I made a comment on a blog recently that started a big discussion.  The comment was that “spam is in the eye of the receiver.” Why did this solicit so many comments?

Gone are the days of mass mailing everyone from your Outlook address book. For those of you who want to use email as a marketing technique, you want your email list to be targeted, professional, and polished. You also don’t want to spam people or black list your email server. That’s why using a service like Constant Contact for mass emails (also called email blasts) is recommended.

The most import thing to remember about spam is:  “Spam is in the eye of the receiver.”  It is easy for anyone to mark your email as spam.  If I signed up for your emails a few month ago, but I forgot that I did; your message is spam to me.  I may even report it as spam -  AND reporting a message as spam can be as simple as one click of the mouse.

Here’s the catch with email.

If you do it right, email works to grow your business. If you do it wrong, people think it’s spam, and people hate spam. Hate isn’t one of the buying emotions, is it? So I think it’s safe to say that you don’t want people to hate your communications. In order to steer your business away from negative perceptions and towards positive ones, you need to practice email marketing, not spam marketing.

Email Marketing is:

… delivering professional email communications, to an interested audience, containing information they find valuable.  Let’s examine that definition:

Delivering professional email communications. ‘Professional’ means sending emails that represent the characteristics of your business visually (your brand), while delivering information that educates your audience and/or differentiates your business from the competition.

To an interested audience. An ‘interested’ audience is comprised of people who are familiar with you and your business and have asked to receive your communications.

Containing information they find valuable. If your communications aren’t valuable and appreciated by your audience, no one will want to receive them.

To Spam or Not to Spam – it really isn’t a question

People hate spam.  But they love messages that contain relevant information that they can use.

Are there emails that you get from people you know, like and trust?  Which ones do you read and which ones do you just delete?

Questions on the following topics were submitted:

1. Education
2. Home Ownership
3. Health Care Reform
4. Veterans
5. Small Business
6. Auto Industry
7. Retirement Security
8. Green Jobs and Energy
9. Financial Stability
10. Jobs
11. Budget

Is the White House embracing social media?  I think so.  I would expect that applications like “Open for Questions” will gain in popularity.

Here is the opportunity for your business

Every business wants to know what their customers are thinking.  What are their likes, dislikes, how can they improve, why do they choose a competitor, why do they buy, what is the right price, etc.  Every consumer wants businesses to know how to better serve them.  Whether they speak up or not, consumers are consciously or unconsciously making buying decisions.  Social media allows businesses and consumers to connect.  It is a win-win situation.  Everyone gets what they want!

Free and low cost tools are available to bring you closer to your customers

Here are a few free or low cost tools to gather feedback from your customers.

1. Online Surveys.  Contact Contact has a great survey tool that allows you to create an unlimited number of surveys.  I have one on customer service that I put on the bottom of invoices, one for measure the effectiveness of our training programs, etc.   The nice thing about online survey tools is that they ‘roll up’ all of the survey data in to a report that can help you make better decisions on the data presented to you.
2. Blogs.  Utilize the comments section on your blog.  Ask for feedback, encourage it, make it an expectation.
3. Forums.  Create groups of people that ask questions and answer questions for you.
4. Free tools like Get Satisfaction are great for enhancing customer service.
5. Do you have other tools that you would recommend – please add a comment below!

ONE ACTION ITEM:  How can you harness the power of social media?  Let’s take a look at “Open for Questions” to get an idea on how you can bring your customer closer.  Go to www.whitehouse.gov/OpenForQuestions and read up on the questions that were submitted.  Vote on the questions that you are passionate about.  This is social media in action.