This landed in my email inbox yesterday. You know that we're living in a digital world when a local car wash engages in an email marketing campaign to promote their services and draw customers.
At first, I laughed and thought: 'What is this world coming to?' Then, I thought: 'Brilliant!'
I don't know who these Beacon Bay Auto Wash guys are, but I give them props. They've enhanced their marketing efforts by reducing their costs (no printing of flyers, greatly reduced mailing costs vs. snail mail) and improved their ability to track their promotion's results, which will enable them to better target their efforts in the future (assuming that they do the back-end tracking).
Okay, it's not perfect -- this chain is in Orange County, south of Los Angeles; I live in Marin County north of San Francisco. Oops. But, that's the beauty of a campaign like this -- if it's set up properly (I'll give them the benefit of the doubt), I won't respond, my name will get chopped from their list and they'll move on to focus on better quality prospects. I probably cost them somewhere in the neighborhood of $0.001. Even a car wash service can afford that!
With all the tools out there today, conducting an email campaign like this is a snap (no shameless plugs for one service over another...you choose the one you like). So, don't be surprised if you start seeing more of these coming to an inbox near you soon. And, therein lies the biggest problem...do any of us want MORE emails?!
Sigh...Progress has its downside.