online marketing Archives - Social Email Marketing

Marketing manners matter!

Unless you were raised by wolves in the wild, at some point you’ve learned it is polite to say “Thank You”. Not only is it proper etiquette, it’s just downright considerate and gracious. Yet for marketers, saying thank you is about much more than just being polite. If you’re in the business of building lasting, loyal customer relationships (and if you’re not, please question why you’re bothering to be in business at all ) it’s an essential practice that pays both monetary and good will dividends. Without it, you’re both at greater risk of customer flight and a sitting duck for the competition.

If you don’t already have a “thank you” process in place, it’s easy to begin one. I suggest matching the format of the initial thank-you message to the channel in which someone first did business with you, then expanding that over time.

For example, did someone purchase from you online? If so, email them a thank you with an offer to re-visit or purchase again, ideally with a coupon or free gift to entice them into action soon. Did they buy in your store or office? Postal mail them a thank-you follow-up. Did they do business with you at a conference, fair or trade show? Email and mail them an invitation to engage with you at either your physical place of business, your online storefront, or both. And keep the follow-ups coming.

Content has always been essential in online marketing. When I started in online marketing now (too) many years ago we called it king. For a good reason: everyone was focused on shiny websites and design but few businesses cared about the content. It made us mad, really. All those budgets marketers spent on websites and then just using them to put up a brochure. Emails without decent content, no focus on the user experience, you name it.

Everything was about what the corporation wanted to say instead of what people wanted to find. And design was more important than actual value. So we said ‘content is king’ (and of course the customer was king as well).

These days, it seems a bit silly to say content is king. It’s not like we live in 1996 anymore and content has become more important in all forms of (interactive marketing). But that does not mean it’s the only thing that matters. Believe it or not: now that content gets the attention it deserves, there’s a new risk: marketers focusing on the content while forgetting what it’s about: the context, the customer, the purpose. Context is essential. If content is king, customer is emperor, context is queen and clear goals are God (change order at will). Though content is crucial it’s how your business and people use it that truly matters. The context within which content is created and shared, is essential for the impact of the content on conversion, interaction, reach, engagement and in the end sales.