We’ve all done it.
Businesses do it when they send seven unsolicited emails to the poor Marketing Director who happened to download a white paper (True story. And the white paper, totally not worth it).
Colleges do it when even when they mail a generic, 30-page viewbook they know will most likely go right from the mailbox into the trash.
Weight Watchers does it when they send coupons for women’s clothing stores to their male customers (Also a true story. Thanks for the tip Mike).
We’ve all annoyed customers because we’ve ignored the relationships we have with them. The worst part about annoying customers is that it causes us to lose business.
Think about it. As a communication strategy, relationships involve much more than interruption (ads/generic email blasts) and even dialogue (most SM conversations). Relationships require using what you learn about your constituents to inform your decisions.
The advent of social media has given us an invaluable window into how people talk about the types of products and services we offer.
Exhaustive market research and analysis of trends is a Google search away.
Open source CRMs like SugarCRM have provided us with a cheap, reliable, and easy ways to collect opt-in data, segment data and keep track of what we’re sending.
We don’t really have an excuse.
We don’t have an excuse for pestering prospects after the smallest hint of an opt-in.
We don’t have an excuse for not having the patience to listen and respond to what our constituents want.
We don’t have an excuse for not segmenting our data and creating different messages for different constituents.
So, in my opinion, to stop annoying our customers (and to stop losing business!), we have to stop being annoying. We have to replace the antiquated “spray and pray” method with a new relationship-driven “listen and respond” attitude.
Please comment if you’re so inclined.
Related Posts
No related posts were found, so here's a consolation prize: Email Relationships?.
