Comparing Corporate Communications
Jun/090
Comparing Corporate Communications: The Protocols of E-mail Versus The Telephone
By Carey Ransom
Everyone reaching out to clients, listen up. Readers treat e-mails like phone calls, and you must recognize it. As the volume of e-mail per person per day now vastly exceeds phone calls and direct mail, e-mail recipients have become more discerning in how they react and respond to an already overloaded inbox.
The primary method of corporate information delivery has switched from telephone to e-mail, and the deluge of e-mail now forces marketers and relationship-builders to wonder why their e-mail campaigns are stagnant, ineffective and resulting in single digit response rates.
The root of the problem is mismanaging recipients’ expectations. E-mail communication must follow consistent, socially acceptable business communication protocols.
The closest comparison to e-mail in today’s business world is the telephone. Both the telephone and e-mail are used for conversations to connect vendors to clients and prospects. However, sending e-mail marketing campaigns and generic e-mail newsletters are not conversations.
Below are some thoughts to ponder before you send your next– we hate to say it– e-mail campaign. Consider the expectations of your recipients and how they view your communications with them. Do your communications resemble direct mail, or have you begun to adopt a more respectful, and expected, set of telephone rules when using e-mail automation? Remember, readers can delete e-mail as fast as voice-mail, and Caller ID is pretty much the same as your From Address and Subject Line.
Will your clients, partners, colleagues, and prospects answer or hang up the next time you hit “Send”?
Focus On Timeliness
Is the information that you send timely enough for your readers’ needs, or are you constrained by traditional e-mail campaigns? For example, what happens when you want to quickly share information about a new service, a recent client win, or a pricing change with prospects, clients or partners?
Professionals who call with these timely updates are usually successful at improving their relationships. In the case of e-newsletters or client-requested bulletins, your e-mail updates should be just as timely and even more consistent in reaching interested subscribers. E-mail relationships should allow you to ask a subscriber when and how often they would like to hear from you. This practice is no different than the instincts you and other professionals might use to manage sales calls.
Finally, e-mail can work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. When a new contact subscribes or requests information, do you send what they want immediately, or do you have to make them wait until your next campaign or e-newsletter send? Generic “thanks for subscribing” confirmation messages do not show responsiveness or build your relationship with the subscriber. Good relationship managers respond immediately and satisfy the information needs quickly and accurately. The way you set up and manage your e-mail program should do the same.
Be Relevant
When you or your colleagues decide to call a client, prospect or partner, what motivates this action? Do you have information to share?
Most professionals believe the information they’re calling about will be seen as relevant to the recipient. Would you call if you didn’t know? If you were to leave a contact a voice message about several different topics without knowing for sure if they were interested, would they call you back? If the topics were irrelevant to their needs, would they take your next call?
Think about relevance and try to understand how e-mail should convey your information simply and efficiently. Stay relevant, and your audience will respond favorably.
Watch Message Length
Ask yourself how long a typical client call lasts. In most cases, people will only discuss one or two topics and the main points can be conveyed in a few minutes. Longer telephone calls usually result from a previous face-to-face meeting, or they serve as a planned conversation that meets the longer time expectations of the participants.
Similar to your typical phone calls, do not try to send too much information in your e-mails. Studies show that most e-mail recipients spend less than 15-20 seconds scanning e-mails they actually open. They immediately delete the others.
Send a summary format with topics that are simple and easy to navigate. Do not over-design your e-mails or attempt to “boil the ocean” in one transmission. Keep it short, and the relevant information will be read and retained by your recipients.
Create Dialogue: Listen First, Respond. Then Listen Again.
How do your e-mails and e-newsletters foster a dialogue with your contacts or subscribers? Do you believe e-mail campaigns are interactive? They are not.
Do you engage and listen to your contacts before you send them e-mail? Do you give recipients a chance to respond and react to your information, or are you just blindly sending without the desire or ability to take feedback? Effective firms sell by listening to their clients, prospects and partners. You can have an electronic dialogue with your individual contacts if you address their interests and exceed their expectations.
When someone asks you for information, are you actually listening to their expectations? These ideas are the very same expectations your contacts would have if you chose to call them on the phone.
Revenue Retention
How does your firm communicate electronically to retain clients and prospects? Are you actually building relationships when you send e-mail to them? More importantly, do your recipients believe you are helping the relationship with the information you send?
Do you provide value or an experience that your competition does not? Are your e-mails or e-newsletters generic and merely a sampling of your corporate information, compiled to fish for leads? Do they look and feel like a cold call?
Clients and prospects know the difference between revenue desperation and long-term relationship and loyalty building. E-mail campaigns and e-newsletters seldom convey a sense of personalized effort and value. Clients and prospects who do not feel valued and engaged are difficult to retain.
Improve Your Reputation
What does your e-mail strategy say about your firm and your brand? When your clients, prospects, and partners interact with you electronically, it affects their perception of your reputation. Each e-mail is a relationship opportunity that can help you or hurt you.
If a professional from your firm unexpectedly called a client with generic, untimely, or poorly targeted information, would the receiver view it as a positive boost to your reputation? Additionally, what if that professional did not provide a chance for the client to respond and give feedback?
Your e-mails say a great deal about your efforts to educate, inform, and build relationships, exactly like your colleagues and their phone calls currently do. Your clients and partners will know when you are making an effort to personalize and impress them. Remember, irrelevant e-mail marketing can train people to ignore you.
Embrace The Power Of E-Mail
E-mail’s ubiquity and timeliness make it an ideal relationship medium. Don’t alienate the people with whom you’re trying to build rapport. Use e-mail as a way to consistently improve your organization’s personality and brand by empowering the readers of your messages, and by inviting them to participate in conversations and relationships with you.
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