Dec 25, 2022
First impressions can be lasting.
When your marketing arrives in front of a prospect – email into an inbox, direct mail in the post, at somebody’s door or waiting room, a pattern interrupt on social media or as an advertisement; it can be perceived as either being an annoying pest or a welcome guest.
You are working from home
Imagine you are sitting, working from home. It’s around midday – and you hear knocking on your front door.
Chances are it’s someone like an Avon lady or the Jehovah Witness.
Because you have not invited anybody to come over, you think this is an annoying pest and you are busy, so you ignore it, confident that if you ignore a pest, it will go away.
It will tire of trying to get your attention and move on to the next house.
The knocking goes on for a while, but you are stubborn and are good at this “ignore” game.
Next thing you know, this person has climbed over the back wall of your property, and they are now banging on the sliding glass door, which they can see you through…
So now your kind of under an obligation to answer the door.
The message is all your shrubs in your front yard are on fire, and the flames are starting to lick at the front of your home.
His message was he’s called the fire brigade, but can you come out and help him fight the fire until they arrive.
A new impression
Now at that second in time, he (the intruder) went from being a most annoying pest to a most welcome guest.
And the only thing that changed was…
Right message, right time!
In our world, the world of marketing, for a decade or so, our marketing has been losing its impact.
In our strategies to overcome this impact loss, have been clunky, ineffective, and annoying.
When stats like email open rates are down.
The marketer who was sending one email a day will now start sending two a day.
As open rates go down further. Send four. Open rates go down even further. Send eight until opens rates are zero.
The bottom line is, you can't really amp up being an annoying pest and get results.
It's hard work.
Therefore, we must work in strategising with our marketing to do everything in our power to show up as a welcome guest!
This is why I like to use mail and in particular FedEx a lot, instead of simply email, because interest level automatically goes up because it's an interesting piece of mail or a FedEx package.
But if you do have to use email, at least make sure it is easy to read, skimmable, and of course, fit for purpose to help the recipient rather than pester and annoy.
Pause, strategise and spend as much time as you like ensuring that you appear as a welcome guest and your marketing will cut through be welcomed and succeed.