A colleague reached out to me today.
We met years ago at a mastermind hosted by Alex Mandossian in Austin.
I'll leave his name out of it for now because he's a friend.
It’s XXX from Alex’s Pathfinder mastermind.
Long time no talk!
It’s been a while, so I thought I would reach out and re-connect if you are ok with that 😊
We catch up a few times a year so I replied and sent him a link to my calendar.
Seconds later this arrives...
Thank you so much for your email. I am in meetings & podcasts most of the day and will be checking my email at 10:30AM and 4PM Eastern time. Thank you for your patience.
I know limiting your email activity to twice a day is a great way to get more done each day.
Receiving this automated reply made me feel like he was using me.
This wasn't a friend reaching out to reconnect.
I felt like I was a pawn in his marketing campaign.
This made me feel like he was going to try to sell me something if we did schedule a call (he is an aggressive marketer but we don't pitch each other because we're friends).
Automation in marketing is essential but there are limits.
Does he really need to send this generic, automated message to everyone who emails him?
Do I expect everyone to immediately reply to emails I send?
No, we reply to emails when we have time.
A good marketing campaign makes you feel like they are talking directly to you and only you.
I'm sure you receive tons of automated, impersonal messages on LinkedIn.
If you reply, you receive another automated message.
Chatbots are powerful marketing tools and have their place in marketing and customer support.
If you do send automated replies, write them in a way that makes the reader think you are personally replying to them.
To be honest, I lost a little respect for my friend today and I will let him know when we speak.