Daily Rant: Daily case studies for marketers entering the workforce!

I wonder if the team at iContact have put a measurement system in place to monitor their results against their desired objectives. This iContact advertisement placed on the Huffington Post today, left me scratching my head.

The Huffington Post is a great site with lots of traffic from C-level and director level managers across North America. What got my attention was the underlying message. For those of you studying communications and marketing, I would like to point out the following issues that I hope iContact will respond to. This will make for a great live case study in online marketing.

1) The message is not authentic. Making an over the top, unsubstantiated claim simply invites cynicism and distrust right out of the gate

2) The message and supporting imagery are commodity components – I could swap in a new brand name from any industry and voila..I have a new add for the best toothpaste, deodorant or anti-virus software.

3) When it comes to selecting tools be it in small or large businesses, a more effective way to generate leads is to conduct multi-channel outreach and engagement to the actual doers – you know, the people responsible for email marketing.

4) Final rant. If this was in fact all about branding, I really can’t see why a C-level exec would click through on this add, let alone remember it the next time one of her staff members recommends they purchase iContact. Can you imagine the response from the executive? “Yes, I approve! I read that iContact is the world’s best email marketing tool!”

If you believe this is how decisions really unfold, please see point #1 again and try, really try to think of another word that starts with B:) Hint…its not Best!

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