We talk a lot about relevance in this email marketing blog. A lot. So imagine my surprise to see Morgan Stewart’s article on relevance being over-rated.
Gulp.
I don’t think Morgan is saying throw relevance out the window. Of course our email marketing must still be relevant! That’s chief among email marketing best practices! Perhaps we should reconsider the word, however.
Morgan points out:
‘The vocabulary used by consumers talking about the companies that do the best job marketing to them is totally different. Instead of relevant, they use words like “interesting,” “helpful,” “informative,” and “awesome!” Most importantly, they talk about how these companies “care” about them.’
You might wonder, “What’s the difference between relevant and interesting?” Maybe not much to us in the email marketing department, but a lot to the consumer. Because we have to know the consumer’s worldview and use the consumer’s words. If we switch places with him or her, from email marketer to email recipient, there’s a huge difference between the words relevant and interesting. If I’m a parent, relevant might mean an email has to do with parenting…a broad topic to say the least. But interesting means I’m getting something compelling in the inbox, like why or why not I should have my child vaccinated against chicken pox. Or how old is old enough to date.
As for awesome, well, that’s taking it to a whole new level! One I’m sure all of us email marketing folks would love to reach!
I doubt we’ll stop talking about relevance in this email marketing best practices blog. It’s still a requirement. But I think the challenge of moving beyond creating relevant emails to creating emails one would describe as interesting, helpful, informative and awesome is one we should all take on.
Then consumers might move from tolerating our emails to loving them. Wouldn’t that be awesome?
About the Author: Sharon
