I saw a Twitter screenshot that caught my attention because it had to do with email marketing.
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I can’t think of a more self-centered marketing statement than this:
“Send more emails. It will definitely make you more money and if people unsubscribe then that’s their loss.”
And yet I read or hear some version of it at least once or twice a month.
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So is sending more emails a selfish thing to do?
In my opinion, yes. In fact, marketing in and of itself is selfish.
When you’re marketing, you’re essentially promoting yourself, you’re promoting your own business. Yes, you may give out some value from time to time. But you’re ultimately doing it to get people to pay you so you can put food on the table for yourself and your family.
Why is that bad?
People are inherently selfish, and that’s okay. You can still be selfish and serve your audience at the same time. If you’re offering something you believe that’ll truly be helpful to your audience, why wouldn’t you promote it more? It would be a disservice to them if you didn’t.
Your buyers are selfish too. They don’t buy from you because they want to make sure you don’t go homeless. They buy from you because they want a solution for a problem they want to get rid of.
And the moment they realize you’re no longer helpful to them, they’re going to move on.
Guess what?
That’s okay because you helped them as much as you possibly could to the best of your ability, which means you have done your part.
But are you going to expect them to stick around and give you more of their money to help keep your business alive? No, that’s completely illogical.
And then another person replied,
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It’s the ultimate selfish self-promotion. Nothing about what’s in it for the customers, and all about what’s in it for the sender.
Selfless self-promotion is centered around empathy, kindness, service, and empowerment. [Agreed]
Selfish self-promotion is barraging your victims w/ emails. [I like his word choice, calling email subscribers victims. But are they considered victims if they willingly subscribed to the email newsletters?]
The clearest sign of selfishness is forcing someone to opt-out of something they didn’t ask for.
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The last line was the most questionable. If anything, isn’t it selfless because you’re removing unnecessary clutter from that person’s digital life?
As for the first line, that’s only true if you’re promoting any offer you can that’ll make you a quick buck. It’s a different story if you’re promoting relevant ones.
Okay, I think I’ll end it off here before I ramble on too much.
And of course, I can’t forget to leave a link to selfishly self-promote my book that’ll teach you how to write self-centered sales emails, yet still valuable to your subscribers.