Is Your List Meaningless?

I’m on the mailing list of a member-based business organization that is chartered to help their members to grow their businesses.

Among the different methods they use to this end is 1) sending paid advertisements to their database and 2) sponsoring networking events.

The other day I got an email from them saying that they were going to delete the names and emails of non-members and former members from their email marketing system.

The reason they said that they were doing this was two-fold.  First, they were getting complaints that non-members were getting the same information that members were getting (which they saw as unfair).  Second, they wanted to purge their list of people that were thinking of joining the organization but had taken too long to decide (no indication as to what that time threshold was supposed to be).

Now, when I read this email, my jaw just about hit the floor.  Quite simply…

This is THE MOST RIDICULOUS THING I’ve ever heard!

Especially from an organization that’s supposed to be helping businesses!  If this is the type of thing they’re doing for themselves, I can only imagine what sort of guidance they’re giving to their members.  (Clue: it probably ain’t any good.)

This is like shooting yourself in the foot, cutting off your nose to spite your face, AND throwing the baby out with the bathwater ALL AT ONCE!

By deleting those names they are crippling their circulation for promoting their members and shrinking the reach of their advertising.

All other things being equal, if you had a choice between placing your advertisement in a media optin A with a circulation of 1000 or with media option B with a circulation of 500, which would you choose?

They’re also tossing out any goodwill that may have been built up with prospective members and former members.

Do you buy something on YOUR timeline or the VENDOR’S timeline?  (This does not even address the bigger question of the quality of the vendor’s marketing message.)

This is indicative of a challenge in MANAGEMENT for which marketing is suffering.

In these days that we’re bombarded with tens of thousands of unwanted marketing messages every day, we’re VERY careful about which messages we choose to accept into our consciousness.

Even if the email just sits in our inbox for a week, the fact that we don’t click the “Report as SPAM” button  or choose to unsubscribe from the mailing list is equivalent to holding up a bright neon sign saying, “Yes, please keep in touch with me!”

That certainly does not come easily, and it definitely should not be treated lightly.

In fact, you should treat that permission (or “opt-in”) as GOLD!

As much as it’s a cliche, there’s a good amount of truth to the used car salesman line, “If they didn’t want to buy, they wouldn’t be on the lot.”

When they’re on your marketing list, they’re on your virtual “lot.”  And they’ll continue to stay until THEY decide, for one reason or another, to step off.  And unlike a physical car lot, you’ll NEVER run out of standing room.

While they’re on your lot you have FULL PERMISSION to keep selling them, keep providing value, keep enticing, keep making offers!

As one of my mentors says, unless they choose to step off the lot, keep talking to them “until they buy or they die.”

I sent a reply to the email I received telling them that deleting those names was a HUGE MISTAKE, and that instead they should put the names of those prospects and former members into a separate list (or segment of their list) and send them different messages.  This would allow them to continue their marketing while solving their previous concerns.

Will they do it?  I don’t know, since I haven’t received an email from the organization since.