An open letter to the marketing director of NFL.com;

Having been involved in it for 7 years, I know a lot about Internet marketing. That’s why I have been so appalled at how your organization had conducted the marketing on your site, nfl.com.

The cardinal sin in permission-based online marketing is sending people marketing information when they have indicated that they do not wish to receive it from you. This defies the whole concept of permission-based marketing. It also does harm to your brand in the mind of someone who initially sought out your site to make a purchase. I claim that you may never be able to repair this kind of harm.

Take my experience as an example. I ordered a gift for a Denver Broncos fan last November. It represented a single purchase, and I had never indicated on your site that I was actually a Broncos fan. I actually am a Chiefs fan, and we don’t much like the Broncos. If I was ever given an option to receive email or snail mail offers in the course of ordering from your site, I refused them. However, you sold my name to the Franklin Mint (or Danburry Mint, or something like that) to pitch me Broncos material. It had to come from you because there is no other way they would have my name associated with the Broncos. I have also received catalogs from you featuring the Broncos on the cover.

This is not only bad online marketing, it is bad direct marketing, pointing out the lack of sophistication in your database rules for selecting my name. It is not as simple as “He ordered a Broncos sweatshirt near the holidays. Therefore, he is a broncos fan and should receive Broncos material forever.” Your database people need to be better stewards of that information and use a little thought.

Then today, I get an email from Jon Bonjovi. The copy on this email is horrible. Here’s an example:
“Dear , (you don’t even know my first name???? Can’t you customize this to say that if a first name is not present, like “Friend of the NFL?”),

“You're invited to join myself and the boys in the band for a unique New York celebration!" Join myself? This is incorrect grammar. It should be ‘join me.’ Now I know that Jon Bonjovi did not write this, nor can you claim you were trying to sound conversational, because in the next paragraph it says “We'll be joined by Latin superstar Enrique Iglesias, R&B sensation Alicia Keys, and hip-hop artist Eve," hardly a style in which anyone speaks.

I do not want email like this from you, so I go to your site to unsubscribe. I checked the ‘unsubscribe to NFL.com newsletters’ check box and hit submit. Since your database did not include my name, a window popped up and said “enter your first name.” Why in the hell do I have to put my first name in to unsubscribe? It’s required, so I type it in. Then when I hit submit this time another window comes up that says “enter a last name.” This is ridiculous. Then it asks for my age. I’m just trying to get done, so I put in 01/01/2000. Well, then it tells me I must be 13 to enjoy the nfl.com site and puts me at the home page. You need to make it simple to unsubscribe. The way you have used my information thus far makes me think I have now been added to another database with the new information I had to input just to get off of the mailing list.

On top of all that, you don’t even have a link on the front page of your site for people to contact anyone or email any feedback! It’s buried in the Help section below information for former football players interested in playing for a NFL Europe League team and aspiring player agents. Do you really prioritize the visitors and customers to your site below the miniscule group of aspiring player agents who might happen to visit your site?

I love the NFL. I watch every Sunday, Monday, and Thursday, but there are plenty of places to buy NFL merchandise and get information about NFL teams. I will never return to, or order from NFL.com again.