Chad White has a great blog today on Email Insider called “Personality Goes a Long Way.” Lots of people have written about this before, but Chad has great examples all taken from e-mail marketing, which has always seemed to have less personality than blogs, for example.
Here are Chad’s three big ideas, which I heartily endorse:
- Let your product experts make picks and give advice. We’ve all seen marketers use blogs to inject a human voice and personality into our message, but Chad gives a great example of how Orvis does it with e-mail.
- Call in outside experts and celebrities. How many of us interview experts in our blogs but never think to use the same kind of technique in e-mail marketing? Chad shows how Speigel does it.
- Tap consumer-generated content. This is my favorite tip. In the past, I’ve told you about how Bass Pro and Sun Microsystems (and others) use ratings and reviews on their Web site. You may also have seen how Executive Travel magazine created city guides and other information on its Web site, with a big button that says “You can contribute to this site.” The result? More engaged customers and better information.
But who knew from e-mail (as we say in New Jersey)?
Chad lists several e-mail marketers that use content created by their customers. Check out Chad’s post to inject personality into your e-mail marketing, but don’t forget to do it with other marketing techniques, too. No one has a relationship with someone they don’t know, so let your customers see your human side.
