I admit it, I am a spammer. Every two weeks I send out an email blast that hits a huge swath of the Dell EMC technical sellers. While I recognize that it is a necessary evil – we have tons of new sales enablement content that will help them sell VxRail and VxRack SDDC – I used to hate myself for doing it. Me and my team would spend a couple hours every fortnight slapping together a dry set of synopses and links and I’d send it out late on a Friday afternoon. That way, it would hit people’s mailboxes when they were worn down from the week and might not notice it.
Then came Halloween – my favorite holiday – and in sheer desperation to get it out by week’s end, we took some creative liberties with the mail and sent out an over the top themed email. (Note to self: Calliope is best worshiped with bourbon). I was blown away by the responses – the most common and most rewarding were variants of “I usually delete these emails, but this one made me read the whole thing, word for word.”
That was the “eureka” moment – we had fun writing it, it didn’t seem like work and people enjoyed reading it. We had made spam people wanted to eat! And the data backs it up, I get consistent open rates over 40% and as high as 60%. I adjust days and times and themes trying to find the secret sauce, but to no avail yet. Since Halloween we have done several great themes. New Year’s resolutions, the Super Bowl and this week was Ground Hog Day. Next up is Valentines Day and I am particularly excited for International Haiku Day as well as Talk Like a Pirate Day later this year!
Techno Tchotchke 