Let's say you've been collecting email addresses for the past year and now you're ready to turn them into a profit center. Create your trusty form letter and mail merge it to everyone. Ka-Ching!
Or not...
It depends on what you're goal is and what message you're sending. If you're sending a coupon for 10% off this month. Great! Send a form mail. Your customers aren't expecting you to individually send out a personal coupon message to each and every one.
But, if your message is targeted to a smaller group or is asking for information, time and money from your customers a personal letter works much better. Not a "fake personal" message but a real, honest to God message that you wrote individually to the people on your list.
Take this example that I recently received:
Marcus,
Good evening and I hope your week is wrapping-up well!!
It has been a while since there has been a dedicated resource from REMOVED assigned to your company’s “OEM Partner account.” Fortunately, I am contacting you about helping BV SOFTWARE’s customers with sales tax compliance – and equipping your company with all of the required tools to ensure maximum success going-forward.
For 2009, my new “mission” is to focus on partnering with companies like BV SOFTWARE. This new “mission” includes the following objectives:
- First and foremost, deliver an accurate, dependable solution to BV SOFTWARE’s end-users for managing sales tax compliance.
- Enable BV SOFTWARE to earn additional annual recurring commissions from any/all additional end-users who require help with sales tax compliance. (Obviously, “mining” new (recurring) revenue is a top priority for almost every company during 2009.)
- Make the partnership between BV SOFTWARE and REMOVED as simple and easy as possible.
May we plan a call to catch-up at your convenience during the next week or so at your convenience?
Please contact me with any questions, or to let me know the best way for us to move our partnership forward.
Thank you for the opportunity to help your customers!
I changed the name of the company to REMOVED to protect the company involved. What does this message really say?
First, BV SOFTWARE is in all-caps. A clear signal that it probably wasn't typed by a human. If you can't correctly capitalize my company name how much effort do I think you're really going to spend on me.
Second, helping BV SOFTWARE's customers with sales tax compliance is in bold as though it was a mad-lib with <insert corporate goal here>.
Third, the letter clearly states that I haven't had a representative until recently but, don't worry, you've got one now. I've got one who promptly asks for me to tell him the best way to move the partnership forward. I guess I didn't realize we had a partnership since there was to rep until recently. Maybe he should come up with some ideas first.
Okay, enough ranting about the email. Back to the serious message. This letter screams "Form Mail" and immediately gets little respect and even less change for action. In fact, it actually reduced my opinion of the company involved for sending such an impersonal letter about a personal partnership.
Think carefully before sending that mass email. It's great for non-personal coupons, sale announcements, monthly newletters, etc. but it's terrible for building relationships with your customers.