Showing Respect to Your Email Audience

I am always amazed at the wide discrepancy of commercial emails that I receive. Some seem directly targeted to my – middle-aged, male – needs and wants, while others might as well have been sent to my teenaged daughter or mother-in-law. Please, email marketer! Take a little time to send me messages designed just for me. Include only products and services that might interest me, and keep them short and focused.

I truly appreciate the email newsletters that I receive with clear topics that I can click on for the rest of the article. This way, I do not need to wade through six entire articles to find the one that interests me. I also respect any online reseller that knows email marketing can be used to send targeted messages based on personal demographic information. For example, I received a message today highlighting shirts that were on sale in my size. The best part is that the message was designed in a way that I could see a small collection of what was available and click over to the online reseller’s website in less than 5 seconds.

Keep your email messages focused and keep them quick and easy to scan. Know your audience and respect them. Know that I do not read commercial email messages, I only scan them for about 6 seconds before I hit delete. The biggest criticism of email is that it has become a vast wasteland of pointless offers. As an email marketer, you can help reverse this trend. Spend some time to create an email marketing campaign that will engage rather than irritate your audience. Create an offer just for me!

Here are a couple of targeted emails I would like to write:

Dear Major Bookstore: I do not recall the last time I purchased or read a romance novel, and I definitely am not going to buy one for that special someone because it is Valentine’s Day. Please show me some respect. I have your reward card, so you know what I purchase. Please stop bombarding me with offers that do not interest me, or I am going to unsubscribe from your email mailing list.

Dear Online Ticket Seller: I currently do NOT have the time to spend twenty plus minutes scrolling down your list of concerts, Broadway shows, and sporting events. I have purchased tickets from you in the past – using my email address to login to my account, so you must know what I kind of events interest me.

Thank you so much for letting me rant. Sometimes hearing your customers complain is the best way to know what you can be doing better. Email marketing is no exception. I truly find value in messages designed to respect my wants and needs, and more importantly, the value of my time.