Email Marketing Is All About Trust

I love email marketing. My professional bio includes the fact that I "eat, sleep, breathe and sometimes dream email marketing." There are times when my passion for email marketing drives my wife crazy. I study how she processes and engages with her inbox. I inquire about why she opened one email, yet deleted the next; why she clicked through or purchased something from one company, yet not the next.
 
The answer nearly always comes back to trust.
 
In the email marketing industry, we preach about the importance of designing for images on and off. We talk about creating compelling subject lines and straightforward calls to action. We advise marketers to include a preheader, to make the email visually appealing, to add Share With Your Network (SWYN) functionality. Don't get me wrong -- this is all important. In fact, I am a huge advocate for considering all of the above (and more) when thinking about your email marketing campaigns.
 
However, it all starts with trust. Without trust, you have (almost) nothing.
 
My wife opens emails from individuals and companies that she trusts. She clicks on links and buys stuff from those she trusts. Now - this is not to say that all of the other "best practice" advice we give to clients is not valid. In fact, in many ways it can be the difference between a decent email marketing strategy and a killer one; however, if your subscribers don't trust you -- for whatever reason -- "best practices" don't really matter. On the flip side, if you've earned that trust, experimentation with other elements of your email marketing campaigns can have huge positive implications....
 
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