It’s costing more to send out brochures and postcards, so when you’re on the hunt for new business, just email. Right?
Not so fast. As tempting as it is to use your email to send out ads for new business, email is not your best choice. In fact it may be the quickest way to damage your brand, and cause you to lose more business than you’ll ever gain.
Here are 3 reasons to think about the email you are sending, and change your patterns for the future:
Quick Buck versus Lifetime Relationship
Think about your own email patterns. How many emails do you get in every day? This morning when I opened up my own email account, I had over 360 new emails waiting for me. Add in the non-stop email that comes in throughout the day, and I’m pretty sure I receive in excess of 500 emails per day.
Yes, I’m pretty good with the delete key. If you don’t make a great impression in your subject line, or I don’t recognize your name, I hit the delete button. I could easily spend all day with my email if I didn’t. So for me, nothing is more frustrating than opening up an email, only to find it’s a blatant sales pitch, trying to get me to buy something. Not only would I never do business with someone like this, I’m also more apt to tell about the experience as well.
Can you pick up business like this? Of course. But will it allow you to be in business five years from now?
SPAM
Depending on your email provider, its fairly easy to list an email as Spam – you simply click a button. If you send out dozens of email every day, and a good percentage of them tag your email as a Spam message, you’ll quickly find yourself without an account. They shut down first, and don’t ask questions. And if your hosting for your website is attached to the same server, your website might also be turned off, losing you hours or even days of being online while you move accounts.
Spamming the system simply isn’t worth it. There are easier ways to build a following, and have people come to you for information instead of trying to create an easy, quick sale.
Damage Your Brand
The Internet is fast. If you’re on Twitter or any of the other social sites, you know how fast one message can grow and penetrate an entire population.
If you use email to stay in touch with people that have requested information from you, you’ll create relationships. If you use email as your cold call method of choice, you’ll quickly anger people and cause them to lash back. With just a few clicks of the mouse, they have access to unlimited channels – and they know how to use them. The last thing you want to have to do is do more marketing to recover from bad publicity.
