Panelists: Give Consumers Emails That They Want To Receive

by David Goetzl: A discussion on the final day of MediaPost's Email Insider Summit found email marketers emphasizing the importance of employing a bottom-up and not top-down strategy. In other words: Avoid the easy trap of forgetting consumer preferences and habits. Stephanie Miller, vice president of strategic services at Return Path, who moderated the panel "A Call to Arms: How You Can Truly Move the Needle on Email," suggested that marketers often deliver messages they want to convey, rather than what a consumer is seeking.

There is something we can all learn from this
All marketers assess their marketing messages from their brand's point of view. Which was great way up until the 80s through to the 90s. But now...not so much.

Now, it's time to fuse your brand's marketing message with the needs of your consumers. Ask what do your consumers want from your brand, not only in the messaging, but in the marketing itself. Can you shift budget from a print ad, to make something more contextual? Can you use the budget you were going to spend on a TVC to distribute relevant content in the right context to really deliver what a potential buyer will appreciate?

So stop this silly marketing mix that we keep seeing. Not only do we as marketers not respond to it from other brands, our consumers are much more apathetic to the same noise.