I get three main types of email marketing these days.
- Sales emails from suppliers, mostly not targeted, mostly not relevant to me.
- Generic company newsletters expecting me to read company updates or articles that don’t engage me.
- Spam email chains from people trying to sell me things they think I need.
I, like you, am self-centred. I don’t want to put myself out on behalf of someone else; I’m thinking about what I specifically want and when I want it, however irrational, however irrelevant. So most of those emails go unread.
Digital, AI and automation have made marketers (and sales) believe that fostering relationships is easy – that we can be generic, let the computer work it all out and that filling in specific database fields is unnecessary for success down the line. We press ‘send to all’.
Whether it’s new business, engaging with existing customers, or upselling, digital has its place – of course it does – especially (and arguably, only) when you get personal. For communication to land, it needs to work on a number of levels – the most important of which is answering the individual’s unasked question… What’s in it for me?
Ask that with everything you do right now…
- Come to your seminar… What’s in it for me?
- Take your meeting… What’s in it for me?
- Answer your email… What’s in it for me?
Your customers do not anticipate your marketing the way you’re not sitting there waiting for a supplier’s communication.
But. If it did, what would your action be? What would be in it for you?