Authenticity > Automation

A few days ago, I received an email from a company that could “help us out”. Among other things, they promised to show us great ways to do telemarketing, email blasts, and ways to automate our connections and messages on LinkedIn.

If you’ve followed this blog much at all, you know that I detest automated LinkedIn messages, and if you consider your email marketing to be “blasts”, then you’re doing it wrong. It was such an awful email that it almost felt like I was being pranked. It reminded me of the episode of the office where Jim intentionally gave Andy awful advice to try to win over Pam:

Of course, this post isn’t really about poorly targeted messages — it’s about finding ways to actually connect with people instead of just automating our days away.

• Don’t “blast” people with emails.
• If you do send out bulk emails, which certainly can be a valid and helpful thing to do, send them from you — not from “noreply”.
• If you have any automations set up, make sure you know what’s happening with them.