A recent LinkedIn discussion on the merits of email marketing showed the massive polarity of responses. On one side was heard:
- I hate spam. I never read any email from anyone I don’t know
- It doesn’t work – I’ve tried and failed
- Email is dead anyway, numbers using email are declining. Social Media is the way forward
- No one read our marketing emails that we’ve spent a fortune having designed
And on the other hand comments like these appeared:
- Email is a great channel to find new customers
- We mainly use email to retain clients
- Our email strategy gives the highest ROI of any of our marketing
So what’s going on? How can a relatively homogenous group have such different views on the effectiveness of email as a promotions and sales channel?
I believe the difference is between those that see email as a broadcast medium and those that seek to engage contacts by sharing knowledge and advice. To differentiate the two, I have coined the phrase email selling to describe this second activity.
The difference is stark:
Email Marketing | Email Selling |
Designed emails with lots of HTML and pictures | Plain emails, often short with limited or no design |
Content talks about the sender “we’re great”, “we’ve got lots of clients”, “look at our services”, etc… | The content is focussed on the recipient: Useful knowledge; valuable advice and relevant stories |
Everyone gets the same message | Recipients are segmented and receive different messages and customised content intended to be directly relevant to them. |
Messages often originate from the marketing department | Messages are usually created with the involvement of sales department or other line of business users |
Focus is on propagating brand and being “on message” | Focus is on giving great value to the recipients |
Fire & forget | Regular engagement with further email or telephone follow up around the topic the recipient engaged with |
Campaigns don’t evolve based on user behaviour | New messages are created and targeted based on engagement with past content |
ROI difficult to measure | Known ROI based on a regular stream of new leads and closed sales |
So next time you are thinking about your email strategy think email selling over email marketing.