If you make a marketing mistake, don't sweat it and learn from Drizly

When done right, personalization can be a very engaging and powerful tool, when done wrong (by accident!) it can leave your subscribers scratching their heads and wanting more.

Drizly knows this all too well when back in May they accidentally sent out this “personalized” email without any of the actual personalization. No first name, no personalized recommendations, just a whole lot of “Lorem Ipsum” and “xxx”. Ouch.



The Apology

This is the very scenario that keeps email marketers up at night, but instead of sending a canned and formal apology, the Drizly team took the opportunity to show that their brand has a personality and a sense of humor.

Drizly quickly followed up by sending out an apology email, but this wasn’t your standard “oops we made a mistake“ email, this had everything. From the eye catching “lol. wtf was that.” subject line, to poking a little fun at themselves, blaming the dog, and lastly, offering a discount using “LOREMIPSUM” as the code.



The Response

The response to the apology email was overwhelmingly positive, even creating some social media buzz and resulting in this medium article by Jon Torrey, breaking down the email, the apology and the response.

It reminded people of an important lesson — we’re all human and humans make mistakes. If you’re a marketer and something like this happens to you, don’t panic! Look to Drizly as a great example of how to handle it, and if all else fails, blame the dog.



Question for the Community
Has something similar ever happened to you before? If so, what happened and how did you respond to it?