Nobody likes spam. It’s that simple. But there aren’t many people out there who like being left in the dark, either, and as an entrepreneur, you need to make effective use of every tool at your disposal to ensure that you get your message out to your target market. There’s no denying that email remains one of the most cost-effective and quickest methods of communicating with your client and customer base. So how do you know you’re not abusing it?
Every person is going to have a different baseline tolerance level for email receipt. Moreover, that tolerance is going to be impacted by a variety of factors specific to any particular email interaction. Your goal, then, is to maximize the tolerance boosting factors while minimizing the disruption that the recipients experience from it. Email is all too easy to ignore, and once a particular email address gets added to the “ignore” file in somebody’s brain, it’s almost impossible to prompt a fresh look.
To maximize a recipient’s tolerance, then, ensure that you keep the following in mind:
– Targeting: The more relevant your email is to the recipients interests, the more likely they are to view it as a positive communication rather than a marketing push. Specifics are your friend, here – avoid vague marketing terms.
– Periodicity: The more frequently your customers or clients are interacting with you, the more frequently you can interact back without setting off spam bells. If somebody is buying from you every week, then a weekly email is less likely to be off-putting.
– Brevity: Keep it simple! Nobody has spare time; keep your communications direct and to the point.
– Variety: Do you have something fresh or additional that you need to communicate, or are you just trying to drum up some additional interest by repackaging older information? Keep your powder dry for communications of genuine fresh value to you and to your customers, clients, or audience.
– Ask for it: People like having their opinion solicited. If you ask them whether or not they want to receive information from you, and how often, then you not only give them the comfort of knowing that you actually care what they think, you also get a read on how many people are finding enough value in your communications to want to continue to receive them and at what frequency. That’s valuable market feedback – something you can never get enough of.
The bottom line is that email communication remains valuable to you for only so long as it remains valuable to your customers and clients. Use the proper tools to manage your email campaigns and track your data to ensure you neither abuse nor neglect this communication channel, and always remember to focus on creating genuine value with each communication. The best way to avoid looking like spam is to avoid being spam, and that means offering real value each and every time. If that sounds like work, well, it is – but you’re reading this because you want to know how to succeed, not how to avoid doing what
needs doing. And if you’re following your passions and building your own personal independent revenue stream by offering value to your audience, then you’ve already done the most important part.
