Angels and Demons in Online Marketing

I get my business cards printed by a web-based business and I love them and I hate them.

I love them because they provide a very good service with good quality at a very good price.

I hate them because of their marketing.

Their service is great. A test of any organisation is how well they react when something goes wrong and this is even more important for an online business.

On a recent order I was not happy with the quality. But I was totally happy with the way the problem got fixed. The whole process was very easy – it was easy to find and use the appropriate section on the web-site and the whole thing was effortless. Within a few days I had a replacement batch. No fuss. No bother. Well done!

But their marketing is utterly loathesome. Horrible.

First of all, you can only complete your order when you have fought your way through around 700 pages of other "exciting offers" with "great savings". Aargh! I think you deserve an extra discount for having the patience to click all the way thru to the checkout

And then there's their daily email. Yuk. One unfortunate consequence of being their customer is to have to receive their daily communication of "even more exciting offers".

Zzzzz.

These now go straight into my spam folder and sit neatly alongside the offers of Viagra (cheap), Manliness Enlargement (totaly satisfactory, apparently) and $1 million+ desposits from someone claiming to have a bank in Nigeria. (As an aside – who told these people that I might need this stuff, eh??)

Is this the sort of stuff these marketing people want to be associated with?

Anyway, I cannot believe this sort of marketing works. I continue to buy from these people DESPITE their marketing, and not because of it...