I received a really original email this morning. Here is is:

Dear Partner,

Greetings of the day to you, although you may be skeptical receiving this
email as we have not met before, I am Mr.Joe Smith and I
work with Post Bank,in Nederlands I have a business proposition involving
the sum of  money  $28,500,000.00 USD in my Bank
which I know it will be of mutual benefit to us, and I believe we can
handle it together, once we have a common understanding
and mutual cooperation in the execution of the modalities.

Respond Via this Email: joesmith@excite.it

Your earliest response to this mail will be highly appreciate.

Best Regards,

Mr. Joe Smith
Phone  +31638860941
Fax: +31847301026
contact us for the best business

—-

    What "Joe" doesn’t understand is that, "know it’s really different this time" marketing doesn’t work. No-it-really-doesn’t.

It was a nice touch to bond with me emotionally by acknowledging my skepticism. But, when the product or service is the same lousy farce as always, "really really really really meaning it this time," won’t do. This is an extreme example of a really really really (OK, I won’t do that again…really) flawed marketing strategy.

Here’s the deal:

The best marketing is anchored in customer needs/wants and your ability to deliver over a sustained period of time. If you can’t do that, you can dress up your message in any way you’d like, but it will be easily exposed by customers for what it is: a farce.

Work on two things:

1) Anchor your product or service (and the message about it) in the customer’s reality

2) Anchor your product in sustainability (unless it’s time to change it)

If you build your marketing message around those two qualities, your customers will follow because they will believe you and they will know you will be around tomorrow. Really! (I had to).