The Most Important Thing...

There is one thing for certain...Change is inevitable. Those that adapt, often come out on top and those that refuse to get out of their comfort zone, tend to fall behind...

Tonight a few of us were having a little 'mastermind' session and the topic came up about 'the future of email marketing'.

Obviously, the talk started focusing on ListNerds and all the changes we are seeing with 'blockchain based mailers'.

We discussed how Google was starting to clamp down on what they decided were 'marketing messages' and we all believe, that it'll be harder than ever to get your email into others inboxes going forward.

So what do we do?

A lot of us in the CTP world call ourselves online marketers and for decades, the staple of effective online marketing has been...Through email. And if the powers that be (aka Google) start to decide what is and what is not 'allowed' to be delivered, the model might have to change.

I wrote about this a few weeks ago, but something clicked in tonight's mastermind session that made me realize....Effective online marketing, doesn't really have to change at all.

Now let me frame this for you....

If you have relied on 'the pitch', hard sales tactics, ineffective and untargeted emails...You will have to do a 180! Your approach simply won't work in the very near future.

Social media has put a LOT of power into the consumers hands and if they feel like you are trying to pull a fast one on them...It's lights out, and your business will have a very hard time making a profit.

However, if you treated online marketing specifically email marketing like this:

Customer first! Build the relationship!

I have a feeling you will thrive in this new way of 'marketing'.

Whether or not 'traditional email marketing' will survive or not.

You see, nothing really has changed or will change if you continue to put the customer first. Sure we use emails to let our customers know when we are doing a sale, did a new launch or have an important update...But the majority of the times we're in your inbox, we're trying to support you. We're looking to help you grow and in the process, we grow as well.

Building the LONG term relationship!

Email marketing for me has always been about 'pulling' people so that the relationship grows over time. I'd rather have a customer for 10 years than a quick sale after 10 days. So for me, the mission of all my 'marketing' is to build relationships.

And we will be able to do that so much easier in the coming years. The model may change, but the mission remains the same. And you may (or may not) need an email inbox to do that.**

Heck, we may start seeing the messages directly inside a platform and not being sent to inboxes? Who knows....

I welcome the change (or lack thereof) because it'll help marketers put a much more human touch to our businesses. Like my favorite author Jeffrey Gitomer has stated for years:

"All things being equal, people do business with those they know, like and trust. And all things not being equal, they still do business with those they know, like and trust!"

And because of that...Nothing changes in my approach and I welcome any change that may (or may not) come!