Email Marketing, the right way…

For far too long, I worked for a corporation whose entire newsletter philosophy was all about spamming strangers.

They didn’t have an opt-in, they barely sent notice that it was coming and they didn’t really care if their message was important. Although it was quarterly, they didn’t indicate that on the newsletter either. Basically, it was a quarterly advertisement that they sent to people who had unwittingly given their business cards to our sales representatives. Through email, they offered nothing of added value. If you had ever read one of the company’s brochures, you were already up to date with the company’s idea of “news”.

I didn’t agree with this policy. For a long time I fought for an opt-in page, a change of topic, an unsubscribe method, an email distribution application or service that stopped spamming, but none of seemed valuable to the sales department. If they asked for people to sign-up on their own, they may never have a distribution list. What then?

I knew that the company could really have benefited from an email that took a recent industry problem and showed their “list” how our products solved that problem better than anyone else could. Their business double-speak was unbearable. A nice “you” thrown in occasionally could have really helped their bland copy as well.

In an age of permission marketing and relating to your customer’s needs, I just didn’t see how an unsolicited email detailing our many years in business and name-dropping customer list was really all that helpful, or inviting.

Seth Godin recently posted a blog entry about this topic. I found the whole list amusing. List item number 8 stood out to me the most:

The definition of permission marketing: Anticipated, personal and relevant messages delivered to people who actually want to get them. Nowhere does it say anything about you and your needs as a sender. Probably none of my business, but I’m just letting you know how I feel. (And how your prospects feel).

This is certainly not new information.

I left the company because the majority of their marketing methods were similar to their newsletter policy. It was very tiresome.

I encourage you to read Seth’s entire list.

How many of these email no-no’s have happened to you personally, or as a business owner?

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