According to MarketingSherpa’s 2010 Email Marketing Benchmark Report, the top three types of subject lines which compel people to open a marketing email contain one of these:

  • Discount offer
  • Free product offer
  • Familiar brand name

There’s no argument from me about those first two. However, it’s the third one I want to touch on in this post. For decades brands have been bound by the “push” model of business with the relationship being almost entirely one way. Marketers had to introduce and hammer away at brand familiarity because they had very limited or no way at all to get to know the consumer on a personal basis. OK, we do have mountains of research and data about consumers, but do those mass marketing studies really give you that much personal insight into the individual? Speaking as a consumer, I frankly resent being pushed into a herd. It’s the unrequited love of that one way relationship which we are changing here at Sailthru. Knowing someone is the first step to serving their needs as customer. When we go beyond first name and email address and actually understand who our customers are and what they want, we can add real value to their lives with timely, relative and engaging information. Familiar brand name? How about a familiar subscriber? People don’t expect to have to make any effort for someone in a store they frequent to get to know their preferences. They simply expect them to discern them based on their actions and interactions. Successful business people understand that knowing your clients and proactively serving their needs is important to making that next conversion. Getting people to know your brand is absolutely basic to marketing, but now we have the technology to really get to know our customers too in a practical and proactive way. Marigold Engage by Sailthru thinks that while you’re brand building, you should also be relationship building.