Are You Irritating Customers With Any of These Six Annoyances?
Even for an email expert, this mode of marketing via the inbox can be a tricky thing. No one gets a 100% open rate 100% of the time. No one gets that kind of click-through rate or email marketing ROI either. There are simply too many variables, otherwise known as customers.
As the saying goes, you can’t please all the people all the time. That’s why the 100% anything in email is a Holy Grail, not a doable goal.
Still, you can increase the numbers of people you please and inch those numbers upwards by doing so. Find out what people don’t like and do less of it. Then find out what people do like and do more of it. It’s as simple as that.
A new report from Pitney Bowes can help. Titled, “Why some customers are just not that into you”, this 5-page report is based on the findings from surveying 6,000 Pitney Bowes customers. Among those findings are the most irritating things marketers do…in the eyes of customers, that is.
As email consultants, we highly recommend taking a look at this report to make sure you’re not irritating when marketing via email, because according to Pitney Bowes, “…email is the channel where brands inadvertently annoy their targets most.”
In fact, tops among the six most irritating things marketers do is failing to include an opt out (unsubscribe) in emails.
Second on the list is too many emails. The other “winners” are…
- Asking them to support your charity or ethical concerns (84%).
- Sending offers from third-parties (83%).
- Trying to get them to interact with other consumers in an online community (81%).
- Encouraging them to attend branded lifestyle events (71%).
One doesn’t have to be an email expert to see that these are all easy to drop from an email marketing program as they are all forms of indirect branding, not direct marketing. And drop them you probably should, if you want to be welcomed in the inbox, not disdained.
As the report says, “When customer communications never annoy and always delight, a customer’s first, tentative brand interactions may well develop into a long-standing loyal relationship.”
And isn’t the long-term relationship what you really want?
Download the report here.
About the Author: Sharon
