A web marketing company (that shall remain nameless, for now) sent me a direct mail piece a couple weeks ago. It was quite clever – a see-through envelope with an image of my Web site home page showing through. More than enough to get me to open the envelope.
Inside, I read the company’s pitch with what was clearly a custom URL for me to check out more information. Mostly out of curiosity to see what they would have in store, I visited the URL. Was there for a few seconds, and left. Clever, creative direct mail piece, but I’m not in the market. Recycle bin, back to work.
Over the past two weeks, I’ve received no less than 14 voicemails from the company.
“Hey, we sent you the clear envelope and noticed you checked out the site. Would love to tell you more about what we do.”
I don’t mind the follow-up. In fact, I expected it with a personalized URL strategy. But 14 voicemails in 10 business days (yes, they’ve left multiple voicemails in one day on more than one occasion) is a clear & fast way to get me to never do business with you ever.
Let alone return your call.
I’m tempted to find the head of sales for this company on LinkedIn, call them and confidentially point out that this blog post is about them, and try to learn more about their strategy, process and conversion rates.
My fear is that this is a case of a company doing whatever it takes to hit their numbers, the proverbial blind squirrel that finds enough nuts to fill quota, but at the expense of any additional, long-term lead conversion yield plus rapidly deteriorating reputation and brand value.
Not to mention the fact that, any culture allowing this kind of sales strategy has more in store for their converted customers.
