First, there was this mail.
Now, that DOES look shady. The email ID is ‘members@jobs2.info’ and I am not a member of whatever-it-is. The display name of that email ID is ‘New Bike’!
Why would anyone want to click on that link? But, I did – just to go with the flow. That ‘friend’ even says, ‘can you believe that I have arranged…’ – nice gesture, no? He, however, does not explain what ‘Rapid Mile’ is or how he became my friend in the first place.
When you click on that link, you get this – just this and nothing else on an entirely new tab/page! The interesting thing is that the banner (in flash) seems to have a hyperlink, but does not. There’s only one hyperlink in that whole page and that is for the second ‘test ride’ call.
The URL of the above page is this: http://ads.irefer.in/stun.htm. When you try just irefer.in, it goes to an even more shady page called ‘Jobs in Top Companies’ that seems to be designed by a child just out of delivery room.
And then, if you still persist and click on that link that offers a test ride, you *finally* get to the actual page that belongs to Honda Stunner. Does Honda really need those 2 incredibly shady looking teasers? The mail is so poorly worded and drafted that I wonder if Honda had any say in it at all. The 2nd page is even worse – what was the reason for it’s existence anyway? Also notice that it was a ‘test drive’ (usually associated with 4 wheelers) in the mail even though the text clearly refers to a bike, while it became a ‘test ride’ in screen 2!
The final link that landed in the Honda website is,
http://www.honda2wheelersindia.com/cbf_stunner_pgm-fi/testride.aspx?source=Tyroo.
Notice I’m not saying anything more than displaying that full link.
I was wondering if this really was an Indian mailer (to see if it is safe to click) and found that they are referring to ‘km/l’ – so Indian indeed. I clicked along only to see which brand this was from. And I was shocked to see Honda at the end of the trail! Why can’t it be a straight exercise that has decent graphics/text and call-to-action that goes directly to the final Honda page? What am I missing here?
I have met quite a few email marketing agencies and most promise numbers, relevance etc. in campaigns. I really wonder how that relevance is decided since I do not own a bike and have no intention of buying one either. My wife did own a Honda scooter, but that was about 5 years ago. And it has been sold, long back. Is it because I’m a current Honda car customer? Sounds like a very poor fit to me, considering Honda’s Indian car models start only around Rs. 6 lakhs+ while 2-wheelers may be a vastly different target group.
Even if you assume that there *will* be irrelevant, spam mails in your mail box everyday that you clean up and dump religiously, why bother with that second screen that has a Honda banner ad and yet another call-to-action for the same test drive/ride? To see if I’m really, really interested? How will the agency show conversions to Honda’s marketing team?
– Person A was interested in a ‘test drive’ (he clicked on the email, but not in the next screen), so bombard him with car promos.
– Person B clicked on both – he’s interested in bikes.
Sounds bizarre.
If I am cribbing about this, let me also write about something that I found impressive. Samsung has been sending me emails for various products – LCD monitors, TVs etc and I notice that they are from Sprinklr (I own a Samsung 19 inch LCD PC monitor, incidentally). Even though I don’t intend to buy anything from those mailers, I appreciate them for the approach – I open the mail and I immediately see a well-designed, eye-catchy promotional mailer. Click it and it takes me to the Samsung page relevant to that product. Unfortunately, even though I have archived those mails for future reference, they don’t load the images anymore – perhaps they have been removed now; so sorry, can’t display them here, in context.