An example of Carphone’s web marketing team at work
SMS Text News has been the target of Carphone’s web marketing team.
Look! This comment was added on the post I did about reader Jim spotting T-Mobile marketeers out showing off USB mobile broadband.
Link: SMS Text News » Archives » T-Mobile UK’s marketing team out selling £20 USB modems
Hi. we’re pleased to announce that we have a range of mobile broadband offers at The Carphone Warehouse. Access the Internet wherever you are by plugging the dongle into the USB port on your laptop.
We have a deal which is only available on our website offering the T-Mobile USB Modem at only £15 per month with speeds up to 2.8Mbps. This deal is exclusive to The Carphone Warehouse and gives you a saving of up to £120!
Please see this page for this and all of our current offers.
Thanks, The Carphone Warehouse Online Team!
I can’t work out if I’m impressed by this, or if it’s a bit … annoying.
Ok let me think.
Alright, I’m half impressed. Kudos to them for embracing the online game and getting stuck in.
But make it personal. Yes this is a commercial blog and, you know what, if you’d emailed me those paragraphs, I’d probably have posted them up as an article. But you need to make it personal. Don’t sign it off as ‘The Carphone Warehouse Online Team’.
Sign it off as ‘Roger’ and then put the company stuff.
“Hello, Roger here, I just wanted to let you know about..” — that would have worked a bit better, I reckon.
Of course, chatting to me — striking up a relationship with me and other mobile related bloggers — would have been much better. If you’d emailed me telling me that SMS Text News readers could save £120 if they got their USB modems from Carphone, I’d definitely have posted that up right away. Adding it as a comment? Meh.
Agreed, Ewan. It should be upfront. Commenting is like the lazy way of trying to get free PR. If they’ve spent enough time reading the blog they should know you’re up for blatant plugs and just get in touch!
Posted by MarkW on December 5th, 2007 at 12:11 pm.What’s that £120 a saving against? T-mobile or 3’s version of the same service?
Posted by John on December 5th, 2007 at 1:33 pm.@John: That must be against the T-Mobile price. 3UK’s 1GB Lite offer would only cost you £120pa - total.
Posted by MarkW on December 5th, 2007 at 2:55 pm.@John — as I understand it, CPW’s offer is £5/month off T-Mobile’s USB modem on a 24-month contract on the Web’n'Walk Plus tariff (which is advertised as slower than Three’s service for the same price and forbids the use of voip).
Posted by HeavyLight on December 5th, 2007 at 3:02 pm.They are all over, man:
http://www.gomonews.com/pushing_the_barrier/2007/12/mobile-broadban.html
Death to spam (and I see this as nothing but spam). Hows about we all go into CPW stores and tie up their time giving our thoughts on CPW hijacking a comment forum to hawk goods.
Bah.
Posted by Mike on December 5th, 2007 at 3:24 pm.So you would want to go in and hijack sales consultants time over an email?? They already earn less than minimum wage, leave them alone and let them try to make a few pounds doing their jobs!!!
what would that prove apart from you have way to much time on your hands?? It isn’t the sales consultants that are sending out the texts and emails, its head office… its about time ppl started to realise, it head office that mess things up and pee ppl off!!
Posted by nickismee on December 6th, 2007 at 1:57 am.…and a few disgruntled store managers ringing the head of CPW web marketing just might do the trick. Forums like this only work because companies don’t abuse them. If even a tiny fraction of firms think it’s ok, then it’s game over. The store staff are the public face of CPW, and are big/ugly enough to handle some well-worded criticism of their company comms policy. After all it is them who stand to benefit commission-wise from spam campaigns.
Zero tolerance!
Posted by mike on December 6th, 2007 at 9:36 am.