Quality over quantity
Come on, there must be something we can talk about ...
The email newsletter and blog have now become essential marketing tools of the 21st century, and businesses are urged to become e-savvy before they get left behind. However, with inboxes overflowing with mass emails, spam and irrelevant communications, from special offers on diet pills to “Click here to claim your cash prize”, people have begun to lose faith in the emails they are receiving and more importantly, the people who are sending them.
Unfortunately, as email is a relatively cheap means of marketing, more and more businesses are bombarding their customers with irrelevant messages, leading to an increased rate of unsubscribes and spam reports. By competing for your audiences’ attention in this way you can lose customers as well as your credibility as a company. People just don’t have the time or the patience to sort through their emails and identify the good stuff from the rubbish. Thanks to the delete key, we can manage our overflowing inboxes with a quick glance at the From: and Subject: lines – delete!
Quality over quantity is definitely the key – businesses should be striving for marketing material with greater relevance for their target audience. A good start is to aim for one or two blogs a week and a newsletter or e-bulletin once a month. This copy should be used to have a conversation with your clients; to communicate with them, not at them.
Copywriters and marketers understand the relationship-building value of email and are investing more and more time and money into communicating with their prospective clients electronically. They know that appealing, relevant copy which entertains, informs and educates the reader can turn prospects into clients and clients into fans who may forward your emails to their colleagues or business contacts. Wouldn’t it be nice if people were looking forward to receiving your next newsletter rather than groaning when they saw your company’s name pop up in their inbox?
Make your messages worthwhile to your subscribers by taking the “less is more” approach. Don’t email just for the sake of it, wait until you have something interesting to say. That’s how you avoid marketing overkill and that’s how you build on relationships rather than turning off your clients.
