Marketers - Stop Spamming Your Customers!

Spam is more than a problem: it weakens the bond between you and your high value customers. When I conducted marketing survey for a class project at Northwestern University, I have heard a lot of complaints from customers. Every day people's email boxes are filled with at least 10 unsolicited, random, and irrelevant messages from sloppy email marketers. Obviously, opening email box in the morning has already become a headache for our customers. I know none of us want this to continue, we need to stop it.

According to DJ Waldow and Jason Falls' book The Rebel's Guide to Email Marketing: Grow Your List, Break the Rules, and Win, the era of email marketing has changed. The breezy “one-size-fits-all” way doesn’t apply any more. To get breakthrough results, marketers need to align every facet of the email campaign with the target market. Focus is not only on the contents, but also on the names, subject lines, calls to action, social network integration…everything! According to Waldow and Falls, great companies could achieve breakthrough results by “breaking all the rules”. Using real case studies, they demonstrate how companies can make the right decisions about different email attributes and optimize every component of an email marketing message.

Here are the four items that a good email marketer should consider:

1. Get Permission

Without permission you not only risk losing customer goodwill but also could end up blacklisted by ISPs that refuse all mail coming from your domain. Permission is not difficult to get. Offer something of value (eg. a coupon or promise of special discounts, a whitepaper or informational newsletter) in exchange for the customer agreeing to receive your messages.

2. Work with a Clean, Targeted Database

Work with the cleanest permission-based list you can find that is targeted to your industry and your offering. Do some research to ensure they will reach your targeted demographic and the lists are maintained. For instance, Programbusiness.com allows its members to send broadcast emails to its database of some 50,000 targeted subscribers and members have the opportunity of selecting subsets of addresses categorized by insurance type such as commercial, health, life, and auto.

3. Let Readers Drive Design

A well-crafted newsletter should be more than just a summary of your resume or company history. Personalizing the contents and adopting an intriguing subject line can make a big difference. Many companies offer both plain and rich text email editions, giving customers the option of registering for the html edition on their Web sites. In those editions, design becomes especially important.

4. Have an Exit Strategy

People who gave you their email address did so because they wanted to hear from you. But that can change and often does. Always add a link to unsubscribe to the email. You should always let your customers know you are always their ally but not their headache when they open their mail box every day.

After all, email marketing is about what works best for your audience. Sometimes it’s necessary to break the rules and test to better engage your customers. It all starts from developing a thorough understanding about their demands and customizing the email contents toward that demand.

Qing “Sunny” Tian is studying Integrated Marketing Communications at Northwestern's Medill School. Her concentrations are Direct & Interactive Marketing and Marketing Analytics. She has marketing experiences with Fortune 500 Companies in finance, consumer packaged goods, and automotive industries. Follow her @SunnyTian and connect with her on LinkedIn: Qing Tian.

Hoteliers share the secrets of their success-the power of interaction

Today, marketing through social networking, mobile media, and e-mail campaigns pose new opportunities for marketers in the hotel industry. Companies nowadays operate in a rapidly shifting environment, and changes come from globalization and technological advances. These have combined to create vast, complex networks with varying economic and social activity.

Facebook, for example, is the digital mapping of people's real-world social connections that has more than 900 million active users on the site. Facebook users spend more than a quarter of their time on the site consuming and interacting with the Facebook Newsfeed, and this activity represents 4 percent of all time spent online in the United States. When members use Facebook to make their likes and interests known, it translates into word of mouth publicity. Through social networking sites, customers can also read online reviews, compare prices, and discuss options. To find out more about how brand reach and influence fans through social media marketing, click here.

Today, 50 percent of the world’s population has a cell phone and 25 percent has internet access. As new technologies continue to evolve, mobile devices become a marketing media that opens up new possibilities and gains increased attention. Communication can be delivered in the form of text, audio, or video. Since the device is portable, marketers can push sales promotions or updates to customers instantly. Moreover, almost half of all new mobile phones purchased in developed markets are now Web-enabled smartphones. There are also growing numbers of 3G network users in the emerging markets.  Marketers can enable customers to reach hotel information on a mobile device through reformatted web pages or specific mobile websites and offer the ability to make reservation. Marketers can also send mobile coupons and provide mobile customer service.

Moreover, marketing through e-mail campaigns pose new opportunities for companies. Companies can buy mailing lists containing almost any group of potential customers as well as send newsletters, offers, reminders of upcoming promotions, and announcements for special events. Customers can be encouraged or rewarded to e-mail back when they have further questions, feedback and complaints.


Here are the action items marketers can take to start making a difference.
1. Establishing presences on social networking sites - encourage the spread of “word of mouth” about the hotel and learn how customers perceive the hotel and its offering
2. Developing mobile media strategies -mobile creates opportunities to build new applications which enable new consumer behavior and can unlock new economic potential
3. Marketing through e-mail campaigns - personalize the messages to prospects to build stronger relationships with customers


Marketers look increasingly to social media, mobile media, and e-mail campaigns as new ways of communicating and engaging with customers. This approach will create new opportunities for marketers in how they relate to their customers.


Phoebe Lin is a master’s candidate in the Northwestern Medill IMC marketing program and is specializing in consulting with companies on communication and social marketing. Phoebe can be reached on twitter @PhoebeLin4.

How to secure the leading position in technology industry?

Market the future concept to show ambition and know the consumers more. 

Technology industry is now competitive than ever. Innovations happen every moment. Biggest challenge for marketers in technology industry: how to help a brand to secure its leading position in the industry? Show the ambition and understand your customers.

Released on April 4^th, Google’s “Project Glass” shows its ambition of future technology. It has already generated 14 million views. Is it a good timing to market the unfinished product – say even a conceptual product? For most of us, as marketers, what we really want to figure out is what does Google want from this marketing campaign? The answer is simple: Consumer feedback and brand image enhancement.

Google is not the only one to pursue this strategy. Microsoft and Samsung unveiled their own conceptual video as well – Microsoft in 2019 and Samsung 2015. Find anything in common among these three cases? Yes, they are all leading companies in the industry. The goal above the line is to show off the company’s capability and creating a blueprint of future life to consumers. Companies want to show to the consumers that they own the industry and is capable to offer the consumers a better future life.

Is there any hidden goal behind the campaign? Those leading companies can look deeper into consumers’ response through this kind of campaign. Project Glass has already generated 14 million views and both positive and negative comments. From all the comments, Google can understand more about the consumers’ imagination towards the future life and see whether the company’s future blueprint will fit or not. By understanding the negative comments, Google is able to identify which kind of technology is unrealistic for consumers and drop it in their future plan.

Marketing in high-tech industry, what can we take advantage from Google’s Project Glass?

1.     Brand image enhancement: If you want to impress the consumers and strengthen your brand image as a leading brand, unveiling your blueprint is not a bad way. Take the inventor spot as quick as you can to impress the consumers.

2.     Creative idea is a must: If you are a marketer, it’s time to come up creative ideas by leveraging the future technology. Get the sense about what consumers expect and how you can utilize the technology as marketing tools.

3.     Take advantage from consumers’ feedback: Listen to the consumers is always the key. Show them your ambitious and listen carefully to what they respond. It would help you to readjust your blueprint.

      Casey Lin is a Medill IMC Graduate student at Northwestern University. She is very enthusiastic about marketing, especially in technology industry. Follower Casey on Twitter  @Caseylin_NW.