Golden Leads

Well my friend Tamara Gielen from b2bemailmarketing.com had a post this last week that I want to take the bad cop stance on.

She writes:

Stop Looking to the Big Boys for Creative Ideas
In this blog post, Janine Popick urges all of us NOT to look at the email campaigns of the “big boys” of retailing as a source of creative ideas because they don’t necessarily have it down when it comes to email marketing best practices.

I think it should be the other way. Now not that the whole large offline agency/large brands do it right and really don’t get how The Email Wars impact creative in the inbox, but more along the lines of “Do It Better than You Are Doing It Now”. I get so tired of seeing campaigns on both sides of the line. Small brands that are sending out crap (sorry to be so honest) and large brands or agencies that are over producing emails that don’t understand why emails should not just be images (one image in some cases) as they are not going to render. Can’t we aim to deliver compelling and outstanding creative WHILE as the same time doing it right and delivering a professional campaign?

I think we can. I think that the little guys have a better shot of aiming UP instead of the Big Boys aiming down. Take the creative cue from the BIG Boys and run like a small company with the flexibility and knowledge to just do it right.

Janine has it right on her blog with the examples of what happens when you don’t think like an email marketer and just a “marketer”.

Hope I don’t come off like an email snob, but just someone that wants to see everyone succeed. Now time to climb down off my soapbox. Hence the image of the terrorist throwing the flowers. (love the graffiti artist Banksy if you don’t know him)

Thanks to The Email Wars for this great article.