A new role for the old newsletter in a grim economy
Latest posts | Feed | By Mark Brownlow on October 20, 2008
The hailstorm of woe continues as the media bombards us with promises of impending economic doom and a need to watch every penny closely. How do you deal with that in your emails?
Many marketers are using the talk of crisis to express solidarity with readers, and highlight top deals and discounts. The message is plain: you need to save money...we can help you do that with these deals, coupons and offers.
I'm not going to argue with that, other than to highlight two dangers.
The first is the need to get the tone right.
"The sky is falling" messaging drives fear which drives response. Fear is a common tool in the copywriter's toolbox. But it can drive the wrong sort of response, too:
"If things are that bad, maybe I shouldn't be spending any money at all."
Equally, there are branding issues here: nobody likes the bearer of bad news. Even if it comes with free shipping.
A positive tone likely works better: Chad White has a good example from Office Depot and Lisa Harmon and Alex Madison highlight various "email takes on the economy" here.
The second danger is the hole you can dig yourself into.
There's a lot of pressure to discount as the year ends.
We have the seductive appeal of "save now while you still can" messaging, a desire to capture holiday shopping budgets, the need to meet annual sales targets and the uneasy feeling you ought to be doing what everyone else is doing.
And most everyone else is piling on the offers as December approaches.
You can get caught up in a spiral of ever-deeper discounts and ever-more urgent calls to action, eventually causing you to disappear up your own tail before exploding in a shower of 100%-off coupons.
What's left is an audience immune to promotional deadlines and bored by anything but the hottest deals and heaviest discounts. You just became a cheap brand.
Not saying it will happen, just saying it can happen.
So what are your alternatives? Well, here's one suggestion...
Remember the basic premise behind the lowly content-rich email newsletter?
"...the objective is usually to induce actions in and over the long-term. Newsletters aim to make the recipient of a newsletter much more likely at some time in the future to take the kind of actions ultimately desired by the publisher."
They're not about driving immediate sales, but putting you in the position to get that sale when the potential buyer is ready.
As such, they play a traditional role in lead nurturing: newsletters are ideal for products or services with a long sales cycle. Hence their popularity in the B2B world.
Now the idea of a long sales cycle is traditionally linked to the nature of the product or service: primarily purchases requiring big outlays (cars, new IT systems) and/or involving complex decision making.
Suppose, though, that the long sales cycle comes not from the product, but from the budgetary constraints of the consumer.
If there is an unwillingness to spend on anything but true necessities, then the sales cycle lengthens for many products and services. A new pair of fashionable shoes every month becomes one every six months.
Can you then apply the newsletter concept to these non-necessities?
Instead of using just promotions to grab a piece of a smaller pie, should you also use valuable content to build trust, loyalty and awareness? So you can take a bigger piece of the bigger pie once the recovery sets in?
Just a thought. Is the e-newsletter due a bigger role in email marketing?
More on newsletters | Tags: email newsletters, email marketing
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5 Comments:
This is an opportunity to connect with your clients and build trust over the long haul by being a leader, not a fear follower. Meanwhile, the "old newsletter" is one of the least expensive marketing methods. You build trust while focusing on one of the less expensive methods of marketing. That's a winning scenario however you look at it.
By 
Chad Board, on
21 October, 2008
Thanks Chad. As a follow-up, Michael Katz also has three reasons why your newsletter needs to be out there precisely when the economy is down.
By , on
21 October, 2008
While promotions can and do work, building up trust for the day when the consumer is ready to buy is just as important.
As for the "we are in hard times" type of pitch, I would avoid it for more than one reason:
1. Recessions are psychological and self fullfilling. If people think things are going to get worse, they help make things worse. You do not want to contribute to that sort of spiral.
2. Why put people in a scared mood rather than an optimistic mood. Sure, things are tight and *acknowledge* that. Point out that in tight times it is important to get the most value for your money but do not implicitly encourage people to hide from the market.
By 
Neil Anuskiewicz, Business Development Director, on
22 October, 2008
Yep, one of the approaches mentioned over at Chad White's blog was a toy company suggesting people buy toys to boost the economy. Even tongue-in-cheek it seems a rather spurious request. Surely you can motivate people to buy with a more positive message!
By , on
22 October, 2008
In present economy, one need to positive as much as real production is still on. What we are witnessing is not as result of natural disaster or destruction, it is financial mismanagement. The economic fundamentals are still strong and we should be able to hinge our market expectation on this through our marketing strategies
By Toba, on
04 November, 2008
