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Expressing Your Brand Through E-Mail
Be careful how you use your e-mail. It speaks volumes about you and your company.
2) Light, breezy, personal, happy, cheerful, or; 3) (and most likely) We have no idea what are you talking about? Somewhere in there is the personality you express with every message you send out. Good, bad or indifferent, realize that the tone of your message is communicating as much about your company as the offer you're sending out. Top advertising and marketing people decide on the image they want to project, and do their best to be consistent. Customer service people should be consistent as well. RSVP Putting up a website is an open invitation to send you e-mail. How quickly you respond makes a huge impression on the other side of the screen. Score 4,000 points for responding before your customer expects it—with a message that answers his question or solves his problem. How soon does your prospect or customer expect a response? It depends. If they're trying to buy flowers from your website, an hour may be too long. While you should never let e-mail sit unanswered for more than 24 hours, answering sooner is always better than later. If e-mail languishes, unanswered within your company, the possible reactions are that your e-mail doesn't work, your organization isn't bright enough to make it work, you're too busy at the moment, or you simply don't care about your customers at all. You simply wish they'd go away and stop bothering you. And if you ignore them long enough, they will. An instant auto-response that bounces back telling me that my message was received isn't necessarily a positive brand experience, either. Especially if it has the feeling of those awful messages that put you on hold and tell you how important your call is—and would you please hold for the rest of your life. Make the most of an auto-responder and tell your customer that his e-mail was received, that it is being routed to the proper person for a proper response, and that it has been assigned issue number 476535. Now your customer has something tangible he can use to bludgeon you with if he doesn't hear from you. The Personality Database Do you have a collection of answers to frequently asked questions (FAQS) that you, your sales people, and your customer service representatives draw from, to help speed customer response time? Who writes those? What personality do those FAQS project? Are you formal? Curt? To the point? Does your e-mail look like everybody on staff has a law degree and is very interested in protecting the firm from liability claims? Do your messages include sentiments of concern? Do they show a sincere interest in the customer as an individual? Are your messages chatty? Casual? Personal? Do they give the impression that your company is open, friendly, and genuinely interested in your customers' well-being? Do your e-mail messages sound like this:
Your E-mail Message Image The point is not to smother your customers with Band-Aids and flowers, but to select a communication style that best represents your company and stick to it. Discuss the image you want your customers to have of your company and decide which perceived personality traits are the most important. Then outline a policy that communicates this image to those in your firm—those who communicate through e-mail. Give them some tools that will help them reflect those traits and write a bunch of "sample copy" to show them what you mean. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, randomly monitor the e-mail communications that go out. You might be able to pluck a couple of bad apples out of the barrel just in time. A Real-Life Story My wife got me a digital camera for our anniversary—wonderful toy. The first time I took it out on the road, I noticed that it beeped every time I changed a setting or took a picture. It was annoying. I was at the airport waiting for a plane at 6:30 in the evening on a Friday and decided to take a look at their owner's manual. There was my camera and a world of information about how wonderful it would be to own one. But no clues as to how to use it. I filled out a form on their website with a single question: "How do I turn off the 'beep' on this particular model?" On Saturday, I used the camera and annoyed those around me with its incessant beeping. On Sunday, I left it in my suitcase. On Monday I had meetings and on Tuesday, I got a response that consisted of my question, and a one line answer: "Page 98, owner's manual." I was shocked. I was stunned. I resorted to derision. I replied with his message intact and my only addition was, "This is a joke, right?" He didn't think so. Three days later I got the reply: Quite seriously sir; page 98, of your owner's manual explains: 'Setting the Beep Sound.' Pardon me, while I go see about having my thumb reattached. About The Author Jim Sterne has spent more than 20 years selling and marketing technical products. He is the author of Advanced Email Marketing 
and Web Metrics: Proven Methods for Measuring Web Site Success .
To find out how his talents might help you achieve your marketing objectives, contact him at Targeting.com or
Emetrics.org.
Reprint Rights This article may NOT be reprinted without monetary compensation and written permission from the author. For reprint rights or comments/questions about this article, please contact the author. |
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