Sorry, Wrong Number

How is a lovesick penitent like a bad social marketing campaign? Let me count the ways.

Today I received the following text message on my phone:

this cant be the end. An like i said it wuz a mistake (the message) an i apoligize…dats wat i want u 2 understand…i luv u 2 much 2 do that 2 u.

Talk about a wrong number! I picture the sender heartbroken, desperately trying to win his lady back, hoping she’ll change her mind, frantically texting … and sending it to the wrong person. While being moved by the raw human drama embedded in this message, we can also callously extract some social marketing lessons (ah, is there anything in life we cannot somehow tie into this blog’s content? not so far!).

Some thoughts:

• Don’t make the message all about you and what you want. Show the people you are talking to why it’s in their best interest to do what you are asking them to do. (e.g., “If u give me another chance, I’ll treat u like a queen.”)

• Be very careful to make sure your messages are reaching your audience. If you talk in the forest and nobody is there to hear it, do you make a sound?

• If you send out messages that end up backfiring, you may not get another chance to make it right. (I’m intensely curious what the initial offending message was — a message meant for someone else but sent to her? Something he didn’t realize she would be so touchy about? And somehow I’ve decided that it must have been a man sending this, tell me if you think I’m wrong.)

• The most important things in the world to us and our programs — critical, life-changing issues — may be completely irrelevant or unactionable to other people. Don’t assume that what’s top of your agenda means anything to anyone else.

• Use multiple methods of reaching your audience rather than putting all your eggs in one basket. I sure hope this guy tries to reach his lady love by phone or in person too, rather than relying on this one text message to convey his request for forgiveness.

Let’s hope our errant Romeo reads my blog or at least figures out some of these lessons for himself. It sounds like he’s going to need to market himself quickly to his audience of one or be back out in the meet market again.

Photo Credit: Macgidtosh