E-mail Sabotage: Killing the Brand Softly

Guest Contributor: Lewis Green
Lewis' Posts - Lewis' Blog


Stop and think before you delete! If you don't, you risk killing your brand and ultimately your business. In today's marketplace, ignoring the e-mail inbox could shorten your business lifespan by killing your brand image.

Think about it: Would you intentionally ignore your clients and send messages saying you don't care about them or their business? That is exactly what you do when you ignore e-mail or respond slowly or inaccurately.

Brand image is built from the inside out. Every communication that takes place between a company and a client, potential client, vender, consultant and even competitor results in a positive or a negative brand impression. And when those impressions are added together, they make up brand image.

As consultants, our brand images are our lifeblood. They must reflect near perfection, if we expect businesses to trust our expertise and to want our advice and recommendations. Furthermore, we need to ensure that our clients' understand the dangers of messy e-mail communications, both inbound and outbound.

A recent survey of the retail industry tells the tale of what looks like an approaching trend in the business world.

Current numbers from this survey indicate that most businesses are in a lot of trouble when it comes to their "customer e-service." Twenty-six percent of retailers surveyed failed to respond to e-mail inquiries from customers seeking to make a purchase.

In the same study, conducted by Benchmark Portal and sponsored by eGain Communications Corp., the cross-industry response rate (all verticals) of 41 percent shows that businesses in general have a pretty abysmal record. Forty-seven percent of retailers, for example, fail to respond to customer e-mails within 24 hours, against a cross-industry rate of only 61 percent.

Conducted in July 2005, this study also benchmarked the quality of company responses to client e-mail inquiries. Among companies that do respond to client or customer e-mails, 35 percent of retailers sent e-mails rated by Benchmark Portal as "good" at answering customers' questions while the cross-industry rate is a sad 17 percent. Twenty-eight percent of retailers sent e-mails rated "fair," compared to a cross-industry rate of 26 percent; and nine percent of retailers sent "poor" e-mails, compared to the cross-industry rate of 14 percent.

Another study provides even worse news for e-centric client and customers, and ultimately for overall business success. This one, reported by Internet Retail, shows that 51 percent of small- to mid-size companies and 41 percent of large businesses do not respond to customer or client e-mail at all. And of those who do respond, 70 percent of small- to mid-size companies and 61 percent of large businesses do not respond within 24 hours.

Since brand image depends on every single representative of a company, no matter their functional area, it doesn't matter who inside a business deletes or responds badly to e-mail communications. Doing so creates a destructively negative impression to the person who sent the e-mail. Since every external and internal communication creates an impression that impacts the brand, those communications also impact marketing and sales results, and consequently the bottom line.

eMarketer's Senior Analyst David Hallerman also recently surveyed the state of business e-mail marketing and reports that more than two trillion e-mail messages will be sent out this year. Businesses cannot afford to ignore those numbers, even if only a tiny percentage of these e-mails fall into the commercial category. Alienating even one client hurts brand image and eventually sales. Alienating hundreds, thousands or tens of thousands of e-mailers over the life of a business can therefore be deadly.

Brand image is all about client perception. When businesses delete e-mails or respond poorly, the brand suffers. Before long, current and future sales take a direct hit on the negative side. Furthermore, responding badly to e-mail opens the door to competitors who treat every communication channel with the constant attention it needs. This includes e-mail.

Acknowledging that businesses are managed by busy people who may not understand the damage done by not responding or by badly responding to e-mail, business leaders must recognize before it is too late that such numbers point to a serious crises on the horizon for those who ignore the e-side of their businesses. In our pervasively online technological age, shoppers, customers, clients, vendors and competitors are choosing e-mail more and more as their preferred communications tool. Furthermore, study results suggest that businesses may miss up to two-thirds their potential audience by not adding e-mail to their marketing tool kit.

When businesses treat e-mailers badly, they risk such responses as anger, rejection, hurt, frustration and revenge. In addition, ignoring e-mailers generates harmful word of mouth. When done right, word of mouth grows businesses, increases sales and expands margins. When done badly, the opposite occurs, and a brand begins to die a slow and painful death.

As consultants we must take an active role in solving communications problems that my batter either our brand or our clients' brands. Here are a few tips for turning e-mail into a business "growth tool" rather than a weapon for business suicide:

1. Respond accurately to all e-mails with 24 hours.
2. Embrace e-mail as a marketing tool.
3. Use SPAM filters, if necessary (but only if necessary), to block e-mails originating from Spammers, but do so cautiously. Blocking e-mails from legitimate clients and others will hurt your business in the long run.
4. For best results and greatest returns on investment, customize outgoing e-mail messages by employing some kind of consolidated client and prospect database that allows you to specifically identify client groups' needs, wants and desires.
5. Communicate customized messages that meet the needs, wants and desires of those client groups.

When utilized correctly, businesses bask in results-oriented e-mail marketing and brand building. Home Depot, for example, has grown its client e-mail database from 500,000 to five million contacts in just the last two years. Each one of these five million e-mails represents solid future sales.

In conclusion, by embracing e-mail, a consulting firm can grow sales by melding ingredients gleaned from its client data points and managing them so as to:

• Collect the right data
• Craft the right message
• From the right sender
• Through the right channel
• At the right times

First and foremost, customers and clients count. They measure your value and develop a perception around that value. By ignoring e-mail or practicing it poorly, opportunities for positive perceptions may be missed, dismissed or destroyed, shortening your business's lifespan. Treating e-mail like the winning tool it can be, however, holds the potential of extending your business's lifespan (and profits) indefinitely.

Marketing To Small Business Owners

Guest Contributor: Michael Hepworth
Michael's Posts - Michael's Website


If you were at a cocktail party and were introduced to someone who did little but talk about themselves, you'd soon become bored and wander off to find more stimulating company. So it is with business owners are disinterested of marketing approaches that are self serving. i.e. marketing that is all about the vendor and little about the buyer.

If you look at the marketing from big corporations in most cases it does little except scream; "Buy my product, buy my product!" This does not cut it with the average entrepreneur, so what can one do to get their attention and win them over?

They generally don't care how good you are until they know how much you care!

Unfortunately most corporate marketing does little to put business owners at ease because it often misses these vital ingredients.

Let's assume you sell a commodity like stationery. If you are totally focused on your category, about the only thing that distinguishes you from your competition is the paint on your walls and your signs; hardly compelling reasons to choose a supplier!

A number of firms have discovered that most business owners feel the need to educate themselves and their teams on various aspects of business success. However they feel they lack the funds and the time to get this done.

One of the most important skills is marketing.

Intellectually business owners know this is one of the most important skills to master, but most spend precious little time on this critical element of their business. In these competitive times they all share a common desire to upgrade their marketing skills but unless helped along few do anything about it.

This presents suppliers with a great opportunity to provide value added service in the form of marketing education for small business. It fulfills the old proverb; "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."

A supplier that claims the high-ground by investing in a long term relationship and showing business owners how to grow through cost effective marketing, will be long remembered for their added value.

The challenge for most corporations will be to switch from the corporate mindset of brand marketing to the concept of local marketing and lead generation for small business. Small business needs low cost creative ideas that bring customers in through the door, gets them to buy more often and gets them to buy more each time they buy.

Concepts like branding and using mass media, the staples of big corporate marketing, generally do little to help small business succeed. And too much attention to these can result in sub par performance for small business.

Avoid Cutting Your Own Profit Margin and Sell on Quality

Guest Contributor: Albert Luk
Albert's Posts - Albert's Site


"Is that the best price you have?"

"I can get that on-line for cheaper"

"Can you give me a discount?"

Do your potential clients ever say any of the above to you even though you sell a high-end good or service? It is a reality of our existence that our clients and customers have been conditioned to ask for, or demand, loss-leader or low margin pricing- chalk this up to the side-effects of the Made in China/commoditized world we live in. But, if you sell non quantity priced goods or services, how do you avoid falling prey to "the cheapest goes the sale" syndrome?

It is admittedly an uphill battle but here are a few tips to help you avoid cutting your own profit margin and selling on quality:

1. At $4.00/cup, Starbucks' prices brand them as quality. Are you doing the same? Remember that the paramount concern for every client/customer is "what's in it for me?" They may not realize you are selling a quality good or service immediately because they are thinking of the me factor. Show them that you are a quality good or service with your price point, branding and sales/marketing collateral. How does Starbucks get away with charging $4.00 for a cup of coffee? They put the coffee in fancy cups, have a great logo and their stores reflect a high-end design not traditionally seen in coffee shops. Starbucks has set the stage for customers paying $4.00 a cup of coffee without ever saying a word by the environment they create when you walk into their stores. If your product/service invokes the same sense of quality by its pricing, branding and marketing material you are implicitly sending a message that you do not engage in quality pricing.

2. Know who the quantity pricing clients are and walk away. Being a lawyer gives you a glimpse into human nature and I am often surprised by how convinced people are that they can change someone's mind. In my experience, rarely is this the case when it comes to spending someone's hard earned money. If potential client leads with questions or comments like "how much do you charge?", "I would like a free demonstration/consultation" or "I want your best price" at the outset of the conversation, chances are it will be hard to sell on anything other than quantity pricing. Avoiding cutting your profit margin means knowing when to pick your battles and walking away from the quantity pricing clients.

3. People will pay to feel special. The paradox of our market is that people will either demand loss-leader prices or pay for luxury (don't believe me? Look up the stock prices for businesses like Ralph Lauren or Gucci). Small businesses will pay a premium if they feel their solution is a customized for them and just not off the shelf- people like feeling that they are not just another number. For example, I have seen and heard of small businesses paying in excess of $15,000 for a website designer to build a customized and "one of a kind" website tailored specifically for the business. Clients don't usually have a large issue paying for such luxury pricing because they know they are not buying a website built by easily downloadable templates. If you can customize or tailor your product/service, you can increase your chances of charging quality pricing.

4. Keep it simple though. Apple has a very devote and loyal following among certain sub-industries of the small business world. Why? An Apple computer is a luxury item (by industry standards) but it is easy to use. You get what you pay for in life; people will pay a premium for a simple and easy to use product/service if the alternative is cheap but troublesome. For example, Herman Miller, a furniture designer, has not had too many problems selling $1,000 office chairs since they are simple and elegant to use whereas the $100 knock-off may give you a bad back and may have to be replaced every year.

5. At the end of the day, it is always about the relationship. Building customer loyalty and trust will increase sales success no matter what you are selling. Apple's remarkable turn-around is due in large part to the amazing brand loyalty and trust it has built with its clients.

Best of luck. See you next month.