Sunbunny31

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

Acclaimed Answer

Monday RANT: Marketing is illiterate

Nothing like having to go into some cadences written by marketing and needing to rewrite them because they look like they were written by an illiterate chimp, intending no offense to chimps.

Today’s example featured the four horsemen of the English Apocalypse: Bad grammar, no syntax, missing words (so the entire meaning of a sentence is entirely opposite to the intent) and horrible spelling.

I mean, people can certainly argue with my style. I tend to use too many ellipses and eliminate subjects. That’s here, though, and when I’m informal, not in broad outreach in emails representing our company. I do pride myself in spelling and not using sentences such as “our partnership with x company is so great.”

I’m irritated because it’s not the first time I’ve found completely horrible marketing collateral; it’s not something I want to be doing with my time, yet it’s essential; and worst of all: it makes me feel like a grumpy old crank, and I HATE that.

Damn it.

/rant

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27 comments

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UrAssIsSaaS

Arsonist

8

SaaS Eater

I think the chimps are offended that you compared them to marketing.

Can you just opt your accounts out of future sequences because they are absolute dumpster fires?

Sunbunny31

Politicker

6

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

Sadly, no. This is an executive-sponsored campaign strategy. The best I can do is ensure that the emails don't look like utter crap by making sure I have the privilege of doing marketing's job and leveraging my editing skills.

TBH, I get why they are doing the outreach campaigns. I can get behind the spirit of them. I'm just super salty that I have to get involved on a broader level than correcting typos, which can happen to anyone, but instead have to delve into total rewrites because someone whose job it is to write these up is incapable of doing so.

Related: If I see one more "I seen that the other day" in an email from a theoretically educated marketing person or SDR, I'm going to slap someone for sure.

UrAssIsSaaS

Arsonist

5

SaaS Eater

English is a really hard language

RealPatrickBateman

Politicker

5

🔪Amateur Butcher🔪

We have the same issues, some of the more tenured reps started telling marketing to opt-out all of our clients from marketing comms. Management found out and veto'd our request.

When we brought up the issues why, they said "so what, no one reads these anyway"..... dumbfounded....

UrAssIsSaaS

Arsonist

4

SaaS Eater

Now that's some nice circular logic, good god.

RealPatrickBateman

Politicker

2

🔪Amateur Butcher🔪

These people run our organization....

Sunbunny31

Politicker

5

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

I’d say that’s unbelievable, but I’d be wrong. Wow.

butwhy

Politicker

6

Solutions Engineer

Last time I tried helping Marketing with their Outreach sequence and cleaning up their grammar they told me "Oh, no - we want the misspellings. People like those because it makes it look like it is real instead of automated."

Yeah - I really want to purchase 800k worth of DevOps software from someone who cannot use their/there/they're correctly. Hell, I swipe left on dating profiles that cannot use them correctly. Jeez.

Sunbunny31

Politicker

7

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

WTF, I'm speechless. I recognize it as automated anyway, and just think they're illiterate idiots.

I mean, there was a typo someone had in an earlier post where they were offering a "live demon". That I can get behind as a humanizing (and hilarious) error. But poor grammar? No, you just come across as lazy and sloppy. You've nailed it. As a customer, why spend any amount of money on a company whose first impression might just be some crappy junk email, let alone spend 6 figures?

butwhy

Politicker

3

Solutions Engineer

HAHAHAHA - I would rather have a live demon than a live demo anyway.

> I recognize it as automated anyway, and just think they're illiterate idiots.

Yeah - the fucking unsubscribe link kind of gives it away 🤦🏻‍♀️

Sunbunny31

Politicker

7

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

Sloppy, sloppy all around. To use a phrase, hard pass!

Yeah, I don't remember who posted about the live demon, but that was a classic.

Gyro25

Notorious Answer

5

Account Executive

Lmao. That logic is insane. "Oh no, we want to show that we can't spell because everyone else has difficulty with spelling, right guys?" - Marketing

Fenderbaum

Politicker

1

Retired Choirboy🪕

Hilarious!

FamilyTruckster

Politicker

4

Exec Director, Major Accounts

This is painful. Ask a customer who received it what their thoughts were. Then share with marketing 🥸

Sunbunny31

Politicker

6

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

Fortunately, I got in front of it before it escaped into the wild. If the contacts now have a negative impression, I have only myself to blame. It won't be due to bad grammar, however.

Sunbunny31

Politicker

4

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

Crap. LinkedIn to a Gong rep to see how quickly they'd try and hustle me, purely based on everyone else's impressions. Less than 10 minutes. Complete crap of a message, too. Gong reps are also illiterate.

Mobi85

Politicker

1

Regional Sales Manager

Talk to Text marketing strikes again....I feel like they should get inundated with the emails back to them and see if they are frustrated with the wording.

Sunbunny31

Politicker

5

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

Still - even in that case, proofreading is your friend. Seriously. This isn't an insta post or a text to a friend. This is an outreach sequence to a multi-billion dollar company.

Mobi85

Politicker

2

Regional Sales Manager

@Sunbunny31 agreed 10000% when they don’t understand the ramifications of their bad emails and how it puts us in a poor position they will never see why they need to do better.

Sunbunny31

Politicker

5

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

Well, showing the company's VP of Marketing how he's failing is waaaaay above my pay grade. I did what is in my ability to change, which is to apply edits and at least make sure we don't come off as low-budget undereducated lazy fools. :)

Diablo

Politicker

1

Sr. AE

We hired a Marketer in the past who was doing Sales before and then graduated towards Marketing. Really understood us and implemeted everything that we had as a feedback. But yeah - I cannot debate with Marketing and they have mouth but no ears.

ChrisSellsHisSoul

Fire Starter

1

Owner

If marketing sends a sloppy email to one of your whales, the best thing you can do is bury it immediately with a better email.

I'm friendly with marketing because it allows me to politely tell them not to touch anything I give a shit about.

Sunbunny31

Politicker

6

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

I'm friendly with marketing as well, hence the open invite to edit cadences, and the gushing thanks from my colleague once I'd rewritten them. However, the ABM campaigns are driven from the top and there's no changing the fact that they're going to happen. The best I can do is make sure the emails at least look professional. Then I come here to rant and get my existential angst off my chest so I don't say something mean to a nice person who happens to have that one job she shouldn't.

dwightyouignorantsale

Politicker

1

Account Executive

Marketing sucks. How annoying…

DataSlangah

Politicker

1

SAE

How does the rest of the team feel? Similar, I assume. With diplomacy, I would escalate the complaint. Because if they are sending these to you to send out, what is happening with the emails nobody gets a chance to proofread.

Sunbunny31

Politicker

5

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

I’m currently in a pilot project for ABM into select accounts that executives have decided need additional penetration, so this is coming from above. Since it’s fairly limited currently, and we are a small team of AEs, I just sent quick messages to the rest to let them know to carefully read the outbound emails. Fortunately we all at least have the ability to edit and update them, so there is something positive.

Sniper

Valued Contributor

1

Enterprise Account Executive

Marketing is Helen Keller

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