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"The more you engage with customers the clearer things become and the easier it is to determine what you should be doing"
John Russell, President, Harley-Davidson
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ADMA Conference / Exhibition, 2004
This year, ADMA's Pan-Pacific Marketing Conference will held on May 26 - 28 and will focus on the 'BIG Ideas in Direct Marketing'. Read more |
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Can I Walk You Home Tonight?
Just the other night after a party, I accepted a friend’s gallant offer to walk me home. Although I just live around the block, to be accompanied at that time of the night seemed a sensible idea. There was no reason for me to think that his offer was not genuine. He seemed nice and well behaved all evening. Perhaps it was because the moon was full (or simply a few drinks had emboldened his spirit). His gallantry started its decline the closer we got to my home, to the point where he considered it a far better idea that I should at take a guided tour of his car with extra attention to the plush back seat.
Fortunately my key was in the door and farewells were bid before the whole thing turned foul. Needless to say though I was not too happy about my experience. I felt that my permission for him to walk me home has been exploited.
How is this related to email marketing you may ask? Well it's all about permission and what you do with it. I have seen similar behaviour exercised by some businesses with their opt in list.
What have you been granted permission to do?
When asking for permission to send email communiqué to your customers, do you specify what you will be sending them and how frequently?
Many companies have found that inviting customers to receive relevant news and information is an easy way to grow their list (the walk home). If your customers have opted to receive industry news, do you send them blatant marketing promotions (the back seat adventure) instead?
Here’s an example. I have lately subscribed to a newsletter on how to improve my presentation skills. The website looked informative and the site owner promised to send me tips on how to improve my speaking and presentation techniques. This all sounded just right for me. So I readily signed up. A few weeks down the line- I received an email that has a subject line that reads: "This month's presentation tips". I was delighted, until I found that the email contains no tips - but an ad to purchase a book on presentation skills. I felt exploited (spammed)! I replied to the email to vent my feelings, to which I received a curt reply saying- "well if you don't like it just unsubscribe". How come that doesn't make me feel any better?
The nice secure escort to my destination had other things on his mind. I recognise that we all have to make a buck and nothing in life is free… yada, yada yada, but I would prefer not to start my relationships off with a lie wouldn’t you?
So if you have promised relevant news and tips to your customers keep your promise. Don’t send hard sell ads. People know the difference.
While the Spam Act has no specific guidelines on this, we should all exercise some basic etiquette. After all it’s all about trust. Don’t abuse it because once its broken there is no going back. In the post SPAM act 2003 era NO really does mean NO.
Story by : Poochee Yuen
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Hot Property
You are a member based organization, charity, professional association or even a commercial operation with a regular value added e-newsletter. Can you effectively include advertising in your newsletter, charge for it and yet not dilute your branding and your message?
Of course you can. You own one of the hottest pieces of property in the advertising world. Your newsletter is an advertisers dream. Think about it. You have a strong demographic profile of your readers. They trust you and expect your newsletter. If you have been doing your job well you probably enjoy and open rate of 40% and above. You can accurately measure this.
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Gmail, Google's free e-mail service is impressive, but...
I'd bet my beloved Transformers toy, Bluestreak, that 99% of all you lovely people reading this have some kind of free web-based email account, whether it be Hotmail, Yahoo or Lycos, etc.
These accounts are perfect for keeping in touch with friends and family while on the move, overseas or just on a short weekend break, as you don't need any email client to send or receive your messages; as long as you have access to a web browser and the internet, you're all set.
While these types of free accounts are great, they are also slightly limiting in the fact that they offer very little storage space in which to hold those scanned images of your recent Christmas party or the latest uplifting Powerpoint presentation currently doing the rounds. Hotmail provides a mere 2mb in which to store your email life and Yahoo ups the ante slightly to 4mb, but as great as they are, it's often nowhere near enough.
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