I recently received an email in a sequence with 5 others from the same business ….. all of them exactly the same.
Hey there {First name},
This disappoints me on so many levels.
Mostly this disappoints me because I care a lot about email marketing. Almost 15 years ago I started using email marketing to keep in contact with my then clients in what was my first business. Email marketing was pretty basic back then when I signed up to aweber. I stumbled along creating my intermittent eNews and my clients told me they really enjoyed receiving my relevant and interesting information. That business is long gone.
Today I continue to use email as a fundamental method of communication with my current clients. There are lots of other communication tools and I do use some of them as well; nothing is quite like an email to keep personal contact with all of my clients. And they tell me this over and again.
Email is perhaps the oldest tool in a business owners’ or marketer’s toolbox, and it continues to thrive year after year – even as new marketing fads explode. There is a simple reason for email’s successful longevity: it works!
The thing is that many people believe that email marketing doesn’t work, that it’s spam and “a waste of time”. I often hear people loudly declare “Oh I just keep unsubscribing” or “I receive way too many emails”
Receiving this recent series of emails with Hello {First name}, truly is disappointing and here’s why.
This was the email chain sent out after a webinar that was held last week. I’m not sure how many people were on the webinar, I’m guessing they would all have received this email sequence. Does this not damage the Brand of the business sending out the emails?
This is a high profile person within their community and I would have expected they would understand why this is really not OK.
Maybe if one of the 6 emails snuck out with an accidental Hello {First name}, it might be understandable, but all 6 of them?
Of course, I have definitely been guilty of accidently sending out an incorrect link or a spelling mistake or the wrong photo. We all make mistakes.
Mistakes in emails can be avoided. Here are 3 tips to help with ensuring some thing like this doesn’t happen to you:
Proof read: This is #1. Don’t just Proofread – Interrogate every step in your email marketing process
Test: send to yourself, send to some one else so that a human being similar to your target audience reads it before you email to your clients and potential clients
Stop using cheap outsourced services to do this important work: When some one hands over their email address it is a sign of trust, be respectful enough to honour that trust.
The tools today allow us to develop relationships with clients and customers all over the world. Email communication is a wonderful way to stay connected with your clients and customers by providing relevant and interesting information.
Your clients are not Hello {First name} and certainly deserve to be treated better than this.
As I said I really believe in the power of email marketing as a key builder of trust and relationship between a business and their valued clients and customers. Let’s work to keep the integrity of a wonderful and powerful marketing tool.
BTW: It is really easy to overcome the Hello {First name} matter. When you set up an email and customise to include the first name of the person on your list it will look like this [firstname, fallback=]
If you type a word after = that then is the word that will appear. Some people use Friend, best you choose the word that works for you and your email audience.
I’m Ingrid Thompson and thank you for reading this post.
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