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Don't Tell Me There's Nothing New

Let me share a current pet peeve with you in the hopes that you can avoid doing the same to your gentle readers (and maybe we can get the Globe & Mail to fix this for me).
I like getting the “Daily Tech Alert”:http://www.theglobeandmail.com/newsletter/ e-mail update that the “Globe and Mail”:http://www.globeandmail.com/ sends out each week day.
Daily Tech Alert
At left you see a bit of a recent issue of the newsletter. Good content. Well laid out.
So what’s the problem? Well, this is the *April 11th edition* of the _daily_ tech alert. Why on earth are they pointing me to articles that are almost a month old?
My guess is the criteria for what to post is something like “give me the four most recent Tech Reviews and place them here.” But obviously they’re posting less than they expected and now we end up the same links _literally_ every day for weeks.
I’m losing interest in the Daily Tech Alert because I keep seeing the same stuff.
Moral of the story – don’t tell me that you don’t have anything new. Either get something new, or don’t send anything.

5 Comments

  1. Cheryl C.
    Cheryl C. April 19, 2006

    Meanwhile, I’ve subscribed to the Daily Tech Alert at least 3 times in the past few months, and still haven’t gotten a single edition! I greatly respect the Globe and Mail and will remain loyal to the paper in spite of this, but I believe the quality of your newsletter program is representative of your organization. These alerts comes from the TECH section of the publication! Get it together, guys!

  2. Ken Schafer - One Degree
    Ken Schafer - One Degree April 19, 2006

    Cheryl,
    This is a classic problem with e-mail. My guess is they ARE sending you the Alerts but it is not making it past our host’s spam filters (particularly if you use a large public service like Hotmail).
    BUT, the brand/customer service issue belongs to the Globe & Mail since YOU blame them not your e-mail provider.
    Another reason I hate marketing via e-mail.

  3. neilio
    neilio April 21, 2006

    I’m but a mere consultant at the Globe (at least for the moment), but I’ll see if I can find out what’s happening and get it fixed.
    One question – did you contact customer support regarding this issue? I can attest that they definitely read every issue that’s sent to them and if it’s actionable it gets forwarded to the proper person.

  4. Ken Schafer - One Degree
    Ken Schafer - One Degree April 21, 2006

    Neilio,
    Thanks for offering to do what I probably should have done and let the Globe know I’d spotted something. But it didn’t even cross my mind to contact customer support.
    And I find that interesting.
    I had a problem, I’m a customer, but I didn’t ask for support. Instead, I was mildly irked for a few weeks and then started telling others that I was irked.
    It seems like there’s a lesson in there somewhere.
    (Oh, and while you’re at it, can you get them to put the time/date-stamp for articles in brackets and periods at the end of summaries? Right now timestamp just flows into the story summary and I sometimes think the date is part of what I’m reading (and I can’t believe I’m unique in that)).
    Here’s an example:
    “Forensic sleuths go deep to expose white-collar crime, OMAR EL AKKAD reports 8:14 AM”
    Thanks!

  5. Stefan Eyram
    Stefan Eyram May 8, 2006

    I have had the same delivery issues with the Marketing Magazine daily email from Rogers Publishing. Not only don’t I get their “daily” email every day, when I do get it they send it as an attached HTML file NOT an email with content.
    Ken is right!. In 2005 20% of all permission email never made it to the intended inbox. Even when using email service providers that number is around 13% (source: Pivotal Veracity).
    Sending an attachment can trigger blocking.
    Most email marketers don’t really know how many emails are getting blocked because they look at deliverability in terms of sent emails less bounced emails. Using tools like those from Pivotal Veracity will allow marketers to test and benchmark, identifying any deliverability issues. This should be done regularly.
    BTW, I just signed up for the Daily Tech Alert. Let’s see what happens.

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