Less promotion, more sales: the evidence
Latest posts | Feed | | By Mark Brownlow
There's a storm headed our way.A deluge of quick-fix promotional emails fed by the urge to capture holiday sales, meet annual targets and do "what everyone else does."
Nothing wrong with promotional emails of course. They are the lifeblood of email-driven sales. But you can sense the nervousness in the email world.
Will we end up with exhausted, unresponsive lists...drained of ever last drop of interest by email fatigue?
Or are we cultivating a coupon culture that sucks the life out of your brand and margins...with subscribers trained to ignore anything that doesn't come with a large double digit "% off" in it?
Two weeks ago, we wondered if a content newsletter approach might have value in defeating these twin risks.
Others are speaking up, too...
Dylan Boyd writes:
"So why are you always concerned about your immediate sales? Sure someone is always in market somewhere, but you need to be ready to build a relationship first."
And Stephanie Miller adds:
"...email also works great when providing value: Information, helpful tips and timely offers can boost response and protect margin"
But you're not convinced, right? So how about a real-world example?
One pet supplies company switched focus from promotional to informational content and ended up with more clicks, more conversions and bigger orders. Read the case study before it disappears behind a payment barrier.
The lesson is not that one approach is better than the other, but simply that there is more than one approach to email marketing. Discounts and coupons are not your only option.
Permalink | November 10, 2008 | 5 comment(s) - add yours!
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5 Comments:
Thanks for bringing this up.
It really bugs me to see brands with enormous relationship-building potential get caught up (or rather, bogged down) in "coupon culture."
While discounts/coupons certainly aren't going away (nor should they), IMHO their overuse brings otherwise good email marketers down to the level of people who say things like "email blast" and view email as purely a cheap way to extract a few more sales on demand.
It's tempting to fall prey to the allure of the short-term gains that repeated discounting offers, especially in the current global economy. Hopefully some folks will read this post and think about the long-term effects.
Thanks again Mark.
By 
Justin Premick, on
10 November, 2008
Definitely agree with building the relationship first.
I have been doing an informational email twice a month for the last six months and quite often get very nice, personal emails from readers who appreciate the industry advice and news at no cost to them.
Its been very beneficial in maintaining relationships with clients after they've used our services.
And ensures that we're still regularly thought of by these ex and potential clients.
By 
Rebecca, on
11 November, 2008
Justin - yep, it's the classic short-term gain vs long-term risk conundrum
Rebecca - 100% agree. The newsletter was made for service companies to stay top of mind during those long gaps between sales when people aren't in the market. Thanks for citing your own positive experience!
By , on
11 November, 2008
Email marketers seem to love to lower their margins and leave money on the table.
The mania for discounts can in driven to a large degree by the standard practice of blasting emails to every possible email address. When presented with a downturn the Pavlovian response then is to blast out discounts.
In reality, customers are not the same. Some will buy from you without discounts and some will require discounts.
The trick is how to figure out who requires what. For decades in the offline world, marketers used Recency, Frequency and Monetary value (RFM) segmentation to resolve this issue. RFM can be used only even more effectively because it can be automated.
By Craig Kerr, on
12 November, 2008
To me email marketing is one part of the communication strategy that an organization can use. It is an opportunity to connect with their target in an electronic mode vs. paper or phone. It can be used for brand building or for a specific promotion.
By Grant, on
14 November, 2008
