Yeah, we all get some. Normally we trash it pretty quickly. However, today I did something I don’t usually do. I opened it! This subject line caught my eye and I’ll say it, I bit. “Nine Practices for Doubling Your Revenue Every Year.” Who doesn’t want to do that? It was an offer for a free guide from an investment banking company. My expectation was that I’d probably have to click a link and fill out a form to get it. However, here is what I went through.

1. I clicked the link in the email and the URL was wrong. They had an extra “http” in the URL.
2. After I see the problem in the URL, I fix it to get me to the site.
3. I click on the link for the free guide and they immediately put me through a 6 question survey. Now I’m annoyed.
4. After the survey I’m prompted to fill out the form.
5. I finish the form and hit submit, and I’m taken back to the page to click to download, it’s not automatic.

Are you kidding me? That’s a lot of work I went through for a guide from a spam email that had questionably good content!

Moral of the story: Check that your links work before you send the email and don’t put your responders through all of this unnecessary work for them to get your guide. Most people expect to fill out a short form and move on. So let them.

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