I’ve subscribed to and have been reading Chris Brogan’s blog since around late 2005.
During the last 8 years of being a lurker and subscriber, I’ve given him my permission to use my inbox for his Sunday email marketing newsletters. They are very personal and direct, and have become part of my Sunday morning reading each week.
While do follow Chris’s tweets, Facebook updates, LinkedIn updates, Google+ posts and the like, I started reading Chris’s work before all of these networks rose to fame — back in the old days when your only means of getting attention to your work was to create stellar content, decent search engine optimization and the hope that your audience would bring their friends into the fold via word of mouth and email forwards. The content marketing crutch of social media hadn’t yet become mainstream back then.
Brogan is also an best selling author and content marketer, producing 3-4 books in the last few years that have topped the New York Times and WSJ lists. He also regularly sells online courses for small business professionals, entrepreneurs and other independent types on various ways they can use the web to build the escape velocity that will keep their wallets fat.
While I don’t know exact numbers, I do know that he’s used the web and content to become a successful, comfortable, and wealthy owner of multiple businesses over the years.
Too Much Pressure Can Squeeze Your Email Marketing Database to Death
In reading Chris’s post this morning entitled 7 Secrets From My Best Sales Day Ever, which discusses how he is using his email marketing newsletter to sell content products, this one particular bullet popped out to me as being so valuable, I decided to write an entire post on it.
It’s never about pressure. I’ll sell, and you don’t have to buy. Because pressure promotes impulse purchases, which prompts unsubscribes. If I’ve gone to all the trouble of having you join my super wonderful insider monchu family, I want you to stay.
It’s obvious that Chris’s approach is more focused on attention and retention, that speedy conversion and quick hit, one-time sales.
In all of the years I’ve been a subscriber, I can’t really recall Chris ever running discount promotion, offers for Free iPads or any other tactics or tricks designed to pressure people into to clicking the buy button. In reality, he probably has done some of this, but not to the point that I can remember
For Brogan’s list, slow and steady content, intermittently sprinkled with low pressure calls to action to buy his stuff wins the race. His businesses are built by keeping readers like me engaged and coming back to each post, each email marketing newsletter and the content products he sells through trust, quality and the free gift of content.
From the customer perspective, it seems to be working. I personally have bought all of his books, signed up for a few paid web courses and even attended the Inbound Marketing Summit in Boston – a conference he promotes.
With Path Will You Choose in Email Marketing?
Tweet This Quote from Chris if you agree:
“Pressure promotes impulse purchases, which prompts unsubscribes” – @chrisbrogan
You have a very simple choice to make with your email marketing program, that starts with this question:
Are we in this for quick wins or long term gains?
On one had, you can go after the quick, one-time sale. You can offer discounts, free products and constant promotions. You can use these tactics to drive in quick sales while you watch your list attrition rate increase with each new campaign.
You’ll be able to show your CEO the fast impact your email marketing program has had on the bottom line and live to fight another quarter, knowing that to hit those numbers down the road, you’ll need to constantly add new subscribers to replaced the folks you’ve squeezed out of your channel by applying pressure.
One the other, you can follow Brogan’s lead and be transparent with your selling. You can choose to move slowly, add value to your community through free content and your attention and time in responding the individual community members needs, questions and ideas.
You can still sell sparingly, and with no pressure to buy. Some of your community will never spend a dime. Others, when they are comfortable and have a need, will convert into your customer. But, more of them will probably be around for your next update.
What path have you chosen for your email marketing efforts?
