Is your Email Marketing sending business to your Competitors?

If you feel a poorly executed email marketing campaign is better than no email marketing at all; you are wrong!

Email marketing if properly executed helps buyers buy and can reinforce your message with prospective buyers for future purchases. If poorly executed you will also make an impression, a negative one that will not only last, but spread.

I can tell when the end of the month is approaching by the amount of email spam I receive. Below is an email I received today that illustrates a number of mistakes you must avoid in email marketing.

Dear Customer,

We are dominant player in the Business List Industry with over 40 Million B2B contacts and 200 Million B2C contacts. We have all varieties of business records that come with complete contact details including working business email addresses.

We can assist you in reaching out to your target audience in multiple ways. We can provide you with updated information such as contact name, email address, phone number, fax number, mailing address, job title, etc…

Job Title Scope: Reach top-level executives like CEOs, CFOs, CTOs, COOs, CIOs, Presidents, Chairman’s, GMs, Mid level Managers, Sales and Marketing Managers, HR, Managers, Finance Managers. 

Our products and services are:
Email Appending, Email List Acquisition, Email Blast, Email Lead Generation, Data Appending etc.

If the in-house database that you has information that has gone bad or is incomplete, we can update it with the above mentioned fields. Let us know the criteria for your target audience and a sample file will be mailed. Can you give me some specifics regarding your target audience? 

Example: In business, are you interested in only a certain type of business?  Are the gross revenues of the company important? Do you prefer to target companies with a particular employee size? Do you need the contact name and title of someone at the business you wish to target?  If consumers, do you want to target people with a certain income level, occupation, children at home, etc.

If you would prefer to advise me of your requirements via email, my email address is XXXXXX

Please let me know of a convenient time for a quick call, looking to talking to you soon.

Regards,

[I removed the name]

Business Development Manager

We respect your privacy. If you want to stop receiving emails from us, please send a reply with the email subject line as “Leave out”.

My thoughts;

· First, I am not your “customer”, I do not know you and to use a generic “Dear Customer” quite frankly is insulting. What it means is you have no clue who I am and you have already lost me. You do not know me, care about me or my needs.

· Next, as I read through your message you provide, sell; email contact information, and you go on to say you have a core competency in reaching top executives…Really? If your product is so good, why didn’t you use it when trying to engage with me?

· “Email Appending, Email List Acquisition, Email Blast, Email Lead Generation, Data Appending etc.” …OK you have explained “what” you do, but what problem do you solve for me? Oh I get it; I am supposed to figure that out on my own…

· “Are you interested in only a certain type of business? “ OK, yes, I am interested in certain types of businesses, again if you have a competency in this area why didn’t you demonstrate your knowledge in my type of business?

· “Are the gross revenues of the company important?” Are you kidding me? Now you are insulting me again. I also reflect; what if I asked the CEO of one of the companies I would like to help this question, it would be a disqualifier.

· You did provide your email that I X’d out in case the CEO of your company is reading this post, but you failed to provide your phone number?

· Good job you did do one thing right that I will use; “We respect your privacy. If you want to stop receiving emails from us, please send a reply with the email subject line as “Leave out”.´

· And to add insult to injury when I try to close this message I am prompted that you want to know if I read this? NO! Shame on you!

After receiving this message I will never buy from this company, never! Not only will I not buy, I am so shocked by this poorly executed message I will tell a number of those in my network this story and I am sure they too will not want to partner with you.

If you are using email marketing, learn from the mistakes in the above and;

· If you do not know a contact name, title, do not send

· “eat your own dog food”, in this example, if you sell contact names for email marketing you had best demonstrate a competency in the space you play

· Give me an opportunity to opt out

· Know something about your customer, their industry, and more importantly know your market and it’s most pervasive problems.

· Once you know those problems, share how your product or service solves them

· Don’t ask questions that insult my intelligence

· Provide your phone number, what if I did want to call you?

How about your company?

Are you participating in email marketing? If so share best practices.

Would you buy from this vendor?