Why targeting matters… a @Klout fail

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I like getting free stuff. I am not ashamed and in all honesty it is one of the few reasons why I keep my account with Klout.

According to their algorithm, I am influential enough to have brands send me things. Not entirely sure how it works, but I’ve gotten some truly random things from them that I have used or given to friends and co-workers. Overall, I there have only been a few promotions that were truly been relevant to me, so when I received an email that OneHopeWine.com was giving me $25 towards some wine I was excited.

Only thing better than free stuff is free booze.

So I followed the link and perused the site a bit. After seeing that the wine was for a charity I was thinking of purchasing a few bottles beyond what the $25 would get me.

When I checked my cart and began to create an account, I had a nice little error message pop up that the company could not ship to me because I live in Massachusetts.

Total buzzkill.

While it sucked the whole joy out of my Monday morning, the whole incident could have been avoided if either OneHopeWine.com or Klout used a few filters.

On one hand OneHopeWine.com could have said to their rep at Klout, exclude users from these states because we cannot ship to them. On the other the folks at Klout could have done some research on the topic to offer a full end-to-end experience.

Regardless of who could have prevented it, it left a sour taste in my mouth.

For OneHopeWine.com it is unfortunate because their model is awesome, but they made a poor first impression on someone who was probably going to make a $100 order or so.

For the “Standard for Influence,” this is just another snafu that leaves at least one user shaking his head and questioning what the hell they are trying to accomplish.

At the end of the day, it is important to know who you are targeting.

6 comments

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GeeklessTech

Had same experience from NJ, and was definitely looking to buy a bottle or two on top of the free bottle. I'll live, but the this could have been easily avoided. Although we're talking about both Klout and OneHopeWine now, so maybe maybe it worked.

jeffespo moderator

@GeeklessTech yes but not in a positive way. Not all mentions are good mentions. Also notice how they have responded... with crickets

dough

As @jeffespo knows, I also live in MA. I got the same promotion, and it's not the first alcohol-related Klout perk directed at this denizen of the "No Fun State." It can't be that hard to target promotions by state or metro area, is it?

@dough Especially when they have the geo-data from Facebook, Twitter, 4Sq and G+ which are all linked into their algorithm. My guess on this is that Klout is selling an audience to companies and as long as the checks clear, could care less. It proves that suckers are born every day... and even ones 21 years old can still get left out because of Puritanic laws that they were too lazy to Google.

annedreshfield

Agreed, Jeff. I've had similar experiences and they almost always make me second-guess my purchase, and once I start doing that, I usually end up not buying! Once, I ordered a bag online that I needed for a job that was starting in roughly a month. Everything went fine during the purchasing process, and a few days later I received an email from the company. I thought it might be shipping confirmation -- nope! It was an email saying that the product was backordered and would take over a month before it would ship. I was dumbfounded. Would it be that hard to put a notification on the purchase page so I could have at least had some warning? It's pretty impressive what some companies don't think about.

@annedreshfield yeah its overall some BS and just another example of how Klout is really the measuring stick for shoddy work.

Klout fails again, making Apple pizza and staying simple says:

June 8, 2012 at 8:01 am

[...] If you tune into this blog on a regular basis, or at least this week, you probably heard my tale of Klout offering me free booze, but not really since they had a whoopsie. This post from my friend Amy Vernon, recounts a similar [...]

Why targeting matters… a @Klout fail

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