Now I’ve done it.
I was notified after my last Journey email that Mindaugus from Lithuania doesn’t want to hear from me anymore.
Was it something I said?
I’m working through it
Mindaugus downloaded my 25-page ebook, “Steal These Ideas: 10 Proven Lead Generators for Medical Device Companies” on March 24, 2015.
We never spoke. Drip says Mindaugus hasn’t opened anything I’ve sent since May 2015.
At a rate of a penny a month, I invested 32 cents in our relationship, the ingrate.
It was a sad day. But it’s unlikely Mindaugus and I ever would have engaged in meaningful commerce.
So, goodbye, Mindaugus.
And for the rest of you, I’ll just have to be brilliant without him.
Hundreds of Mindaguses (Mindagui?)
Maybe I just have a thick skin now. You see, hundreds of Mindaugus-like people have abandoned me since I started this Journey with you.
215 to be exact. That’s two hundred and fifteen people who actively said, “Joe, I don’t want to hear from you anymore.”
But what about the 1,600 subscribers who haven’t opened any of the past four Journey’s they’ve received? Of these, 1,013 have generic email addresses (gmail, yahoo, even aol).
They’ve ignored me completely. Wasn’t even worth the unsubscribe. And I know they received the emails, Drip told me so.
What to do about them?
There comes a time when you’re losing a fight that it just doesn’t make sense to keep on fighting. It’s not that you’re being a quitter, it’s just that you’ve got the sense to know when enough is enough. – Christopher Paul Curtis
It’s time to let them go.
What’s that, you say?
But about the small chance one of them is a future customer? I mean, if even one out of 1,600 of them become a customer, won’t it have been worth it to keep them on the list?
No.
If any of those 1,600 need someone who specializes in medical device marketing, then (a) they may remember me anyhow or (b) they may google the term “medical device marketing,” in which case my site will come up on page one.
In the meanwhile, let me do the right thing and relieve them of my unwanted communications.
One final goodbye
By this time next week, I likely will have unsubscribed 1,500+ of these records. Maybe the other 100 will specifically opt-in again.
Basically, click on “this button” to stay subscribed.
I’ll wait five days.
Then they go the way of the Mindagui.
Drip has a pruning feature, a rule-based way to let future Mindagui decide their email fates. I just haven’t gotten to it yet.
And speaking of prunes…
I was going to tell you about two readers who wrote nasty unsubscribe emails to me this week. Nasty #1 wrote, “Your persistence is truly unprofessional and obnoxious.” Um, you could have hit ‘unsubscribe’ at any time. Nasty #2 wrote, “I just signed up for a CAPA webinar. Please stop inundating me with emails.” You got it, Pal. (There’s actually a way to “blackball” someone in Drip so if they resubscribe at some point, they still won’t get emailed. You create a rule that excludes specific email addresses.)
Anyhow, I was going to tell you those stories but I’d rather tell you why “prunes” have a special meaning in the Hage household.
Both parents worked when I was little. My sister Carolyn and I had to go to the library every, single, day (yes, it was terrible) until my elder sister Mary Ann got home from high school to let us in the house.
Anyhow, Mom’s idea of a sandwich was American cheese and sliced banana (not terrible, try it) and leftover lamb with mint jelly (I love it, actually).
Mom’s idea of a snack was, well, I really don’t remember, except on one occasion it was a baggie of prunes.
Now imagine this eight-year-old third grader sitting in the library, taking out a sandwich bag of prunes and eating them.
Bill Hoblin didn’t have to imagine it. He saw it with his own eyes.
Bill was in Carolyn’s grade. He saw me eating the prunes and his eyes widened. So I went up to him.
(I am actually laughing out loud as I type this.)
And I said, “Do you want a prune?”
And so, “Do you want a prune” is a legendary Hage catchphrase.
Postscript: Bill and I later became friends as Xaverian High School alumni and I told him the story. He remembered it too, but for a different reason.
He said, “I just couldn’t believe you were sitting there eating.” Not eating prunes, just eating, because you weren’t supposed to eat anything in the library.
I don’t have anything to top this, so let’s get to this week’s Fast Round.
Fast Round
- I created a Calendly account (free) this week and encouraged Jenn at ImaCor to do the same. We sent out an email on her behalf that included a “schedule a call” call-to-action button and three people did!
- I accepted a LinkedIn connection from medical device copywriter Hazel Booth today. Didn’t know her among the 549 LinkedIn network invitations I haven’t gotten to yet. Haven’t read a word she’s written. But Drip told me she is the ONLY subscriber to The Journey with a lead score greater than 50 and who visited at least eight pages on my website on at least two occasions. Wouldn’t YOU want to know something like that about your site visitors? (I can’t believe no one’s taken a free Drip trial yet.) I can’t be more emphatic here, folks. Anyway, Hazel, let’s talk! Use my Calendly to set up a meeting!
- I discovered BombBomb tonight while researching today’s Journey. It kind of lets you record and send a video through Outlook. I say “kind of” because the video is a link to the video. (No email provider lets you send a playable video.) Email me if you’d like me to send you the test video I just made in my pajamas.
Thank you for joining me on The Journey.
See you next week – or sooner – if you choose to reply to this email,
