A DEFCON Guide to Responding to Email Marketing Mistakes

Posted by Chad S. White on June 26, 2014

DEFCON Considering how fast-moving, high-volume, and high-reach the email channel is, mistakes should kind of be expected. While I hope your luck holds out, it’s best to have disaster planning in place—just in case—so you can react quickly in the event of an error.

It’s best to start by defining possible mistakes and then laying out the appropriate response, recognizing that every mistake doesn’t warrant a response—and that sending an apology email is just one of many possible responses.

I’ve matched up a variety of email misfortunes with defense readiness condition (DEFCON) alert states to kick start your disaster planning:

DEFCON 5: Shake It Off
DEFCON 4: Triage on the Backend
DEFCON 3: Targeted Resend
DEFCON 2: Email Apology
DEFCON 1: Full-Spectrum Apology

For all the details on how to best react to certain kinds of mistakes…