Because Email Marketing is Alive and Well

Worried about your open rates? Worried about conversions? Wondering if Email marketing works? Never fear, E-mail marketing is alive and well, and I CAN PROVE IT!

Recently, I sent out an email to all of my customers/contacts. Just one email. I don’t have analytics to back this up, but I do have tremendous response.  Hundreds of reply emails.  Phone calls direct to my cell phone to ensure that my offer was authentic. And many of the customers who took direct action on the email offer commented to me later on the significance of that action.

Our phones lit up, our team sprung to action. We even followed up that email with another email immediately after, which let everyone know that the original offer was now OFF the table, due to the response.

Sounds like a winner, right?

It’s not. The unfortunate truth behind this marketing juggernaut…the email was a Phishing email, a direct result of my email being hacked. Everyone of my contacts was sent an email from me, without my knowledge, asking them to download a document. A huge portion of my customers did at least open the mail. And some, against their better judgement, were taken in by the scam.

Why? Trust.

My customers and contacts trust me.  When I send out an email they know it’s legit…that it is good information…that they’ll be missing out on something real if they don’t open it.  I have worked very hard to deserve that trust.  But one unwanted e-mail can undo a lot of good faith.

The lesson here is simple, (Other than the obvious one of not opening phishing emails!). Trust is the key to successful E-mail marketing. Do you have trust with your customers?  If so, are you risking that trust via overarching or unrelenting marketing e-mails to them? If the answer is yes to either of those questions, stop! Follow these three simple steps to E-mail marketing first, before you click “SEND”:

1)  Is this message relevant to the recipient?  

If you are sending out the email merely so that your business will benefit…don’t do it. Be sure that your email is personal, specific to the recipients needs, and is truly something in which taking action on their part will be a good thing for them…not just you.

2)  Is this message important?  

If you are sending out the email simply because it’s Wednesday, and you need to send out something every week…don’t do it! Make sure that when your recipient opens the message, the message matters.

3)  Is this message welcome?  

In other words, would YOU want to receive it if you were the customer?  If not, why in the world would they want it in their Inbox.

Relevant…Important…Welcome.  Three key ingredients to the successful E-mail marketing recipe.

E-mail marketing is powerful. But it needs to be Win/Win…good for them before it’s good for you. Otherwise, hacked or not, permission based or not….it’s just SPAM, and you know it.