I recently received a text on my phone from Beacon Plumbing that read:

“VALUED CUSTOMERS: Beacon Plumbing has gone mobile. To receive future discounts via text reply BEACON to opt in. 2endtxtSTOP”

At this point, in 2012, spam is pretty much a marketing don’t. You have to earn a person’s permission to interrupt them with any chance of further engagement – especially if you’re going to interrupt them on their cell phone.

Yes, we had recently done business together, but the time to ask if I wanted to receive text messages with discounts was during our interaction together, not weeks after.

I understand what they’re marketing people were trying to do. They probably figured since they were giving me a way to opt out, they were, in a backwards way, asking for my permission. But they would have been better served first to ask me while we were talking about our recent job, not after they annoyed me.

But apparently they figured this out quickly, because it wasn’t long before I received a second text (pictured on the bottom):

“Please disregard the previous text from Beacon Plumbing. We are discontinuing this marketing service. 2endTxtSTOP”

Something tells me some sales person got to the right person at Beacon and convinced them to make a bad decision – one they probably heard about non-stop for the few hours in between the first and second message.

Consumers are pretty powerful these days, and if you make a mistake with your marketing, you’re going to hear about it pretty fast – and it won’t always be in a way you can control.

Thankfully for Beacon, they ultimately made the right decision – maybe even before it cost them any customers.

– My name is Jon Friesch, and if you want to do business with me, texting me without my permission is definitely not the way to go about it.