Junk Mail and Your Messaging

You hate the stuff, don’t you? 99.999% of the junk mail in your letterbox goes straight to garbage. Ditto for the junk mail in your e-mail inbox.

And yet…

… it keeps coming…

So you have to ask yourself “Why?”

Well, the simple answer is that it works. “Works?” you ask, “Don’t be silly, Norm. You just admitted that you throw nearly all of it away!”

Well, let’s analyze this. Junk mailers wouldn’t keep at it, day after day and year after year, unless they got results. And they get results because it’s a pure volume, numbers game. If only one person in ten thousand makes a purchase, and if that one sale yields a profit after the cost of the junk mail, then it’s worth it. For them.

But is the high-volume junk mail model right for you and for me? Well, that depends.

Junk mail can work if you’re into the “any client will do, as long as they have money” model. In other words, if you’re content to sell product or service to any warm body with cash, you may as well rely on broadcast volume marketing.

Selling vanilla products to a homogenous market of indistinguishable customers actually works, and if you’re clever enough to figure out the efficiencies and metrics, you can make a ton of money. Just ask the fast food chains.

But if you’re selling a unique offering to unique clients, mass mailing is not only a waste of money, it’s actually poison. Mass promotion suggests to your ideal market that you are just one possible solution, not the only solution.

Rolls Royce doesn’t do junk mail. Cartier doesn’t do junk mail. Louis Vuitton doesn’t do junk mail. And if you’re a niche professional or entrepreneur, neither should you.

But sometimes we do junk mail by mistake.

Keep in mind that every time you communicate with anyone, you’re sending a message, not just about the content, but about yourself and your offerings. Altogether too much professional communication looks and sounds like junk mail – generic, platitudinal, boring, and chintzy.

Ask yourself: are your subject lines compelling? Does the first paragraph draw the reader in, or does it put reader to sleep? Is there a logical progression of thought toward a clear and convincing conclusion? Is there an irresistible call to action?

The type of clients you get depends on two simple factors: who you target, and how they perceive you through your communication.

Don’t send them anything but the best.