We live in a deluge of information. Our email inboxes alone average 88 messages per day, however, only 24% of those emails actually get read, and less than 10% of push notifications get tapped.
The huge majority of messages that go unread should concern marketers. While businesses say a message is “spam” only if it’s unsolicited, customers think differently. To them, spam is any message that they simply didn’t want to see. And by that definition, most of today’s well-intentioned marketing is spam.
On the flipside, the rewards for getting it right are massive. Email messages that do get read can earn as much as $38 for every dollar spent. Push notifications cause significant spikes in revenue. One restaurant chain drove thousands of customers to their stores by sending out promos and discounts through an exclusive social media platform. As a result, most businesses are increasing budgets for email, push, social and other digital marketing channels.
Below are several questions that marketers can ask themselves in order to ascertain whether their messages will be deemed spam.
Does it read like spam?
As the volume of ordinary marketing that reaches customers rises, it’s important to make sure that your language is extraordinary. The first step is simply avoiding what all too many marketing messages do:
- Overuse of the words “sale/promo/buy/free”
- Including too many URLs
- Use bland, vague headlines for emails
- Use unnecessary exclamation points and capitalization
Messages should also be kept simple and straight to the point. Don’t make receivers scroll down to get to the meat of the message and make sure you leave a clear call-to-action.
Are you using the proper channel?
Marketers have access to more channels than ever: email, SMS and push notifications, as well as social messaging platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat. In the profusion of channels, it’s easy to move ahead with what’s familiar rather than thinking deeply about what customers prefer.
Brands with younger customers often perform better by experimenting with newer channels. Burberry, alongside a number of other fashion brands, has used the Asian messaging apps WeChat and Line with great success for content marketing.
Is it relevant to the recipient?
Humans crave personalized experiences. Home and lifestyle online retailer Dormify grew email revenue 92% by sending context relevant emails, including welcome newsletters for first-time subscribers and reminder emails for abandoned carts. Nicole Gardner, COO at Dormify, swore by the difference segmentation makes in an interview with MarketingSherpa: “It definitely helped a lot in making sure that our audience stays engaged and is getting really appropriate, relevant content. Whereas in the past, we might have been oversending messages that might not all have been relevant.”
Personalised experiences ease our brains into engaging. Hearing our own name causes our brains to light up like a disco ball, activating areas used for long-term memory and, more importantly, social behaviour. Additionally, a personalised email or notification makes decision-making easier, as it narrows down items that matter to the customer.
Does the customer even want to hear from you?
Nothing quite annoys customers like receiving unsolicited messages. In fact, almost half of email users mark messages as spam if they don’t recognize the sender’s name or email address. Google had to roll out an Android update with a feature that makes it specifically easier to opt out of notifications.
Securing permission to send content does more than assure an open. “Permission marketers understand that when someone chooses to pay attention, they are actually paying you with something precious. Attention becomes an important asset, something to be valued, not wasted,” says Seth Godin in a blog post on Permission Marketing. Marketers should make it easy for customers to adjust preferences, such as choosing how often to receive messages.
The steps to avoid spamming customers are fairly obvious–but in the rush to communicate, marketers all too often cut corners or forget. Paying attention to the language and intent of your marketing messages will ensure that they don’t land among the majority that customers ignore.