I received dozens of e-mails with holiday wishes during the festive season, from all kinds of companies with which I have transacted in the past. Some put me in their e-mail list despite my experience with them being deplorable at best.
“Marketing experts” of all kinds insist that you must send this kind of wishes, whether you are an entrepreneur, portfolio owner, or have any sort of client-facing role. Why I wonder? Do they really think that their e-mail will be the special one that will be read? I know for one that me, as a client, do not read these messages. If anything, I get irritated for having to weed out all these parasites from my inbox.
Has anyone of these “experts” actually considered the impact of these e-mails to the other party? I bet they have not. They just follow what they observed, were told, or taught to do. No thought process involved whatsoever. In doing so they serve their own interests (deluding themselves that they are doing something useful and thus inflating their egos) instead of those of their clients – the recipients of these messages.
Those who know me well are very likely aware of my worldview, which I adopted from one of my professors during my MBA studies and the name of which I cannot recall to provide the credit due: “If you want to make an impact, start by satisfying other people’s self-interest. Getting your desirable outcome will be the direct result of that satisfaction.” I could make an argument here that this would work so long as the other party is not already satisfied. If they are, chances are that you will redouble your efforts in satisfying their self-interest even more, while getting nothing added in return. After all, if my salary is already high-enough, money will stop being a priority and even if you double my bonus for achieving my goals, it is more likely than not that I will not change my behavior. But I digress…
So how is the recipient’s self-interest satisfied with these e-mails I wonder? Well, it’s… not.
Hence before going about spamming people’s’ inboxes blindly, start by asking yourself whether you would be interested in receiving your email.
The most basic tip I could suggest for you, is to keep it relevant to your work. If you are a corporate finance expert for example, you could send out basic tips on how your clients could better manage their finances. This would not be relevant to all clients of course, as some may have come to you for –say- valuation and others for Independent Business Review (“IBR”) work, but at the end of the day, they would all receive some form of value from your email.
Secondly, you could try a more intimate approach by keeping it related to the client’s needs. After all, this is what brought the client to you in the first place. In the previous example for instance, if what brought the client to you was the need for valuation services, you could include tips as to how they could increase the value of their firm. Conversely, a client that approached you for IBR services could receive a different holiday message, that would include tips on how to improve their skills in lender-borrower negotiations. Incentivize the recipients of your message to open and read it, instead of annoying them.
Finally, if you do not want (I cannot accept that you cannot afford) to provide something material, the very least you could do would be to keep your message personal – and I mean distinctively personal, not to merely change the recipient’s name. Your message could be hand-written for example and sent in both physical and electronic formats. This not an easily automated message and would thus make the recipients feel valued, as opposed to an automated email. Assuming that your handwriting is not reminiscent of hieroglyphics, non-quantitative returns can make all the difference when the relation has already surpassed a certain level of intimacy.
Otherwise, it would probably be better if you -to paraphrase the popular doctors’ saying- did not intrude.