Personality and the pull of Planet Mediocrity

The natural state of the universe is to gravitate toward chaos. The natural state of an email program is to gravitate toward mediocrity. It has a seductive pull.

One of the jobs of the email marketer is to avoid this mediocrity.

Through an awareness that production ruts are easy to get into, hard to get out of.

Through creativity.

Through a willingness to innovate.

Through quality.

And through inspiration from others.

Those who get the basics right are set fair for the future. But once you've established a quality program, what's next? Is being better than mediocre enough?

What keeps you top?

What's to stop someone else producing "quality content" and stealing your audience?

What makes your emails unique and irreplaceable? (Particularly if you don't have a unique niche or an irreplaceable brand behind you.)

What gives you the edge, so that subscribers would stick with you when they clean up their subscription list?

Developing unique content is a strong option. And Gary Levitt has some ideas on that. (The article inspired this post.)

What about personality?

Personality is how you say it (voice and style) and present it (creative design), rather than what you say and present (content).

Personality can make generic content unique. Personality can turn words and pictures into communication. And personality helps you avoid the natural drift to mediocrity that affects us all.

Quality content, permission, creative design, value, relevancy, timing, personalization, customization etc. are important factors that take your email marketing amplifier all the way up to 10.

But it may be personality that takes you up to 11.

What makes your emails irreplaceable?

Tags: email newsletters

Permalink | September 10, 2008 | 0 comment(s)
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