from our real friends, right?

As we have discussed before, your list can be a very powerful asset of your business.  It is advertising that is focused like none other.  Take good care of it.

What are your thoughts on this?

Photo credit:  cindy47452

Ok, I’ve got a new one for you.  Karen often is telling you that you should be developing your web presence and developing a relationship with your customers.  Well, I bet you have yet to hear of Foursquare.com, Gowalla, Britekite or Google’s Latitude.  These are all examples of the new geo-location social media network.  Using the GPS technology in your phone, these applications allow people to share with their friends where they are hanging out.

Some of these are more popular than others and the cream will definitely rise to the top.  But they are really becoming very popular games people are playing.  In a nutshell, you click on the app. on your phone and check in when you reach a new destination.  The application keeps track of how many times you have been here; it lets others know where you are and tells you if there someone you know is near to your location.

The games are all different in how they work, but you can leave a virtual gift at the location that one of your friends can pick up when they visit this same location.  In Gowalla, if you are the first to check in at a new location you will be known as the founder of this location.  With Foursquare, if you are the person that has been to this location more than anyone else, you will be crowned Mayor.

All of this may seem trivial or even a bit silly.  But what if you are a restaurant and were to offer a free beer to any Mayor.  Or send out a tweet on twitter that you will give a free entrée to the founder of your restaurant.  What if you throw a party at your bar this Tuesday, 5-7pm, for all Gowalla fans, have your customer show the server their phone and receive half-priced drafts.

Not only playing with your customers like this is fun and good for business, but because this is a social media platform, everyone that is at your bar is automatically telling all of their friends that they are hanging out with you.  THIS, is a lot of free advertising and it is the best type of advertising; word-of-mouth from friends.

Whether you get involved with Gowalla, Foursquare or any other GPS based application, this demonstrates the power of social media.  If one person says something good about your business on a social media platform they may be telling 100 – 300 others.  If 15 people show up to take advantage of your half price beer, how many are they telling?  Social media advertising has an exponential component that should not be ignored.

If your establishment is using these technologies, let us know.  If you are not, check them out.  And if you need help, send me an email.