Quick, yank the cord out of the wall!

Every once in awhile, I will compose an email and then push the send button prematurely. Often there's not much you can do if your email has typos or other stuff that needs cleaned up.

Working on a laptop computer, I will flip the switch to turn off my wireless connection if I can catch it in time.

There is a better way, and that along with what to do if you do send out a crappy email are explained in this from MarketingProfs.com (which came in my email):

Unsend! Unsend! Unsend!

There's almost nothing worse than realizing you sent an email blast—with typos, no less—to the wrong contact list. In a post at his blog, Seth Godin discusses how an external media partner committed this email marketing sin when it blanketed his readers with a seemingly random message. Ouch.

The problem with the message was twofold:

1. It went to people who had opted-in only for a Seth Godin teleseminar several months earlier.
2. It began with the placeholder salutation "dear first name."

What does someone who cares about permission marketing do when he breaks two of the most basic email marketing rules? In this case, he writes an open letter to Godin and his readers: "I can't undo the damage, but I can apologize and can make sure that you and your readers know that it was not intentional," says the offending emailer.

So as not to exacerbate the issue with a follow-up email—and potentially annoy those who didn't receive the wayward message in the first place—Godin decided to post the explanation at his blog with a note regarding his indirect responsibility. "All I can do is apologize," writes Godin. "I'll try to work harder to make sure that people I work with get this through and through. Sorry."

The Po!nt: Be fanatical about double-checking every aspect of an email blast. If you do make a mistake, a prominent display of mea culpa is the best way to smooth things over and re-earn reader trust. "Stuff happens," says Godin. "At least it wasn't on purpose."

Source: Ouch! Read the full post here.