It’s been a while since we chatted about deadly, loyalty-destroying, and business-sabotaging email mistakes.
And since the email gurus in Facebook group, on X, and probably LinkedIn are out in full force, I figured now’s as good a time as any to bring this back up.
Of course, I’m referring to treating your email list like a one-night stand.
What’s that mean?
It means exactly what it implies:
Treating them like a cheat one-night stand and nothing else.
Think about the last one-night stand you had:
You probably went out to the bar. Got yammed up with your homies. And as the liquor started talking, you mustered up the courage to try and rizz a member of the opposite secks.
Mayhap she was all yammed up too. Laughed at every one of your jokes. And so, she received an invite back to your house where you two did the deed like you’d wanna see each other again.
But then the next morning comes. And it comes full of regret:
Mayhap you don’t remember her name. Or she doesn’t take the hint that it’s time to go. Or maybe 0ne of you texts the other one incessantly because only one of you is interested in seeing if this could turn into a long-term fling.
Either way, you both wake up with a slew of regrets.
And regardless of either of your ulterior motives, a long-term relationship blossoming out of a one-night stand rarely, if ever, happens.
Yet, this happens every single day in the world of e-commerce with sales.
Similarly to a guy who can’t get any dates and has to resort to picking up women at the bar, brands who can’t get any sales have to resort to swindling their list with discounts.
This is as lethal of a strategy as relying on a one-night stand to find your wife.
Why?
Well, for starters, it shows your list that you care about them as much as a drunk guy hitting on a girl at the bar. Even if the guy in this situation is smitten for the lady he’s drunkenly rizzing, even the act of a one-night stand (and the accompanying regret which happens afterward) makes a long-term relationship downright impossible.
And so it is for brands using short-term discounts to try to grow a loyal and engaged base of long-term customers.
But this strategy gets even worse…
Why?
Well, before I reveal why it gets worse, let’s talk about how to have consistent discounts without sabotaging the relationship with your list.
A good strategy of discounting involves so much more than the oversimplified “let’s offer them a discount.”
It doesn’t make the entire store eligible for a discount. It includes bonuses strong enough to make someone act now (even if they already have the product you’re offering in a sale). It doesn’t happen back to back. (I just saw an ecom brand I’m subscribed to offer a discount last week, then offer another discount this week - worst part? it was the same exact “deal” besides the discount they’re offering this week is even less of a deal than the one they had last week.) And their entire email strategy doesn’t revolve around the discount, which means this: They’re still mixing entertainment with information, it just so happens they’re also having a sale. An email strategy that only revolves around the discount—meaning, you just write discount copy instead of telling a story, being entertaining, or giving them a reason to open it besides the discount they’ll receive—is an absolute snoozefest. Worse, it conditions your list to stop opening ANY emails from you.
The “let’s offer them a discount” strategy doesn’t do any of this.
And it leaves brands dazed and confused about how to actually make sales.
Because here’s the thing…
Despite what you might think, the price of something is rarely the reason someone doesn’t buy because buying decisions are emotional decisions that you justify with logic afterwards. The “let’s offer them a discount” strategy approaches persuasion from a more logical standpoint than an emotional one.
That's why it’s so lethal - especially as time ticks on. Not just because there is a diminishing return on the same sale over and over again, but also because it conditions your list to not open your emails - the same way becoming known as a one-night stand guy in your town conditions women to not allow themselves to be rizzed by you.
If you’re making this mistake, there might still be time to turn it around.
Your first step is replying to this email, so we can jump on a call this week.
John
Comments