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Read This or We'll Dock your MozPoints!
I don't know about you, but when I got SeoMoz's newsletter with that title today in my junk box I immediately unsubscribed.
1. I don't even remember subscribing.
2. Docking me Points that I don't even care about in the first place really annoyed me.
Threats in newsletters just seem ridiculous. It's not like I have a hate on for newsletters either. I know that Sphinn has sent me a billion the last while promoting this conference and that conference which I never signed up for either, but at least they aren't being annoying with their titles.
Does being threatened annoy you too?
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Could you post the message? I personally love SeoMoz, and it seems VERY out of character for them to do this.
Note: This is pretty long, but eh you asked for it :) The following is the newsletter that came with the title I used for the submission, "Read this or We'll Dock your MozPoints!"
Greetings Gamermk,
Welcome to the February edition of SEOmoz News & Updates! In this issue, we'll cover some new developments, hot blog posts, and special offers you won't want to pass up.
* What's New at SEOmoz
* Hot Blog Posts you shouldn't miss
* Special Offers!
What's New at SEOmoz
We've been working like crazy on tons of new stuff, unfortunately I can't unveil it just yet. Let's just say that you can expect a BIG update to come in sync with SMX West in two weeks. What'll it involve? Well, SEOmoz Premium is taking on a whole new look and adding better functionality as well as some incredible new features, and that's just one part of what we'll be announcing!
If you'll be at SMX West, be sure to stop by our booth and enter the huge contest we'll be running (Hint: check out your name badge!). There'll be tons of awesome prizes to win and you can pick up one of our awesome, limited-edition SEOmoz t-shirts (seriously, they're pretty sweet). Gillian and I will also be at Affiliate Summit (hint, hint) for a couple of days before SMX. If you'll be at that event, be sure to say hi, we love meeting our members!
If you haven't yet registered for SMX West, go down to the Special Offers in this email for details on how you can get a hefty discount!
Hot Blog Posts
There have been some awesome posts this last month, so in case you've missed any of 'em, allow me to suggest the following reading:
* Rand gives in-depth reviews of 14 Popular Browser Toolbars to help you decide which ones you can and can't live without.
* Jane provides a look at a real-world example of piss-poor SEO in action with her post, But Will it Google? (The comments are definitely worth a look on this one.)
* We get the question all the time, so Rand provides an answer about Choosing the Right CMS Platform for your Website.
* There's been a tidal wave of criticism lately about a site called Ripoff Report and the special treatment they appear to receive from Google, Rand covers Chris Bennet's Post about the topic, which led to a few more interesting discoveries.
* Finally, with all the talk about the possible (though now rejected) Microsoft/Yahoo! Deal, we decided to just Round Up some of the best commentary from around the web.
Special Offers!
* SMX West – As mentioned above, we have a special 20% Off discount on SMX West conference passes for SEOmoz Premium Members. With the current prices, that means you'll save $279 on a full-conference pass! Do the math and it's definitely worth signing up for Premium. If you've already registered, don't worry, we're going to have special SMX West-only discounts on Premium to celebrate our unveiling of all the new features.
* New Discounts – The Premium Discount Store continues to grow. We've now got 20 top notch merchants of products and services related to all aspects of internet marketing offering our Premium Members exclusive discounts. These new companies join existing offers from companies such as Superb Hosting, keyCompete, Acquisio, MailChimp and Sure Hits:
+ 3D Live Stats is offering SEOmoz Premium Members 20% off of their One Year Managed Solution.
+ Website Magazine is offering SEOmoz Premium Members a FREE 1-Year Subscription.
+ Mongoose Metrics is offering SEOmoz Premium Members a FREE $125 Account Credit.
That's all for now. As always, thank you so much for being a part of the SEOmoz community, we truly appreciate it. Hopefully we'll be seeing you at an upcoming conference, or at least participating on the blog.
Cheers,
--
Scott Willoughby
Four Star Newsletter General, SEOmoz
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I received the same email - and most of it was all about posts I'd already read via my RSS feed so I've unsubscribed also.
Not sure there's any "added value" with this "one more thing to read" coming to my inbox. No offense to SEOMoz, I enjoy their posts and insight a lot - just thought it was a bit redundant.
Ya I'm an RSS subscriber too so don't take this as a "I hate SEOmoz" discussion. I'm just annoyed they'd try to increase their CCR by threatening their readership. In general, I just was interested whether this kind of thing annoyed other people or if I was just being overly anal.
Is this just something they send to "premium" members? I have a cheapskate account over there, and I haven't received any newsletters.
I got it too (Premium Member) but don't recall that title. Hoping to get a t-shirt, size XL. :P
I'm not a premium member but apparently a box about sending an html email or something was checked when i set up my profile - which is "unchecked" now.
ps - i dont even pay enough attention to know what "MozPoints" "do" or "are for" :)
i got the email. i thought it was funny.
i would think if you know seomoz and scott, the "Four Star Newsletter General", that you'd understand that they were 'attempting' to be humorous and not 'threatening' as you say. a lot of the die-hard mozzers over there are all about the mozpoints so this probably got their attention.
i guess if i wasn't familiar with their style this may be a turn off, but i also think you may be being a bit too anal.
Ya I'm on a cheapskate account and you are probably right that I'm just being silly. I know it was an attempt at humour, I just found it an annoyance to say to me... do this or else. (even though I honestly could care less about points) It's like those Newsletters that when you unsubscribe they say, "If you do this, you'll never, ever be allowed back in!"
In a newsletter relationship, I feel that I'm the one with the power and they are the ones that have to earn my respect, not vice versa. This title indicated they thought otherwise.
Likely the reason others haven't got this is because they either go to the site more than me (I haven't in a while) or they are doing A/B testing on their newsletter title.
I received the Newsletter as well & was surprised by the title. I just figured it was just supposed to be funny.
Yep - I think Jane and Rebecca thought it would be a funny title. There's obviously no actual mozpoint docking. And yes - Scott's doing some A/B testing on the newsletter. Sorry you didn't like the title or content! We're going to keep working on it. The subscription is managed through the SEOmoz user admin page, and right now I think there's about 4-5,000 out of our 65,000 members who've subscribed.
The newsletter title was meant to be facetious. This is an extremely sensationalist Sphinn.
It's not sensationalist at all, it's actually how I felt and I did actually unsubscribe b/c of it. You can say all you want that I'm a pill and need to get a sense of humour or something, but the reality is what I'm saying is in no way over-dramatized from my actual reaction.
More to the point too, I made the topic to discuss the technique used. (ie. Threatening people even in a joking way in newsletter headings) This technqiue did annoy me and I wanted to know if other people had a similar reaction.
Rather than question my emotional response, shouldn't you be questioning the technique used?
I feel compeled to address tom's desphinn.
"If you don't like it unsubscribe. This is the moz way - if you don't like them stop reading. Take it or leave it but don't whinge about something just to try and get exposure"
As I said, I did unsubscribe and let's be honest, if I was in it for exposure wouldn't I have wrote about it on my site and linked to the article rather than started a discussion about it? Keep in mind all I've said is this technique annoyed me and used literally an identical title to that of the newsletter sent out.
Having read the comments you seem to have backtracked a fair amount. Do I think you over-reacted? Yes. Do I think it's worthy of discussion? Possibly.
What I really take issue with is the nature in which you presented the argument - you didn't say "I don't like this headline, I think it's too aggressive. What do you guys think? By the way this actually made me unsubscribe" what you essentially said was "I don't like this headline it's aggressive and I unsubscribed. What the hell are seomoz doing sending me emails anyway? Sphinn send me emails all the time and I'm happy with it. Just not from seomoz"
Basically - I think you were too aggressive in your tone when presenting your argument and too personal in your attack. Therefore I desphinned and left my comment. If you had gone about it in a more pleasent manner I probably wouldn't of desphinned but instead just left a comment saying "no, I don't think it's too aggressive - clearly a joke"
[also - I already tried to comment once but didn't seem to have worked? If that shows up later than it'll read all strange so please ignore]
One more point of apology - Scott and I looked at the email list and there was an error in sending so many folks who are simply subscribed to receive normal SEOmoz emails (not the newsletter specifically) received this one. That was completely our fault and we'll be very careful to make sure it doesn't happen again. My apologies!
BTW - Gamermk - you don't need to defend your dislike of the email title. I think personal preferences and opinions make for great feedback for us at SEOmoz, and we'll definitely reconsider before sending out a tongue-in-cheek title like that again.
I don't doubt that you unsubscribed--what I take issue with is you alleging that we're threatening our members. I don't question the technique used because we tested a few different email titles to see which ones performed well. Clearly the "Read This or We'll Dock Your Mozpoints!" one got a lot of clicks, but if it also garnered negative reactions then I guess we just don't use that one, plain and simple. No big deal, it's called testing.
Rebecca, I think an apology is in order. Rand apologized to all his readers and members. He's the SEOMoz leader.
Gamermk is one of your readers. Value the feedback and learn from your mistakes. You have lots of friends. No one's going to hold one mistake against you -- especially if you're upfront and admit you were wrong.
Personally I thought the headline was funny (although I didn't receive it). Not everyone's going to share your sense of humor, as I've often found myself. No worries, no big deal.
Apologize?
Good Lord.
We all need to get out more. You apologize for hurting someone. For doing wrong. For making a real negative impact. APOLOGIZE?
We have spent too much time in front of these computers. Apologize?!
An emailed newsletter? What on earth is wrong with you, SEOs? Spend some time in the real world, for the love of God.
An emailed newsletter.
Who the hell requires an apology for an emailed newsletter.
How about this: Rebecca should apologize, or we'll dock her sphinns -- Negative votes on comments, desphinns on posts, whatever it takes.
That'll learn ya.
I have to agree with amusedbystander. It seems like apologies are becoming common currency. It was a joke people. You din't like it? Shame. It gave you a negative impression of the moz? Shame.
Let's have a bit of perspective people.
I think you should all apologize to me for making me read these inane comments. Wow what a waste of time! ;)
LOL, amusedbystander hit the nail on the head for me.
SEOmoz weren't spamming, they simply emailed out to their mailing list that some of their members weren't aware they were part of. The title was chosen by SEOmoz staff and they're within their rights to send you whatever they like as long as it's legal and you get the option to unsubscribe. There's nothing to apologise for, some people just didn't get the joke. If I had to apologise every time someone didn't get one of my jokes, I'd have to hire a team of assistants.
Saying that, this is a perfectly valid discussion topic and Gamermk highlights a good question about how far marketers should go with sensationlist virals and copy. Would this type of email result in a call to action or an unsubscribe? How effective is this approach when marketing to marketers?
"If I had to apologise every time someone didn't get one of my jokes, I'd have to hire a team of assistants."
Well that made me laugh anyway ;)
Wow this thread blew up overnight. I never asked for an apology nor do I expect one or want one. As I said, I never actually subscribed to the newsletter in the first place which was part of my annoyance and I don't feel like I've back peddled. I said I was annoyed. I didn't say I hated them or despised them. I didn't even say it offended me. It was annoying.
I got a newsletter with a silly headline that annoyed me for a newsletter that I never subscribed to and so I wanted to discuss it. I'm a little disappointed that people haven't tried to address the actual topic more and instead have address my own tone. That being said, it's been a pretty cool thing to see evolve as a lot of people have gotten more emotional over the whole thing than I did. I never wrote this to get an acclaimation nor to make SEOmoz look bad, it was just how I felt.
I gotta say Rand earned some pretty serious respect points with me not getting swept up in the whole emotional wave.
I didn't like the headline, but I didn't lose any sleep over it.
I think that the lesson here to be learned in an important copywriting principle: The headline is a "promise" and every single line of copy has to support that promise. If you try to catch attention with a headline that isn't "true" it will almost always backfire.
If you write a headline: "How to Get Rich Overnight" and then you go into a pitch for an acne cure (because, you reason, it's a catchy headline and it's going to get you rich) - people are going to get mad. They click on it, find it was an attention getting ploy, and then they feel "burned."
I have given people some grief on here when they wrote headlines like "How To Get Ahead on Digg" and the post was about an upcoming talk or a blogspam plug for their article that dind't contain a lot of Digg advice - because clicking on it caused that feeing of disapointment.
As an SEOmozzer who got aforementioned email I have to admit I opened it wondering exactly what they were threatening. Nowhere in the body of the email did they specify anything about the mozz-points issue mentioned in the title.
I'm not a huge fan of that subject I must admit. I think it is a valid point for discussion from the copywriting position - looking at open rates and user satisfaction with the email content.
As BrettFromTibet correctly says, the subject is the headline and the copy does need to reflect the headline.
I think it is understandable that the post was made the way it was. All of us have probably made a post in the heat of the moment we regretted later somewhere online. I can think of several :)
On a purely personal note, I felt a bit weird being threatened by a company I thought I knew and respected. It was a bit wonky. But then I realised it was likely done to push up open rates so understood.
Couldn't believe someone who take time to write that. Desphinned for inaccurate.