According to a recent study by Twilio, people aren’t really loving the marketing messages that they’re receiving. I wish that I could say that I was surprised by the fact that people are annoyed with or upset by the marketing messages they receive but, I’m not.
94% of consumers said that they’re currently annoyed with marketing messages that they receive.
Twilio Study
Here are some humbling stats brought on and how you could go about fixing them.
61% Complain of High Marketing Frequency
That’s over half of all consumers are complaining about how often they’re receiving marketing messages. This figure can be a bit deceiving and one could argue that the dissatisfaction could easily go hand-in-hand with how many newsletters and whatnot that a certain customer opts into. Still, this is an issue that we need to address.
The fact that people are this upset with marketing on the whole means that many of us are abusing that opt-in. You remember how your mom used to say, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything” or your grandma used to say, “God gave us mouths that close and ears that don’t for a reason” to you? Let’s adapt that a bit.
If you don’t have anything of value to say, don’t hit that send button!
Tim Welsh – Phrasing
Solution: Ask About Preferred Frequency
The odds are the if somebody opted into your email, they’re at their pique interest in engaging with you at this moment. While you have them engaged, ask them for information on what they’d prefer.
We’ve seen this help in a variety of ways. We try to ask our opt-ins about what type of content they find the most interesting and how often they’d like to hear about said stuff. From there, we know what sorts of messaging to lead with, even if we include other content that we internally deem important.
If you already have your people opted in, offer a prize. It doesn’t have to be big but it will help refine your lists. After all, $1,000 on an Amazon gift card could easily get a 20:1 return if you optimize just 10% of your list.
If you don’t ask people about how often they’d like to hear from you, they may just get annoyed and silence your sends forever.
56% Complain of Irrelevant Content
Take a look at your product/service catalog. You probably have different products and/or services that you’d like to sell to very different people. However, whenever you go to create your newsletter, you throw in a highlight sale and send it out to everyone.
If you sell both men’s and women’s items, you might have just alienated 50% of your audience. This could be worse if your products vary more dramatically. Why would we do this to ourselves or our customers?
Solution: Tag by Brand Engagement
If you’re doing your job correctly, you are tracking what your users are doing. With that information, you should be consistently tagging these customers by user behavior.
Don’t be silly about tagging based on your instincts. Only tag people based on feedback that they directly give through their actions or an explicit answer to a question. Not all people with a woman’s first name are looking for women’s clothing.
It goes without saying that the previously mentioned survey should include a question or two about desired content.
41% Complain About Not Remembering Opting In
If you bought your list, delete your list. This is 2019 and there are too many good ways to get a great list. You don’t have to keep buying lists. Furthermore, it is very similar to buying likes. If you buy your list, your per-user metrics will be horrible.
If you are using implied opt-ins (we don’t really like this practice), make sure to add a double opt-in or at least remind people why they are getting messages from you.
Solution: Create a Direct Opt-in Behavior
We’ve found that the easiest way to get around this issue is to create a reason to opt-in mid-funnel when a user hasn’t done so previously.
As a user is about to check out, give them the option for 10% off the order if they opt-in to your marketing. They will know exactly why they opted in and have an expectation that your emails/messages will provide value for them going forward.
33% Complain of Getting Messages on the Wrong Platform
If your customer is keen to get messages on one platform over the other, give them the option to do just that. A customer shouldn’t be annoyed to see a message for you in their respective inbox. That negative emotion will rarely lead to a positive interaction with your brand.
Solution: Provide an Alternative Opt-In
When a user opts out of your marketing message, ask them why? If they would prefer to get messages on another platform., give it to them. This is a great way to save a connection that might otherwise have been lost.
Do you find yourself unsure about how to implement the strategies? If so, fret not. Let our digital marketing services team know your struggles and we might be able to help.
