Our director of MarComm, Alf, recently purchased a new lamp from his local Lamps Plus store. At checkout, they asked him if he would like to get an email confirmation when the lamp arrived at the store, so he would know when to come and pick it up. Alf said yes. That’s when the trouble for Lamps Plus began…

The next day Alf received a marketing message from Lamps Plus. The day after that he got another. And the next, and the next. Uh-oh! Alf was still waiting for the promised email confirmation, but instead was getting barraged with marketing messages and sales offers. This is a classic email marketing no-no. When someone signs up for your list you enter into an agreement with them. In this case, Alf opted in to receive a confirmation. What he wasn’t told is that he would be getting daily marketing messages (Daily? Really? How many lamps does one person need anyway?).

The crux of successful email marketing is to establish a relationship with your subscribers by delivering them what you promised. It is vitally important that you communicate what you intend to send and how often. When you break that trust, your subscribers will lash back by unsubscribing, or worse, by reporting your messages as spam, which can damage your sending reputation.

So, do the right thing and deliver what you promised. Otherwise you may find yourself in the dark with your subscribers like Lamps Plus because you better believe Alf is no longer on their list.

What do you think?

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