Don’t Let Me Down
E-Mail marketing has developed a bad reputation. We all hate spam. The more a person hates spam in her own mailbox, the less eager she is to send frequently. But not all e-mail marketing campaigns are created equal. Imagine that there are potential clients out there who would be disappointed not to hear from you. I know I was.
It was happy hour about a year ago. I settled in with a good friend at a shabu shabu restaurant for a fun evening and the waiter came by to present us with a survey. If we filled it out, including our e-mail addresses, we were promised a free drink. Talk about a no-brainer. We gladly filled out the survey which was pretty fun in itself with a series of silly conversation-starters worked in.
I remember this experience so clearly because it was fun, and I felt like I got something good out of the deal. We didn’t fill out the survey to enter to win something or just to tell them what we thought of the meal. We had already won. There was no drawing. Just by filling out the survey, we received a reward – our free beverage and a great start to a fun night. That restaurant had made two new friends.
I’d mention the name of this restaurant but I don’t remember it. I never got a single email from them. I have impeccable handwriting when I want to, so I’m sure that wasn’t the problem. The woman I was with hadn’t heard from them either. With all of the amazing restaurants in LA, it hasn’t occured to me to trek across town to visit them again.
Give New Friends Love – Get Love Back
Paul K is the name of a restaurant I visited in San Francisco with a friend over two years ago. I enjoyed my meal and the friendly wait staff so much that I left my contact info on the comment card even though I live in LA. I receive e-mails from them about once a month. They always use a friendly tone that seems to be a continuation of the good rapport we had with our waiter. They also have fun with their email offers using “secret passwords” instead of boring coupons. I loved getting their emails even though I live in another city. About a year later, I visited San Francisco with another friend and insisted that we dine at Paul K, a restaurant name I’m sure I’ll never forget. Next time I make it back to SF, I’m going there again.
Keeping In Touch Maintains Relationships
What do we do with information that we collect from new contacts? I sometimes wonder if we don’t reach out because we don’t know what to say. Or we get performance anxiety. Do we have enough information for a proper newsletter? If we send coupons or announce specials, will they think it’s spam and unsubscribe? Maybe you’re a small operation and no one is a particularly gifted copywriter. If we expect our emails to read like the Economist, this might be a legitimate excuse. But I don’t think our new contacts expect so much from us.
E-mail marketing is about maintaining relationships with people who trust us enough to give us their information. They’re our new contacts – friends – not prospects. Maybe if we think of them as new friends instead of prospects we’ll have an easier time writing our emails and our new friends will look forward to reading them a little more because they’ll come from a person, not an organization.
