Email marketing is free - NOT!

Thursday Thursday Thursday. It seems that whoever you talk to, they're excited that the weekend is only two days away. That's a bit strange really, because fewer people get as excited about Wednesday afternoons, which is almost just as close.

Well, for me, the best reason to get excited about Thursdays is the chance to write this blog. Each week I notice that the visitor counter goes up and up a little more, and yet very few people choose to write a comment to let me know that they've been here. So I know I've asked it before but if you are a new reader, hello and welcome and please write a comment for me at the end.

This week I want to talk about email marketing. More and more companies are using it because they believe it to be an inexpensive, or perhaps even free way to pitch their products and services to a mass audience, all at once.

Does it work? Does it *?*&!?***!

Let's face it, email marketing is the junk mail of the 21st Century. Sure, all the spam filters can make sure that we don't have our inboxes overflowing with offers of a better sex life and the chance to lose 2 stone in 45 minutes, but then there are still offers from legitimate organisations which are not getting read.

Not convinced? Well try this experiment. For at least one hour at work today, switch off your email. Just turn it off. If you're worried that people won't get hold of you straight away, put on your out of office assistant explaining that you're in a meeting with no access to email and that you'll be back in an hour.

After the hour is up, turn your email back on and then drag to a new folder, all those emails which you are unlikely to ever do anything about, not including the ones from your office manager letting you know that you still haven't chosen what you want to eat at the Christmas party next week.

After one week, assuming that you do this every day, just look how full that folder is. Now these companies believed that they were saving money by sharing their information with you in this format. Look how wrong they were. It's not that they saved money, they actually wasted it instead.

You see every time we see a piece of mail from someone that we have instantly deleted in the past, we're more likely to delete it again, even before we've read it. What's worse, when that company does telephone you to discuss your needs, how likely are you to want to take their phone call?

You see, email marketing is far from free. It's very very expensive. People need to understand that any marketing effort that you make shows any potential customer just how much you value them. If I send you a slick brochure, a nice gift and follow up with a professional phone call and the offer of a meeting, I'm telling you that I value your business. I'm making an investment in our future relationship and what's more, I'm more confident that I will get a good return on that investment.

Conversely, if I send you some PDF mailer that I've sent to another 50,000 people that day, what I'm actually saying to you is that you're not really all that special - you're just another potential customer amongst a sea of thousands. Well just who wants to be treated like that?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that you shouldn't market yourselves via email. I'm just saying that your data needs to be clean and that email should not be the only means by which you communicate with your customers.

Think about it, the next time someone says "just send me an email", why not ask them if they feel they're ever likely to read it. It may seem blunt, but if you're a regular follower of this blog you'll know that I have no fear of total honesty.

Seriously, the time you spend writing and sending that mail could be spent calling another potential customer who may well have a genuine need for your services. Now if you follow up that phone call with a relevant gift, just think what that will do for your relationship.

Remember, the right gift, given the right way, will do wonders for your business. Do you know, I really think that's starting to become a catchphrase for me. Do you think it'll catch on?