| Me! Me! Me! It's all about me! |
| Sunday, October 10 2010 23:00 | |||
 It has happened to everyone at some point in time: you attend a social function only to find yourself stuck next to the person in possession of a one-track mind with themselves as the center of their own attention. Did you hang on every word? Probably not. More likely you tried to find some way to wriggle free from the non-stop verbal barrage. I'm sure you asked yourself, "How can someone be so self-absorbed?" Weren't we all taught that it's not polite to talk solely about oneself? Did you promise yourself you will never behave this way?
So why is it then that we all still receive (and let's tell the truth - send) email marketing that follows this pattern? Do we really think that somehow, in print, we have become more interesting? More worthy of all the attention? Of course not. But it is easy to forget that we call this digital medium known as email an "interactive" medium for a reason. If "engagement" is about a meaningful interaction between a consumer and a brand, why are so few subscribers engaged? After all, in email marketing it is easy to see when someone isn't engaged: they don't open, they don't click. They unsubscribe. They click the spam link. Check your own inbox. Some marketers respond to low engagement by talking louder. Some respond by talking more frequently. Some do both and some stop talking altogether. Do you think any of these responses lead to a meaningful interaction between a consumer and a brand? Highly unlikely. To create an interactive, engaging email marketing experience - get to know your email subscribers - and show them that you are paying attention to them. It’s not about you. Gather data. Use email subscriber attributes to track the data. Create relevant content that takes advantage of your data and segment your messages according to the data. It isn’t that hard. I promise. As you plan what you want to say to your subscribers, think about what their responses will tell you about your email list. For example, you may be able to determine which of your subscribers may be married with children by creating content relevant to families as well as content geared to single persons. A click on one flags the “family” subscriber attribute. A click on the other records them as “single.” Now you can steer future content based upon this distinction. If you know your subscriber is in Miami, that special price on winter coats probably isn’t relevant. There are many ways to collect subscriber data: via the opt-in form, via surveys, etc. The important thing is to not be the one sending email marketing content that says, "Me! Me! Me!" because no one will be listening. Be relevant, engaging and competitive in the inbox by letting your subscribers know it’s really all about them. More about email segmentation:
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