I received a lovely email yesterday from a translation provider…
Yum, yum, looks great 🙂
We would like to take a moment and express our gratitude to our clients and friends all over the world.
Thank you for trusting us to translate your important documents, manuals, websites etc.
Thank you for recognizing us as your number one resource for your translation needs.
Thank you for your continued business and confidence.Thanksgiving is an American holiday, but the need to look back and give thanks is universal. Everybody here extends a special thank you to all of you, for making our work so interesting. It has been a pleasure to do business with you.
There was also a lovely photo of a yummy-looking thanksgiving dinner (I added the caption) and contact details (which I’ve omitted to avoid embarrassment/aggravation).
This is a lovely thought, and the sentiments in the email were lovely too. There’s just two minor problems with it…
- I got two copies of it to different email addresses
- I don’t know these people.
So I can’t be customer or friend. So it’s not really a personal thank you, it’s an unusual database marketing attempt. But as a database marketing attempt it is seriously lacking, since it doesn’t even mention what language(s) they do. Yes, I know, I could visit their website and find out, but I can’t be bothered – and neither will most prospects.
I love the sentiments expressed, but I don’t love the deceptive approach, and, I suspect, neither will most prospective clients. You’ll get better results by being straight with people. 🙂
3 Responses to “Unusual email marketing approach for selling translations”
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Grr, one of my pet peeves — unsolicited e-mail from folks I don’t know! My secret weapon: block sender. That way, at least it won’t annoy me again.
Hi Judy,
Welcome. 🙂 I don’t much mind relevant emails – e.g. from translators, LSPs etc.
I don’t like the ones trying to sell me fake Rolex watches, or those offering to extend my private parts (of which I get 150+ per day – thank God for SpamAssassin on my new server). It was the deception in this email which ticked me off. I mean, would you hire a deceitful person? Totally self-defeating.
“It was the deception in this email which ticked me off. I mean, would you hire a deceitful person? Totally self-defeating.”
Exactly. I recently received an e-mail from an agency that said:”Thank you for your resume. At this point, we would like you to send us your diplomas, awards, certifications, etc.”
Since I did not remember sending anything to this agency, I replied by saying that I did not like the tone of the e-mail and the person who sent this e-mail (I forgot her name) in my opinion needed to go back to Charm School. Her boss then replied that they were getting ready for a major project in my language and subject combination and that I did send them a resume 6 years ago. It is true that I did some work for them years ago, and I might have sent them my resume at that point.
I don’t want to deal with people who start communicating with me by sending deceptive mass e-mails. I did send my diploma to another agency that contacted me for the first time shortly after that because they did not try to deceive me. In the long run it makes very good sense to work only for people who don’t lie to you.
Steve Vitek, technical translation since 1987
http://www.patenttranslators.com