Engagement vs Junk Mail: Strategies for Association Marketing

I’m not sure why but the volume of junk email marketing arriving last week reached a tipping point.

Here’s a sample of what arrived in my email box one day last week:

• Connecting up ... “Can we set up a call? What time works best next week?”
• Followup ... “It’s Josh. I just wanted to followup and see if you received my earlier email?”
• Top Issues in all 50 States ... “We recently asked reporters in all 50 states and Washington, DC.”
• Dear owner of scdgroup.net ... “We make digital floor plans using below software based on your Handsketch/PDF/JPEG files. We offer a wide range of drafting services and we have fulltime staffs working Inhouse at our office located in India.”

All had a couple of things in common:

• All were unsolicited contact from companies I’ve never done business with.
• All senders were obviously ignorant about my company and what I do.
• All “signed” their emails with a “personal signature” as though we were friends.

As I was thinking about this, I saw the following request on an ASAE Collaborate section ...

• “Does anyone have a good membership list vendor they use? We use the usual suspects but have one client that is a specialty in the healthcare arena and is looking for a potential list for membership recruitment.” 

Really?

In today’s engagement environment, we have an association professional asking for a list for a “junk mail campaign.”

Isn’t there a better way?

• Several years ago, during a marketing committee call of one of my clients, the committee struggled with where to get a list of chief medical officers for a marketing campaign. While they discussed options, I did a quick LinkedIn search for the title they were seeking. I shared with them that there were nearly 7,000 people with that title on LinkedIn. And, suggested rather than rending a list, they may need to develop a LinkedIn engagement strategy through which they engaged prospects via a LinkedIn group and white papers.

How Can Your Association Avoid “Junk Mail Cold Calling?”

• Develop personas for each of your target audiences ... don’t assume all are the same.
• Do your research to know the communications preferences of your personas: email, social media, texting, etc.
• Create a content marketing strategy that engages members (and nonmembers) where they are.
• Keep refining your process based on results.

If you want me to respond, know who I am. Know my needs. Tell me how your products solve my problems. But, don’t fill up my inbox with a bunch of junk!