The Need to Emphasize Satisfaction (not Just Permission) in E-mail Marketing.

You have probably seen the Monty Python skit – if not, you’ve experienced it in real life.  The setting is a restaurant.  The cook announces each name of each meal and each contains spam in quantity.  Two regular people argue with each other about the spam.  The vikings in the restaurant sing about the spam.  A man comes in to protest the spam.  The skit is such a thoroughly and hilariously British lampooning of spam eating.  If you haven’t seen it, check it out on Youtube.

The skit is the response to the prevalent and undesirable food during WWII.  The people were “fed up” with spam.   

It wasn’t that they didn’t “agree” to the need to help their country.  But… Spam?  It just doesn’t satisfy after a while.  

Spam is not mainly “unsolicited.” Spam is mainly unwanted.   

MarketingCharts.com is a resource that publishes cutting edge marketing research.  An article in March was titled “Email Marketers in Trouble as ‘Spam’ Definition Evolves to Mean ‘Unwanted’“  The article gives a quick glance at an eye-opening study.

Here is an excerpt from the survey by Q Interactive and Marketing Sherpa:

Over half of the participants, 56 percent, consider marketing messages from known senders to be spam if the message is “just not interesting to me”, while 50 percent of respondents consider “too frequent emails from companies I know” to be spam and 31 percent cite “emails that were once useful but aren’t relevant anymore”. (Respondents could select more than one answer for multiple questions in the survey.)

Your e-mail marketing should be more than permission marketing. 

The job of your e-mail marketing is to meet and exceed your recipients’ expectations when they signed up for your messages.  Engage your audience.  Provide them meaningful information.  Make the most of every bang.  Satisfy your customers with the info they crave. 

Your e-mail marketing should be satisfaction marketing.