Inbound Marketing

Posts Tagged ‘business owners’

Eleven years ago, permission-based email marketing became very popular because consumers were aggravated with unsolicited junk email. In 1999, Seth Godin wrote “Permission Marketing” and outlined the many reasons it is more effective to get permission before marketing to somebody. Then the “gurus” appeared, showing, for a price, how to rapidly collect thousands of emails. Many of us who didn’t have huge mailing lists felt like we were missing something and if we could only get thousands of people on their mailing lists they would be able to make their fortune.

And so it began. These “gurus” were throwing up hastily made whitepapers or a six-week email courses with no real substance, just to give something away and collect those precious email addresses. No one was too concerned with the quality of their offers. I know one business person who, till this day, collects emails and sends a famous quote every day. What does the quote mean? Why is it relevant? Who knows. This marketer just wants to send something. This continues until someone gets frustrated and unsubscribes from the list.

Delivering junk damages your reputation. If you are not sending something of value, something that will make a difference to your audience, then you are sending junk. Even if you do send something of quality, but then bombard your audience with sales messages, you’ve become just another source of trash.

Collecting emails does work if you offer (and then follow through) with giving something of real value. Email courses, white papers, newsletters and e-books can all be incentives to get subscriptions. If you give them something they can truly find useful they will stay signed up and you will be building up their respect for you and your company. If you send something that is self-centered or sales-focused, your audience will leave very quickly. And don’t assume that because someone hasn’t unsubscribed that they are still listening. It is easy for your messages to be filtered to the trash.

Ask yourself where people are getting your information from. Are they subscribed to your blog posts, getting the same blog posts on Buzz, looking at your tweets about your blog posts on Twitter? Repetition can sometimes be good, but if that is all they see, they will start to tune out. This is why we no longer are impacted by traditional commercials, because we have become really good at tuning out the repetition.

Have a schedule and stick to it. Or offer something for a time period and stick to it. When that time period runs out, ask them if they would like the next series you have to offer, and then make them sign up for that list. This way you are not forcing more stuff on them they didn’t ask for. Using modern email software you can create as many lists as you want, so someone on one list can then join another list.

Don’t bite off more than you can chew. Just creating a blog post can be a strenuous act. One of the most respected bloggers I know writes well informed, interesting posts that never fail to educate me. He says it takes anywhere from 5 to 10 hours to research and write each post. His time is well spent, in my opinion, but can you imagine if he was also doing the same thing with a newsletter, on Buzz, and creating articles to post around the ‘net. He wouldn’t actually have any time to work with clients or make money. If you don’t have the time to really invest in quality, then it is better to make that something you don’t do. You can say no to some marketing techniques. You have to chose the ones that work for you, taking into consideration your time and resources.

Don’t send advertisements to your email list. It’s ok to mention services or products, but in a subtle way. Once I signed up for a list to get an e-book, and then got nothing more from them afterwards except ads.

If you don’t have something to give, remove the email sign up and call it a day. You can either choose not to use this type of marketing, or, you can put it back when you do have the time to create something of great quality.