When I was studying in Mexico, a new nightclub opened in Cuernavaca. There were colorful posters everywhere and club promoters took to the streets during the weeks leading up to the grand opening handing out VIP passes to the big event. My friends and I were definitely in the market for a new place to go and it wasn’t too often that we were treated like VIPs as university students; so we took the bait and marked the calendar.
The big night came and we found ourselves standing with the mob of VIPs which formed a line around the corner of the up-lit building. We were excited and eventually found ourselves walking through the neon entrance. It didn’t take long for us to realize that the place was all hype and no substance. The drinks were watered down and overpriced, the music was too loud and too dated and the dance floor didn’t accommodate the crowd. We stayed for a couple of hours before deciding to relocate to an old familiar bar, where the beer was cold and the staff was friendly. We never went back to the club and never recommended it to anyone we knew.
Email marketing is a lot like a nightclub. There are two important elements in successful email marketing; building your list and retaining it. If you do a great job getting people to subscribe to your email, but don’t provide a good experience or good value in your campaigns, then you are wasting your time because those new subscribers won’t stick around for long.
But if you focus on the experience of the people who have already subscribed (those people already on your list) – if you work hard to ensure that your recipients have a good experience – if you surpass their expectations with each message that you send – then not only will they stay on your list, but they will more than likely recommend you to their family, friends or colleagues. Ultimately, your email subscriptions will increase in line with the satisfaction of your existing subscribers.
In Seth Godin’s post The big drop, he explains how the experience of the first group of people that you get to buy your product or listen to your record or read your book will determine whether a second group of people, or a third will want to experience it.
“…If the first circle is excited about what we do and it’s remarkable enough to talk about, they’ll tell two or six or ten friends each. And if we’re really good, the second circle, the people we don’t even know–they’ll tell the third circle. And it’s the third circle that makes you a hit, gets you elected and tips your idea…” continue reading
Attracting new subscribers is important. But keeping them on your list and exciting them enough to spread the news is the real rave in email marketing.
What’s it like inside your nightclub?
