This ridiculous email arrived in my inbox this morning from Dropbox – the highly successful digital equivalent of the storage sheds you rent to store your excess junk.

The sender is <no-reply@dropbox.com> – this is a cardinal sin when sending emails for marketing purposes. If you are communicating personally and directly to an individual, then you need to identify yourself and give the recipient an option to reply. It also creates distrust for the sender’s brand.

In email marketing the rule of thumb is simple: The “From Line” gets your email opened, while the “Subject Line” gets your email deleted.

Your recipients ask themselves “do I know the sender?” If they do they look to the Subject Line to see if the message is relevant and worth opening. If the Subject Line is relevant and persuasive, they will open the message. If they don’t know who is sending the message, or if the Subject Line is irrelevant, they delete without a second thought.

The Subject Line from <no-reply@dropbox.com> reads “are you ready to pivot?“. This message is wrong in so many ways.

Firstly, a headline should never ask a question where the answer can be yes/no – because so many of the recipients will answer “no” and delete your message without further thought. If you are going to ask a question, ask a rhetorical question – just as any good salesperson would when selling face-to-face.

Secondly, I’m not a ballerina. Why do I want to pivot? This is one of those buzzwords created by the cyber-hustlers who use a jargoniser to create fake words/meanings to try and position themselves as having some special secret sauce for marketing success.

Here is the Websters Dictionary definition of pivot:

When someone uses the word “pivot” in a business context, what they mean is you should continue to do what businesses have done since the invention of business. Adjust and refine your business according to market conditions. This is not new – it is common sense. Businesses have always created new products/services to grow their businesses, otherwise they don’t stay in business.

There is no need for a jargoniser to create a new word for an existing business practice. Here is an example of an extraordinary business response by a pie purveyor to the current pandemic. He didn’t need a buzzword to act.

But back to the email from <no-reply@dropbox.com>. I opened it to see what to do if I was ready to pivot.

The headline is a glib generalisation about the bleeding obvious: “The best teams know how to work together, does yours?” What business continues in business if its staff don’t cooperate? Why assume my team may not be working together?

Then this gem is offered: “With the right mindset — and the right tools — any team can thrive in this new digital world“

Am not sure how a team has a mindset, but I thought in any world, individuals with the right mindset and right tools would thrive. After all, who would try to thrive with the wrong mindset and wrong tools?

Now I’ve only been working in digital marketing since 1995 (it’s 26 years this year since I ran my first online marketing seminar). At what stage does this “new digital world” stop becoming new?

And why would I believe a digital storage shed could help me? By the way, the response button “Explore Dropbox Plans” is a link to the fees charged by Dropbox to store stuff. There is no “reason why” I should use Dropbox – What’s In It For Me?

Given I am already a customer, there is nothing to explain why I should consider upgrading or changing my contract with Dropbox.

Sadly, these types of emails invade inboxes daily – usually written by a digital or content marketer who has typing skills, not copywriting skills, because hey “everyone can write” right?

In case you’re wondering, there was no signature file in the message, but given the email came from <no-reply@dropbox.com> that’s not really surprising.

Even more frustrating is the fact that email marketing has been around for more than two decades, yet these fundamental errors continue to be made. There really is no excuse for such amateurism, particularly from a successful organisation like Dropbox.

Gotta go now. I have to see my chiropractor after I injured myself practicing my office pivots…

Like many of you in 2020, I attended virtual versions of events originally designed for conference venues. The worst part of this forced process was enduring the events on conference call technology that was not designed for running events online – Zoom, Teams, Skype et al.

I also had to teach university classes using Zoom and Teams – these are definitely not media designed for teaching, let alone learning. Talking to screens with cameras switched off is painfully difficult.

These stop-gap measures were forced upon us due to the pandemic. Companies scrambled to keep scheduled events going (and not lose revenue) by migrating them to conference call technology – known affectionately as a phone call with pictures. It became immediately obvious the video conference technologies were no substitute for the real thing – a conference centre with staging, speakers, catering, exhibitors and delegates you could mingle with face-to-face over a drink.

But if you’re considering a repeat performance for your annual event in 2020, using a phone call with pictures, you’d better rethink your plans. The forced 2020 solution will not cut it in 2021.

Organisations have no excuse to force delegates to attend an online event using conference call technology. They’ve had 12 months to move on from the emergency option and must now invest in professional event platforms designed for engaging your audience, speakers, exhibitors and sponsors.

I’ve trialed a couple of technologies, there are many and varied suppliers. e:volve by Synergy Effect offers all sorts of options for fully online virtual events or hybrid ones simultaneously combining delegates at a venue and with those attending online.

The immediate benefits will make you reconsider what’s possible with online events:

• Unlimited options for virtual stages and backgrounds
• Whatever you can imagine can be created
• Stream speakers live from anywhere in the world
• Integrate face-to-face audience with virtual audience
• Conduct live Q&A between delegates and speakers wherever they are located
• Checkout the demonstration video below

You can even run a live online Awards Event linking presenters and award winners in real time:

I’ve also attended a webinar using the ON24 platform, which is a much better webinar experience than the standard technologies.

So, if you want to do the right thing by your delegates, guests, speakers, sponsors and other stakeholders, invest in a decent online event service. You might just surprise yourself at the results.

And you’ll be pleased to note I didn’t use the jargoniser and mention “the new normal“.

But I have to go now – I have a Zoom meeting to attend…