How can you create meaningful business relationships by managing your email lists?

Carolyn Kopprasch Agency Relations Associate, Emma Inc.

May 10, 2012 - 10:46 am EDT

Your list isn't just a collection of email addresses—it's a collection of 
people who've shown interest in your product or service.It's important 
to keep these relationships personal. As soon as they become 
fields in a spreadsheet, it's easy to treat them as data points. Even 
the easily automated task of managing your email list can become 
personal, to build trusted business supporters.


You can personalize your message in a few ways. Think of any relationship
—you interact differently with strangers, casual acquaintances and trusted 
friends. That logic applies to your subscribers, too. A brand-new customer 
has different needs than a long-standing one; a prospect who is just 
collecting information has an entirely different set of interests. When 
you meet people 
where they are in the customer life cycle, you show respect.


Beyond that, you can invite people to share information with you that will 
help you provide content they'll find relevant and interesting. Take 
advantage of preference centers, where customers can specify 
interests (like certain product lines) and frequency (like monthly or quarterly 
updates).


Every interaction you have with potential and current customers is a 
chance to build trust and demonstrate expertise, and the emails you send 
are no exception. Especially for b2b users, expert content is how your emails 
stand out in the inbox. Your past email data provide a unique segmenting 
opportunity as well. Take a few moments to gather the folks who click on 
certain types of content, and then send more of that information to those 
groups.


Instead of just bombarding your audience with messages, keep the 
conversation timely and useful. Just like social media, your email marketing 
strategy should be about engagement, not frequency.


Nielsen Co. statistics show that 93% of us subscribe to at least one 
business' email marketing list. Just because email is the most widely 
consumed medium doesn't mean it has to be the most stale one. Keep 
it fresh and keep it personal. Remember, there's a real person on the other 
side of that inbox.




Carolyn Kopprasch works with email marketing services provider Emma's (myemma.com) agency partners to 
provide training, resources and personalized consultations.

Who Is that Leader in the Mirror?

"Mirror, mirror, on the wall," asked the Queen in Snow White, "who is the fairest of them all?"
Things got sticky when the Queen got the answer she didn't want to hear, but at least her mirror was honest. Too many bosses are looking in the mirror and being told that they're doing just fine, despite evidence to the contrary.


An article in Training Magazine titled "The Blind Leading the Company" reported on research into manager confidence in their skills and the accuracy of their self-perception. Here's the money quote.
"97 percent of the managers who think they are “good” or “excellent” also believe they know their strengths and development areas. Compare this to only 63 percent of the managers who think they are “fair” or “poor.” Data reveals the managers most confident in their skills are also most confident that they see themselves."


I don't find this surprising at all. Study after study shows people in all kinds of situations are likely to over-estimate their abilities and underestimate the need for improvement. But if you're a boss and you want to be a good one, this research has three powerful implications.
You can't trust your mirror. No more excuses. After reading this post you can't fall back on the "nobody ever told me I overestimated my abilities" excuse.


You must commit to the rigorous and discomforting process of getting the true picture of who you are and how you're doing. Seeking feedback must become a habit. Hearing the feedback and acting on it, hard as it is, must be part of your plan. You can get some help from Mary Jo Asmus' excellent post, "The Value of Knowing Exactly Who You Are."


You must commit to the difficult habit of getting better. As you grow and develop, that target will move as Marshall Goldsmith wrote in What Got You Here Won't Get You There.


Boss's Bottom Line
Lieutenant General Robert Forman summed it up: "In the pursuit of excellence there is no finish line."