Today I got a huge shock when a bunch of emails ended up in my inbox. Apparently, they had gotten stuck somewhere (that’s my technical term for being on the server) and after many days of not receiving my usual number of emails, thousands began downloading within a very short period of time.
Knowing there wasn’t much I could do but get to the task at hand I began the process of filtering through the good, the bad and the ugly.
Sad to say, the majority of the over 4,000 messages were either bad or really, really ugly.
Less than 3% were worth my while. The rest were blatant promotions for things I have very little (if any) interest in and out and out garbage.
Here’s the deal, many of the promotional emails came from a small group of people. Not that promotional emails are bad, but when there’s no substance to the information or you receive dozens in a matter of days from the same person, that’s a problem.
Granted, the solution is to opt out, but until I had a boatload of emails arrive in very short order, I had no idea how bad it really is with some marketers.
My gosh. No wonder there is so much information overload and lots of emails don’t get read today.
This got me thinking about what I send out. Do I ever go overboard with promotions? For some, I likely do. For some, one promotional message would be too much. For others, they are happy with the amount I do send.
If we are in the business of marketing we do need to send out promotional messages. But we also need to be cognicent of the fact that we absolutely must provide value to our market and not always try to sell, sell, sell.
Each of us needs to take stock of what we are doing.
- Do we balance our marketing with high value?
- Do we market at all or is there a fear we will upset someone with even one message?
- Do we always think in terms of serving first, selling second?
Definitely questions worth considering.
Great food for thought, Kathleen.
I know small business owners (struggling ones) who never suggest a product or make and offer, lest the recipient judge them as money-grubbing and opt-out of their mailings. They offer tons of value but they soon find themselves considering closing their doors. Others, like the ones you mention, flog everything and everything, fast and furious, thinking the more noise they make the more often they will score a sale.
YOU taught me this (and it works): Provide great value …but be clear with your readers that, along with all the great information, tips and support, they should expect you will be recommending offers and products that they can purchase to enhance their knowledge and success.
I think it comes down to being helpful, business-like, and respectful. Do that, and the people who matter won’t mind, and those that mind___you know the rest!
Cathy Demers
We are actually doing a service by offering various items for our subscribers to invest in. If we really want to help our market it is our responsibility to guide them to the correct resources. And the key word is “correct”.
It’s funny, when I just started my business, I delivered a ton of value, but didn’t really have anything to promote, so promotional emails were few and far between.
Now that I do more promotions through my autoresponders and solo emails, I notice that the people who got on my list first are much less responsive than the ones who are used to getting recommendations and promos from the get go along with the good stuff.
The lesson is, just like you said Cathy, that you need to condition people from the very start to expect good value, as well as recommendations and offers. Otherwise, what’s the point in emailing if they are never going to buy?
There are those who expect everything for nothing. They are often the ones who struggle to know why people don’t want to pay them for their services. Yes, a combination of both value only and offer emails is the way to go. Thanks for your comments Daphne.