When Email Marketing Turns to Stalking, A Personal Story

Read on to see our personal story of how email marketing turned to stalking.

The last several weeks, I’ve had a rather odd experience play out in my inbox and my voicemail with a to-remain-nameless company that would like to partner with me. In essence, they’d like for me, as a content marketing agency, to use their product in order to drive more business opportunities, better report results to my clients, and develop more sustainable income.

It all sounds good. And I would have been open to a conversation about the partnership…until the weirdness started.

Here was the first email I received:

Relatively harmless, but I wasn’t able to respond right away. First of all, it came through on a Sunday, and I have no interest in checking work emails on the weekend. Secondly, I had a major client event happening at the end of that month, which needed my complete attention.

But this person had no interest in waiting patiently for a response. Instead, I got this email one week later:

Then two days after that, I got the email below, followed immediately by a message on my voice mail:

It had all become rather comical to me. I initially had no time to reply, but then I had no interest in replying. At some point, I wanted to see where it would go. Would this person pick up on the silence I was sending or just keep pounding?

It was the latter. Three days after the last email and call, I got this odd email:

Is everything ok? Ha, I might expect such an email from my mom if I’d been quiet this long, or even a colleague who I’d previously met or spoken with at least once. But this was someone who’d simply found my name appear on his/her business development call sheet. We weren’t friends or colleagues. We were complete strangers.

The next day, I got another voice message (there was no way I was going to answer the phone for this person.) And the day after that, I got this email…

…prepare yourself…

…

……

I’m sorry, what? Did that e-mail really just happen? There’s so much wrong with this email that I’m not even sure where to start. Somehow I didn’t succumb to the puppy’s panting face and maintained my personal vow of silence. This person did not reciprocate.

Two days later, one final email (final for now, at least) dropped in my inbox, followed by one final voicemail (final for now, at least):

I haven’t been asked to check a “Yes or No” box since I was on the playground in elementary school.

I get that this all could have been avoided if I’d simply responded to the first, second, or third email. I know that I could have told this person that I was presently busy, but open to a conversation in the near future.

But in my defense, it all escalated so swiftly that, before I knew it, I’d gone from busy-but-interested to slightly-interested-but-mostly-cautious to we’re-done-here. And at this point, I don’t believe it’s reparable with this particular contact.

Don’t do the same with your content marketing. Instead…

Give people a chance to respond to you, especially when you’re reaching out to them cold—as was the case here. It’s like dating. You never call the person you just met that same night. (See the movie “Swingers.”) Give it time. Make first contact, and then be ok with waiting. Proceed on their schedule and not on yours.

It’s tempting to schedule email campaigns and walk away. But we need to follow the signs our contacts are giving—especially with these one-to-one emails. If someone’s showing no interest, don’t just proceed as normal. Be nimble and always ready to deviate your messaging from the original plan. Pay attention, pick up what your contacts are putting down, and respond appropriately.

Speaking of appropriate behavior…stay true to yourself in your email marketing, but don’t make assumptions about your audience. This person may very well be hilarious…maybe even as hilarious as I am. (See, a joke.) But he/she assumed that I’d pick up on that fact via email and therefore forgive the weirdness in emails. I didn’t. In fact, I ended up getting even more turned off. If you don’t know the personality of your contact, tread a more cautious road. As your relationship grows and you discover more traits about your contact, then you can write your email marketing with a more colorful, more relevant tone.

Incidentally, I do plan to reply to this person…unless he/she contacts me again.