I had Geoffrey Claydon of Web Communications in to talk at a recent TAB Meeting about E-mail marketing. He uses all of the knowledge that he acquired in his extensive corporate experience to work with businesses of all sizes to improve the message that is communicated to their existing and future clients and customers. The points that stuck with me are:
1. E-mail marketing must contain value for the recipient to prevent them from “unsubscribing”.
Value offerings can vary depending on the business (I offer business tips) but it can also be promotions, specials, discounts, new offerings, etc.
2. Anything that engages prospects (for example, surveys) can really increase the “effectiveness”.
3. Branding needs to be consistent and professional.
4. Frequency should be at minimum once a month. This resulted in quite a debate; mainly because entrepreneurs are typically inconsistent when it comes to marketing approaches.
5. Unsubscribing is permanent.
6. Analytics are needed if you want to understand the “effectiveness” of your efforts.
7. E-mail marketing can be an affordable and effective marketing alternative.
Of course the discussion included must-have content like links to websites which also opened the conversation up to video marketing. I became so inspired and convinced of video’s importance that I decided to make a video blog. After 20 some odd consecutive takes I finally decided I’d figured out how to produce reasonable sound quality and hoped the content would work. As I mentioned in the video, I’ve seen a lot of bad video: people just standing there, looking awkward; stilted dialogue; inappropriate backgrounds, etc. Interestingly enough, upon review of my video, I couldn’t control my hysterical laughter because I found it so funny, which, of course, didn’t bode well as far as professionalism goes. I wasn’t trying to produce a comedy. So, “Do It Yourself” webcams don’t work for me and I’m not ready to invest in professional productions at this point, although Geoff did pass on a good contact that I might investigate. Thankfully, I like the written word. It appeals to me in a way video doesn’t. I’d rather paint pictures in my mind then have them supplied for me.
Another lengthy discussion was whether unsubscribing is a “good thing”. General consensus is: it is. Knowing who “unsubscribed” tells you who isn’t interested so you don’t need to waste precious time and resources on them. Although, this isn’t always true. My example: I finally, and reluctantly, unsubscribed from Reed’s Flowers e-mail promotions. I use Reed’s primarily for condolences which are difficult to schedule and I’m not interested in things like Mother’s Day offerings (not applicable to me). To sum up, although their e-mail offerings didn’t contain value for me, I don’t think it’ll change how I do or will do business with them in the future. I trust them. They’ve never let me down where as other on-line flower deliver services have. Was that good money spent on their part? Not with me but it might be with others.
