Last week someone sent an email with blurbs and links for several downloadable best practices white papers. One of them is a real head scratcher.

Here’s the blurb verbatim:

Top Priority: Customer Acquisition and Retention Now more than ever, e-commerce and multichannel merchants are faced with the challenge of retaining current customers and acquiring new ones to drive revenue. Read COMPANY NAME DELETED’s latest white paper to learn more about strategies for effective acquisition and retention in today’s competitive and volatile marketplace.

First thought: Did I doze off for a minute? What’s new about acquiring and keeping customers? That’s what we do now, what we have always done. There’s no now-more-than-ever about it.

Second thought: Customer acquisition and customer retention are one thing? It sure sounds like these guys think so, otherwise “… challenge …” would have an s on it. Isn’t a paying customer worth, what?, 30 prospects, 40, with a much lower CPO?

Third thought: Why e-commerce and multi-channel merchants? Why not “every-channel merchants” or just plain old “direct marketers”? Buzz words obfuscate. Eschew obfuscation.

Fourth thought: Drive revenue? Wow, what a radical concept.

Fifth thought: Competitive? Oh no, when did that start?

Sixth thought: Volatile? Doesn’t that mean up and down quickly and often? Didn’t we descend rapidly into a down market and stay there? We can only hope it gets to volatile again.

Seventh thought: Current customers? How about reactivating lapsed customers, aka that untapped goldmine in your house file?

Eighth thought: Too many thoughts for one little blurb. I’ll pass, thanks.