Build Email Relationships, Not Spam Lists
Recently, a client posed this question:
“Some of the people with whom I work think we should collect email addresses from colleagues, friends, and associates who are affiliated with our industry. They want to add these contacts to our email newsletter mailing list. We work hard to make our newsletter content relevant to anyone in our industry, so they feel the contacts wouldn’t mind receiving the mailing. What are your thoughts on this strategy of growing our list?”
In my response I tried to go light on shaming her for even thinking that adding people to an email marketing list without their permission is appropriate. Instead, I wanted to emphasize that something of real value is at stake when they take this approach to list building. I also pointed out that there are better ways to ‘take advantage’ of colleagues who MAY enjoy their newsletter. I summarized my response to her below; let me know if you have a different take.
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Making the Commitment at Middle School Marketing
It seemed natural, given that marketing and social media are all about relationships, that our Middle School Marketing discussion for October spent a fair amount of time exploring commitment – and it should be no surprise that the darling of social media marketing, the corporate blog, was the center of conversation. Ryan Moede threw out the commitment question. Paraphrasing: “How do we set expectations around the level of commitment inherent to social marketing?”
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Social Expectations - Consumers are Looking for Better Interaction
The last two weeks have led to some interesting insights into consumer’s expectations of how they want to interact with brands.
From Technorati’s State of the Blogosphere, which reported that 4 in 5 bloggers write about their experiences – good or bad – with a company or product, to Cone’s report that an overwhelming majority of Americans (85%) active on blogs and other social media services expect to interact with companies through social media.
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