Are you creating marketing so good that it would be missed if it were gone?
If you didn’t show up, would people wonder where you are?
What metrics do you pay attention to in your marketing? What numbers matter to you? Open rate? Conversion? CPC? CPM?
What about qualitative metrics? How about if you didn’t show up, would people would wonder where you are? Or, better, would you be missed? Has anyone gotten through to you like that? If they said they were going to do something on a particular day and they didn’t make it, they didn’t show up to serve, did you miss them? Did you wonder what happened to them? If you experienced this sense of loss, they’ve successfully gotten through to you. They’ve built a definitive relationship with you and you may not know it. They’ve given so much good stuff that you actually miss hearing from a marketer, someone looking to effect change in your life! Don’t feel bad — this is marketing done right.
SO much of what companies send as marketing messages and communications is tripe. It is we, we, we. It is rarely customer-focused. It is rarely talking to a single customer. All you have to do is scan your inbox to see this in action. If you’re like most people, you don’t even open most emails. You merely scan who it is from and the subject line. If it is uninteresting, it barely gets a glance out of you. And if you don’t know the sender? It may as well go immediately into spam or deletes.
But what if it isn’t from a company, but from a person? What if this person writes to you like you’re the only person they’re writing to, even if it is coming from a larger company? Would you be more inclined to pay attention? What if they told stories that resonate with you? What if they gave you unexpected gifts? What if they solved a pressing problem for you without asking for anything in return? How would you view them then? If, one day, they stopped emailing you, would you miss them? Would you wonder what happened to them?
What if you could develop a relationship with people like this? What if you became so dedicated and driven for them that they thought this way about you? What if most everything you did became about value for them, for a particular group of people? Do you think they would want to hang out with you more? Do you think they’d want to come to live events with you? Do you think they would wonder what else you have for them? Do you think they would wonder, ‘If she’s giving me this here, what else does she have for me?’ Do you think they would love to hear from you more?
Large businesses blow it by making it only about the product, the service, the deal. All of our inboxes are flooded with these marketing messages 200x day. In a sea of sameness, we’re all adrift, unnoticed. But with differentiated, here’s-what’s-in-it-for-you messages from a real person, we tend to stick out in a good way. People want us. They want to hear from us. They want to see what we’ve got next for them. And this is exactly the type of relationship you want with your prospects and customers. Your marketing messages are so good that they create a sense of positive anticipation among your prospects. How many of us are doing this right now?
Don’t get mad if you’re not doing this. Or, if you’re operating from the old school of sales & marketing where, as Jeffrey Gitomer says, you’re just we, we, wee-ing all over your prospects and customers. You ignore these we-oriented messages as well. How can you blame your prospects and customers for ignoring yours? You can’t. Not honestly. You have to flip the script and begin communicating to your customers like you want to be communicated to. Happy. Friendly. Open. Helpful. Useful. Giving. Problem-solving. Introducing. Hey-did-you-know? Start there. Exactly the way you would like to be communicated to. And big companies: this is not reserved for the small business. Big companies can do this, too. Put a happy face to it. And start giving now. There’s your start. Or, your re-boot.
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