Are You For Real?

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There is so much pressure on growing customer contacts that little attention is being paid on the quality of the acquisition. Merchants are desperately trying to maximize eyeball impressions and in the attempt to do so they are collecting as many email, & Twitter id's as possible. While it is a good sign that these businesses are recognizing the value of these digital channels, a lot more can be done to make sure it can have a positive impact.

With Black Friday coming up this week, web merchants are asking for email id's with an offer via email. Interestingly, these $5 & $10 coupons are being collected by the same individual with different email id's. So all of a sudden a list of 100,000 names actual net 40,000 individuals. Of these people, more than half have just signed up for the free coupon - so the merchant may never see them again.

Some merchants have even gone to the extent of taking their 'bounced' email id's and getting prepared to retry them with Black Friday specials.

Twitter is also turning really interesting. Web merchants have set up numerous Twitter accounts are trying their best to follow as many people as possible. The hope is that these people will follow you back and you can serve up the 'deals' from your site to these people. My daughter is in a seventh grade creative writing class; a lot of these kids set up Twitter accounts as a learning exercise - most of these kids got followed by a major multi-channel retailer. I promise you they have no money, and are definitely not going to line up for Black Friday deals.

You risk getting blocked by the ISP's, getting your Twitter accounts shut down, & worse just loosing consumer. Is it really worth it?

(Cartoon courtesy the New Yorker Magazine.)