Listen. Learn. Communicate.

Confession: I used to be in sales – car sales. Please don’t think less of me and read the rest of this post, I’m begging you.While this may seem to have no relevance, if you bear with me I’ll prove a point, I promise.

Selling cars proved to be an extremely valuable experience for me as I transitioned into marketing and needed to understand the customer’s point of view in order to communicate to them. Too often marketers and sales men/women ignore the needs of the customer and communicate to them in a way that can ostracize them. Speaking only to the product or the sale doesn’t make the consumer anymore likely to buy it, in fact it can disinterest them from the purchase all together. The best sales people I’ve ever met and worked with were some of the quietest people during the purchasing process. The only questions asked were to keep the customer interested and talking, nothing more.

It’s from these life experiences that I’ve noticed a trend with most email marketing – we’re all chatty sales people. Most email marketing conversations go something like this:

Company: “Sign up for our Newsletter!”
Prospect: “Okay” *click*
Company: “Thanks for signing up! Buy something now!” *1st email*
Prospect: “Maybe, I’m just browsing for now”
Company: “Sale only through Sunday, buy now!” *2nd email*
Prospect: “I like this product, tell me more” *looking for testimonials or advice*
Company: “Last day to save. Tomorrow only!” *3rd email*
Prospect: “I just bought product X and I really like it.”
Company: “Fan us on Facebook for a free vacation” *4th email*
Company: “Fan us on Facebook for a free vacation” *5th email*
Company: “50% off if you act before 24 hours!” *6th email*
Prospect: “F$#^&n’ Spammer” *unsubscribing*
Company: “Sorry to see you go. Wanna buy something?”

I could have done that for days, but I’m sure you’re getting the point. Understandably, we can all see why people aren’t being retained on email lists. I wouldn’t stick around to get an email every other day about crap that may or may not be relevant to me. Would you? Email is becoming way to personal to not personalize communications to consumers through this channel. It’s imperative that marketers including myself raise-the-bar on our marketing efforts to appreciate our customers/prospects.

Solution: Segmentation and leveraging CRM intelligence or POS data to help steer the conversation back to the needs/interests of the consumer. Let the customer/consumer talk to what their needs and likes are and stop talking (emailing) just long enough to make the customer feel valued, only communicating back when you know something about them. It’s more work, but all relationships require investment on both sides to grow in a healthy manner.

Listen. Learn. Communicate.

Viva la Email!

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