I’ve had it. It’s over. Done. Cooked. I’ve had it with the emails that pitch your products, workshops or potions! Stop sending them to me.
And, if Terri Norvell is any indication, the rest of your customers are about to do the same thing.
Terri, the founder of TheInnerPrize.com recently told us, “I’m going to remove my name from their email list. They don’t provide me anything of value - and all they do is market to me.” We won’t tell you who she was talking about - but you’d be surprised if we did.
The important phrase in what she said was, “they don’t provide me anything of value.”
Email Gone Wrong
You see, most of these emails are my fault. I signed up for them - because I was promised tons of valuable information. Instead, I’ve received tons of pitches, come-on’s and offers - and virtually no valuable information.
Not all are my fault, I want you to know. Recently, someone started sending me sales pitches - out of the blue. The woman who answered the phone seemed unconcerned when I asked how they’d gotten my email address. The exact quote was, “We have a very large database and do not know specifically how your name came to us.” That’s what’s known as spam, no?!
However, it doesn’t matter - asked for or not - listen up, Tom, Phil, Lorrie, Mike, Daniel and the rest of you:
Take me off of your email list. Just delete me. What you offered is not what you delivered.
Nuh-uh. Enough. Stop.
I think I finally snapped a couple of days ago when Phil sent me two emails in less than four hours. His daily emails, up to then, had only driven me to seek counseling.
The first email offered me “key behavioral factors” that would “make every employee more valuable and productive.” Never mind that I don’t have any employees, my heart raced at the thought of the key behavioral factors. He was even throwing in, without any extra cost - “a guide for employees’ self improvement.” Why, I could barely keep my credit cards in my pocket.
But, then, four hours later (I kid you not) Phil broke my spirit. He was hawking a 2-hour seminar that would transform my business. But, it took him longer than a New Yorker article to explain that it was just $29. What a deal.
Maybe it was the two emails in one day, or maybe it was the fact that Phil had nothing to do with any of this - he just cut and pasted his picture onto his company’s twaddle.
Or, perhaps it was this line in Tom and Lorrie’s offerings - “You’d be crazy to miss this opportunity!”
Nope, I’d be crazy to continue to get this continuous claptrap. So, if all you’re going to send me is a pitch to “Buy my stuff,” I’m done. I’m no longer going to:
- “Click to learn more about how to…”
- “Sign up today!”
- “Order now.”
In fact, I’m not even going to read the emails - because I’m not going to be seeing them. Thanks a lot. But, it’s over.
Hype is Out - Content is In
In an information economy you have to give it away. Don’t believe me? Just read Chris Anderson’s “Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business.”
The short version of Mr. Anderson’s article is that information is now so readily available you simply won’t be able to keep pitching, hawking and charging for it. Customers will need to know that you know your stuff. Which means your free samples need to be current, meaty-sized, regular hunks of things they can use right away.
It’s only when people are convinced that you know your stuff that they might actually pay to hear more, read more or see more of you.
In an information economy you won’t be able to be a blog consultant who doesn’t blog, an SEO expert who has no web site traffic or a sales expert who… well, only sends out sales pitches.
Those sales pitch email messages are on their way to the scrap heap of communication history. The good news for the rest of us is that in an information economy, we’ll be the ones choosing what to read and when to read it - and our email inboxes will have plenty of space left for those forwarded jokes from Uncle Harry.
It’s true, then we’ll have to go to work on Harry - but at least email marketing will be dead. May it rest in peace.
3 comments ↓
Not sure that it’s dead, but certainly some email marketers need to be offered that option. There are some emails I receive every day and look forward to getting (there’s this Hidden Business one I get that is pretty good). Others are purely annoying because you’re right, they just try to sell stuff. Relevant and interesting content is king. If you put in a link that says “buy here to learn more” that’s okay. Otherwise, if it’s not relevant to what I care about, I click delete.
Thanks for the comment Sam,
Just to make it clear - we don’t send Sam the emails he mentions from Hidden Business. He gets an email notification every time we burp on this site - or he subscribes and sees it on his Google desktop or his RSS reader. That’s what we mean when we wrote above, “The good news for the rest of us is that in an information economy, we’ll be the ones choosing what to read and when to read it…”
Sam, by the way, is Sam Richter of “Take the Cold out of Cold Calling” - and you can read what we said about this dreaded competitor in “You Can Kiss Your Competitors Goodbye.”
Nicely said, Michael! I appreciate that you not only let me know that you were going to quote me at some time, when you did you let me know. Thanks for walking your talk and being the authentic guy you are! I’m walking my talk, too. I did say yes to so many eZnes and have gotten myself off those lists based on lack of value. There’s a message for all of us, me included, as we write our eZines or eLetters…self serving is OUT! ‘So what difference and value is the message to the reader’ is IN…for FREE! Another fine article and food for thought and action~
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