Note to Association Marketers—E-mail is Dead
Did you know people in their 20’s think e-mail is “old?"
This line from Stephanie Vance’s article Network Your Way to Advocacy Success—Online! Published in the November/December issue of The Association Forum of Chicagoland’s magazine Forum got me thinking.
Outside of work, 99.9% of the email that I get is spam. Granted, I have a couple of websites and domains so my spam bucket is fills daily with hundreds of unsolicited messages. The personal e-mails that were so much a part of my life have dwindled. New, richer communications channels have taken their place.
The messages that reach me, the conversations that I’m interested in, come largely through channels other than e-mail. These channels include social networks, message boards, blog comments, and listservs that I’ve chosen to subscribe to. This is my trusted communication network. I can grow it or reduce it.
Association marketers should pay attention. Marketing plans based on blast e-mails probably aren’t reaching as many customers as you think. There is still a place for traditional marketing activities, but if your association is still primarily cranking out postcards, flyers, and bulk e-mail – well, you are missing the party. And you are leaving money on the table. Associations are uniquely positioned to develop trusted channels and to leverage those channels for revenue through marketing in context and through community. More later.
This line from Stephanie Vance’s article Network Your Way to Advocacy Success—Online! Published in the November/December issue of The Association Forum of Chicagoland’s magazine Forum got me thinking.
Outside of work, 99.9% of the email that I get is spam. Granted, I have a couple of websites and domains so my spam bucket is fills daily with hundreds of unsolicited messages. The personal e-mails that were so much a part of my life have dwindled. New, richer communications channels have taken their place.
The messages that reach me, the conversations that I’m interested in, come largely through channels other than e-mail. These channels include social networks, message boards, blog comments, and listservs that I’ve chosen to subscribe to. This is my trusted communication network. I can grow it or reduce it.
Association marketers should pay attention. Marketing plans based on blast e-mails probably aren’t reaching as many customers as you think. There is still a place for traditional marketing activities, but if your association is still primarily cranking out postcards, flyers, and bulk e-mail – well, you are missing the party. And you are leaving money on the table. Associations are uniquely positioned to develop trusted channels and to leverage those channels for revenue through marketing in context and through community. More later.
Labels: associations, Marketing, social media
posted by Ken Zielske, CAE at
10:55 PM
1 Comments:
Thanks for the shout out! I agree that mass produced communications are far less effective than personalized, interactive approaches. This is true whether you're communicating with an association member or a member of Congress. And yet, for some reason, people still seem to measure success by how many e-mails, postcards or letters have gone out, NOT whether they were actually influential! Your comments have also inspired me to renew my commitment to not checking my e-mail every 30 seconds. There's rarely anything of interest in there any way :)
Stephanie Vance, the Advocacy Guru
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