Email Marketing Is Like...

Author:

Chad White

Source:

I was recently struck by all the analogies used by my fellow Email Insiders: Email is like the Olympics, like baseball, like a newborn.
I knew there were even more great analogies out there that would help us better appreciate and understand email marketing, so I asked folks on Twitter for their best #EmailAnalogy. Sixty tweets later, we had some great ones. Here are some of the ones that stood out to me:

@rorycarlyle: #EmailMarketing is like speed dating. Stay interesting & attentive. Lose focus or talk 2 much & you'll never see them again #EmailAnalogy

Rory Carlyle of Carlyle Inc. reminds us that as much as we might want our email marketing programs to be about us, they're really about our subscribers. Show them that you're listening to their issues and interested in having a relationship, and they'll stick around. If you talk too much about things that don't interest them, you'll get dropped and they'll move on.

This speed dating analogy is particularly powerful when thinking of subscription forms, preference centers, and welcome emails and series. These are key early points in a relationship that can demonstrate that you care about subscribers and aren't just an automaton that's going to ask them to buy an endless list of things...