When it’s not an email newsletter, of course…
This past week I spoke to a prospect with a target demographic of men between 16 and 30 years old who spend a lot of money customizing their cars. They want to stand out and get noticed and are on the lookout for the latest, hottest cool stuff to put on their cars first, before anyone else. These guys are going to be on YouTube, MySpace, etc.
Yet on the company’s Web site, they offer an email newsletter signup as part of their small business email marketing efforts.
Picture these guys that make up the target market: Do you think they want to sign up for and read an email newsletter? Neither do I.
Nor did I think that this company was investing the time and resources into creating content for an email newsletter. So I asked what they really do send out as part of their small business email marketing. The answer: emails about specials and promotions.
OK then, that’s what the signup should be selling, “Sign up to get special email specials and promotions.” That’s going to have much more appeal to a teenager than “Sign up for our newsletter.”
Lessons here:
- Choose your words carefully. Use customer-centric words. Don’t assume that because you call it an email newsletter but it’s really something else that your customer is going to translate what you really mean. (Again, marketing is like dating: Don’t assume.) This is especially true with small business email marketing when you’ll likely have fewer people coming to your site and fewer people handing over their email addresses. You want to convert as many of those people as possible, so offer them what they really want by using the right words.
- Wait, that’s lesson two: Offer them what they really want. Yes, you want to use email to market your small business. Good for you! Email can be extremely effective and cost-effective. But first figure out what the prospect wants to get from you.
I’m not saying email newsletters are bad. At We Know Words, we love email newsletters because we do the copywriting of them for clients. But we are going to make darn sure that the content is serving the prospect first and the client second.
I’m just saying make sure your email newsletter is the right vehicle (pardon the pun) for your email marketing. And although I’ve been talking about small business during this whole blog post, just because it’s top of mind, this applies no matter how large your business. Because I’ve certainly seen plenty of useless email marketing campaigns coming from the bigger businesses too, when they’ve focused on what they want to say, and not on what the prospect wants to hear…
