New York Times Makes an E-mail Marketing Blunder

New York Times subscribers woke up Wednesday to find an email from the New York Times, asking them to reconsider their cancellation of their subscription to the printed edition. If the did, they can take advantage of a 50% discount for the first four months. The thing is, for more than eight million people, it was a very confusing email. It is either that they did not cancel their subscriptions or they were not subscribers at all. The New York Times itself acknowledged the mistake, saying that the e-mail was meant for only 300 of their subscribers, but it was instead sent to more than 8.6 million people. Lessons you could learn from this: 1. Think before you click. Technology and the tools that make life easier for Internet marketers, can also spell disaster if you are not careful. One click of the submit or send button, and your e-mail messages are sent out to people you did not intend to send it to. You can avoid disaster and the pain by checking and double-checking everything before you click that send button. 2. Know what went wrong. Fast. Adding to the confusion was that even the people at New York Times did not know what went wrong. Some maintained that it was spam, others said that they were hacked. Then the e-mail was theirs but they did not send it, but a third-party company doing the marketing for them. Then they finally admitted it was their mistake. Not knowing what went wrong makes it more difficult for the organization to explain it to their customers. If you are still trying to find out, then tell your customers that. It does not hurt to be honest. 3. Own up. Once you find out what went wrong, however, be sure to own up to your mistakes. Do not cover it up or make excuses for it. It is much more important for your customers to know what you would do to avoid a similar thing from happening in the future rather than who to put the blame on.