Posted on: October 28th, 2009 by Reuben Turner

Last week I received an emergency appeal from a major international aid charity asking for my help in dealing with the crisis in Indonesia. Like all fundraising asks, there was an element of trust – they were asking me to entrust them with £20, £50 or £100 which they would spend, as effectively as possible, in saving lives.

Which was fine.

Except that they’d spelt ‘Indonesia’ wrong.

This week a major, and I mean major, conservation charity sent me an email following up a campaigning action, addressed to ‘Dear Forename’.

Three weeks ago I received another email from a major charity (would it matter less if it was a minor one?) for which the subject line was ‘SUBJECT LINE GOES HERE’.

This kind of thing doesn’t happen in direct mail. Or at least, it happens a lot less regularly. Because there’s time to get it right. There’s an approval process. There’s care.

Email is horrible because it’s too easy. It’s too cheap. It’s too immediate. See an opportunity? A problem? An emergency? Jump on it. Send an email. There’s no lengthy approval process to go through. No PDFs circulated. No wet proofs. No signoffs. You know the Chief Exec will receive it and see that Something Is Being Done. Which makes it all too easy to get it wrong. In front of hundreds of thousands of loyal and committed supporters.

The email addressing me as ‘Dear Forename’ was followed up within a couple of hours with a profuse apology. Brilliantly fast piece of stewardship. Of course, it was the speed of the medium that had caused the problem in the first place.

Why am I getting so worked up about email? Because I love it so much. Like direct mail it’s capable of almost infinite personalisation. Like direct mail it can tell great stories and be a vehicle for powerful writing. It should be an emotional, sensory, credible, responsive medium. It should make you think, act. Cry, even. Why not? It should stop you cold at your keyboard.

Right now email is horrible. But the real scandal is, it should be beautiful.

One Response to “Why email is horrible.”

1. Kimberley says:

   November 5, 2009 at 12:04 pm

   The problem can also happen in print if there is constraints of budget which tend to equate to constraints of time. The problem, in my experience, is that with a low budget corners are cut and there is just no time for the organisation to check these things. Gone are the days when there were proofreaders, alas.