The Wall Street Journal reported last week that the top 100 retailers sent an average of 177 emails to customers each in 2011. Some, like Nieman Marcus, sent more than 500 emails last year!
You don’t need to send hundreds of emails per year, but you should be aggressively building lists of customers and prospective customers. This is especially critical for the startups among you. Gather lists of your competition’s customers, and people interested in your general category of product or service.
Then, relentlessly send them value. Here are some ideas:
- Deals
- Promotions
- Giveaways
- Customer testimonials (videos are best)
- Customer profiles and how various people improve their lives with your product
- How-to’s
- Success stories
- Your plans and recent developments
The point, of course, is to build a relationship with your prospective customers. Don’t underestimate the power of a good list and an effective direct communications strategy. It’s cheaper more powerful than nearly every other alternative.
The Evangelist Marketing Minute is a weekly thinking launch point that is always short enough to read in about 60 seconds. Your email address is never shared, with anybody, for any reason.
This year alone, several small or startup consumer electronics companies have hired me as a sort of outsourced CMO, to personally handle most of their marketing function. Contact me for details. My clients include TiVo, Logitech, Sony and Pandigital. My Web site details my work.