Panic stations – recovering from a comms catastrophe
If you’re a subscriber to the Luma newsletter, you might’ve seen I made a bit of a boo-boo in our last edition.
The email had a dodgy bit of code that was supposed to automatically insert the recipient’s name into the body of the email. Imagine the bum-puckering horror of looking at an email that’s gone out to your 1000+ list and there’s a big ugly *|FirstName|* merge tag staring you in the face.
It’s a copywriter’s worst nightmare.
In this week’s article, I thought I’d do a short run-down on how to come back from such a faux pas and how to get creative and make a win out of it. By the end, you’ll be like the artist who purses their lips to turn cries of defeat into beautifully poetic verse.
A Beethoven of blunders.
A Gauguin of gaffs.
A Barry Chuckle of cock-ups.
Stage one – How bad is it?
It’s important to note that some mistakes are bigger than others. Tipping ketchup down your fresh white shirt is one thing, striking up a cigarette next to an open vat of gasoline is another.
Same difference when it comes to marketing and comms. The mistake I made was a relatively small fry. Yes, it required a response but it wasn’t going to trigger a crisis.
When I was cutting my teeth in the world of marketing, an acquaintance worked at an agency where they were tasked with copyediting an advertisement to go out in a newspaper with national distribution. It was a coupon spread that offered two of something for £20. In the final edit that went to print, this was listed as two for £10 instead.
Far from small fry, this was a 2000lb marlin thrashing on the line and threatening to pull the boat under with it.
No matter how creative and apologetic you get, this kind of mistake is beyond the scope of what we’re talking about in this blog. It’s at this stage where PR crisis management comes in.
Stage two – don’t panic!
When you make a little mistake in a newsletter or email or anything else that isn’t easily editable once it’s gone, the first thing you might do is have a little burst of adrenaline. You might even feel a bit silly and worry that people will think you’re a right plonker.
But don’t worry. There’s an easy way to deplonk yourself in the eyes of your audience. Nine times out of ten, it’s a fixable problem and an opportunity to creatively navigate the situation for the better.
Stage three – take ownership, figure out how to respond and make it work
You’re allowed approximately two minutes of blustering. You can even say, “bugger” if you want. But then it’s time to start on the follow-up email.
How you respond is going to depend on a few things.
How straight-laced is your brand personality?
What was the nature of the mistake? Email sent to the wrong list? A personalisation error? Wrong information included?
Who is your target audience?
All of this comes together to create context that you’ll have to somewhat figure out the response to using your best judgement. But you can take my blunder as a case study (and nick the response if you really want to).
Let’s start with my thought process on the whole situation.
My Newsletter-gate
So the newsletter we sent out was about thought leadership and imposter syndrome, and I went with a suitably provocative subject line to get the clicks rolling in:
Subject Line – Luke, you don’t know what you’re talking about
It was a great line that got us a 50% open rate (which, for those of you who aren’t marketers, is a pretty good open rate). The problem came when I used the wrong Mergetag formula in the body of the email:
Hi *|FirstName|*,
You might have opened this email in indignation, thinking, “Who the Jeffing heck do Luma think they are? I’m a thought leader, a paragon of industry, a built environment trailblazer and I know exactly what I’m talking about. I’m going to give those lippy marketers what for…”
Have you spotted the irony yet? The deliberately provocative subject line set us up for a fall and fall we did.
Here’s the email we sent after the digital gaff.
Let’s break it down.
The boring thing to do would have been to send a simple, “oops, sorry about that”. But that won’t help us turn the mistake into an opportunity.
Immediately I knew there was a light-hearted call back to be made where we could poke fun at ourselves. We were sending this an hour or two after the first one so we knew the first email would be fresh in the minds of those who opened it still.
Subject line – Lippy marketers don’t know what they’re talking about
From there, it was about getting the merge tag right in the body of the email and drawing attention to it. This is what I went with
“Hi, Luke (bloody hell I hope that worked this time)”
Then it was about striking the right tone in correcting the error. Luma is a brand with a lot of licence to be creative and to talk with a distinctive non-formal tone of voice. Perfect for approaching the issue light-heartedly. Our audience knows this and doesn’t expect formality from us.
This is what I shot with:
Hi, Luke (bloody hell I hope that worked this time).
You might’ve noticed a glaring error in our last email, which is awkward given we sent a pretty provocative headline into your inbox.
Anyway, it definitely wasn’t a mistake and was some kind of clever meta-level joke. I’m sure you understood and laughed along knowingly.
Just in case you’re not buying it, we’ve had a copywriter taken out back and shot. Think of this email as your introduction to his replacement. He looks and sounds a lot like the old one but doesn’t cock up merge tags in email newsletters.
As you were!
Lastly, I couldn’t resist getting a little call to action in at the bottom that capitalised on the error (I’m a copywriter after all and calls to action are our bread and butter).
Need an agency to help you save face after a fairly public, digital faux pas?
We’ll help you pick yourself up and rescue victory from the jaws of defeat. Contact us today to arrange a free, no-obligation consultation.
This little accoutrement is a good way to make a positive out of a negative. As well as the follow-up email being a good way to demonstrate our creativity (a quality much sought after in marketing), it turned out to be a good opportunity to demonstrate a service we can perform for clients. Namely, navigating comms-based blunders.
The end result was that we got much more engagement from the incident than we would have done otherwise. Lots of replies back and all of them positive.
Gives me an idea for a campaign of an intentional comedy of errors…
Do it your way
I’m perfectly alive to the fact that you might have a few more editorial guidelines and different expectations on what fits with your brand tone of voice. Your clients might expect something a little less profane and a little more serious and that’s ok. You’ve just got to do it your way. That’s a task for you, your marketing team or your marketing agency to figure out.
But whatever route you take, it’s important to keep things in perspective and keep it positive. Mistakes happen and our reaction to them can often bring more opportunities when handled correctly.
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If you’re looking for a marketing agency to help you make the most of your marketing and capitalise on opportunities, give Luma Marketing a call today. We promise if we mess up a mergetag in your newsletter, you’ll be all the better for it.
This blog was originally published on Place North West.