Tweet “The vendor keeps communicating with me even though I don’t want their emails anymore.”
Completely unrelated to B2B marketing, it would seem at first glance, but in fact, the tweet above is very, very relevant.
This short tweet really captures the essence of the art of email marketing: Are you sure your emails are still relevant to the particular recipient and her current situation? Are they welcome? Or have they become an annoyance, something you delete right away (best case scenario) or unsubscribe from?
The woman who tweeted this basically says, “The vendor keeps communicating with me even though I don’t want their emails anymore. They are not relevant. The vendor should have realized that its emails are not welcome anymore.”
But how can the vendor know, unless they use some sort of marketing automation? In this case, it’s fairly obvious that this particular store has an email list, which she uses to send the occasional email blast. We all get these emails – and this is the reason why most of us have a separate email account, a “junk” account that we use when we place online orders or perform any other activity that, we suspect, will generate future unwanted emails.
The result: these email blasts, that are sent month after month, with no tracking whatsoever and with no regards to whether the recipient is receptive to them or not, get lost. No one reads them anyway, heck no one even gets them into their inbox, and the few that do get them, often become annoyed to the point of unsubscribing.
As annoyed as the consumer sounds in her tweet, what are the chances that when she finally does need to buy another baby gift, she will buy it from that store? My guess is, despite the store’s “success” at staying top of mind (hey, she’s tweeting about them!), it’s not going to be the consumer’s first choice when it’s time to buy a baby shower gift.
What should the vendor do in this case? They should monitor response to their emails. Lower the frequency for those that are not responding. And drop off the list anyone who hasn’t responded at all in, say, a year. Better to have a trim, tight, responsive email list than to have a huge email list that’s cluttered with very cold, uninterested, annoyed prospects.
Google+Tags: Email Marketing
