The dreaded email marketing assignment. I had hoped we’d just gloss over this aspect of social media for business. So much so I just just couldn't get the assignment done in time for the normal Thursday due date. Since I’m a touch compulsive about my email folder maintenance, I spend a good deal of time deleting junk mail. I'd estimate at least 150 junk emails a day get skimmed through, filtered and deleted thanks to the pervasive nature of email marketing. I would hazard a guess that this is the least useful form of marketing, especially when considering the other areas of social media marketing out there. When considering my response for this assignment, I reviewed a few days worth of my emails to see how effective email newsletters could be. My results; if considering the number of junk emails received vs the number of them that I actually open and read, I may take time with 3 per 1050 emails each week. Ultimately those three emails do not turn into sales, I just actually read those three.
For the business I'm intending, a email newsletter might come in the form of a newspaper with articles about all kinds of things. Upcoming events, reviews of motorcycle gear, motorcycle project recaps etc. Basically I'd disguise the newsletter as much as possible to make it look less like some type of marketing push and more like entertainment. I certainly wouldn't make people use an email address to sign into an account. I'd send it monthly and would be really cognizant of customer feedback so that I could modify the email or remove customers from the list if they want.
In the end, I'll give this project a nice go and see how it turns out. At this point I'm not sold on email marketing as an effective use of my time or social media. I'd like to hear any counter opinions that could sway me the other way! Thanks for reading.
Hello, Mathew. I can somewhat relate to your desire to make your newsletters appear entertaining to potential customers rather than using them to push a clear, sales-driven. Sometimes companies can appear desperate (and short of a loyal customer base) if most of the emails they send out are all related to persuading customers to buy stuff that they might not my interested in at the time that they are looking at these email sales promotions. I really like your idea of focusing some of the newsletter articles on reviewing motorcycle gear because such articles focus on providing a service to the customers, not an obvious service for the company marketing the motorcycles. Since I don’t know anything about motorcycles, it is kind of difficult for me to suggest any topics for you, but maybe your newsletters could also focus a fun routes to ride your motorcycle and what kind of motorcycles work the best with different kinds of lifestyles. Anyway, thank you for being honest about your thoughts on this assignment. I have seen your blog posts, and based on those, I can say that you would probably do a pretty good job on the newsletter assignment.
ReplyDeleteKathryn, thanks for your feedback. One thing I promised myself when deciding to take this class is that I'd give the assignments an honest try. Aside from having some trouble with the Mail Chimp formatting, it wasn't as bad as I thought. I really like your idea of including ride routes in the newsletter. That actually ties really well into the Week 12 assignments and could be an idea that keeps my readers from immediately deleting my newsletter! Cheers!
DeleteI like how you were honest about this assignment. I think you have great ideas on creating content for a newsletter, but if you don't think it will benefit your business at this point I respect your answer.
DeleteMegan, thanks for taking the time to drop a comment. Sorry for the late response. One thing I have really come to see from this class is that the number of tools and ways to use those tools to promote my business through Social Media is pretty comprehensive. So comprehensive that it doesn't hurt to only concentrate on those tools you can take advantage of. In my case email marketing is one I will let rest for the time being. Cheers!
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