Recently I was cleaning up my Gmail inbox and it was clear to me that some people treat email like free marketing. For example, Dick’s Sporting Goods was sending me 3-4 emails a week. While I shop at Dick’s Sporting Goods and like the brand, it was very clear to me that they really weren’t paying attention. My lack of response, nor opening of any emails should have been a trigger to them. More was much, much less. They were not alone, but one of the worst examples of over-communication.
Thoughts for email marketing:
- Use the information effectively. Not only have I asked them to stop emailing me all together, they have hurt their brand standing with me.
- Test your campaigns. Because they are free doesn’t mean everyone should get everything. That’s just laziness. There are too many tools out there not to be able to do some type of segmentation based upon gender, usage patterns, social, and economic demographics.
- Learn! This is probably the most important aspect. If a customer gives you their email address, then treat it like a valuable asset and learn from it. It is not a resource to be used up. Offer different things at different times, send emails in different patterns, send different offers and test the response. And if they don’t respond to anything, pull back and wait.
I know this sounds way too obvious, but here is an example from someone with the size and clout to know better. Chances are your marketing organization is overusing their free marketing channel and just don’t know it yet. Go ask them for an analysis of how many emails are being sent out to each customer segment each week. Ask them how often they clean up their contact list to trim out people who have never responded. And wait for the dreaded, “we don’t want to skip anyone in case this is the campaign that will get their attention.” Trust me, there is a breaking point.
PureStone Partners LLC 