Now, a question. What’s the purpose of email?

Answer – communication.

What’s the least effective kind of communication for relationship building? One way communication.

Ok, so that was two questions, my main question is why oh why oh why oh why do companies STILL insist on sending automated emails that you can’t reply to??? (I don’t advocate gratuitous punctuation normally but this needed it)

I downloaded a paper today from a website, and asked for it to be emailed to me. And it duly was delivered – great.

BUT the email it was sent from was a “noreply@” email address. What makes this offence doubly frustrating is that, while I downloaded the content from a popular marketing publication site, the email (and therefore the content) was from a marketing agency.

So, really, marketing ought to know better – as it’s customer service and engagement rule 1: give the customer as many opportunities to engage with you as possible – and make it easy.

With today’s technology it is very easy to include a proper email address in automated communication, which someone could reply to – say if they had a problem downloading the content, or if there’d been no attachment as promised. Or they may have been so riveted by the content that they wanted to get in touch. You can route it to a mailbox, restrict out of office bouncebacks and apply rules so that it’s dealt with appropriately.

It really is the simple things that make the most difference – for example the automated email wasn’t personalised – but they know who I am as I had to log in to make the download.

None of it’s difficult – it’s just about attention to detail.

PS – if you’re reading this, and you have a jolly good reason for using a noreply email, I am genuinely interested in a lively debate.

B2B Marketing · communication · Digital Marketing · email · noreply · technology marketing

Finally – the light is dawning….and the blog below puts an element of it perfectly!

You’ll be delighted to know that I am continuing my mission to get B2B Marketing the kudos it deserves – hence highlighting the below blog. I am finding (and I don’t want to court too much controversy here) but in the US, they seem to focus much more on B2B as a discipline than we do here.

I have seen an uplift in organisations focused on B2B which is very heartening – but we need a defining of standards, a code of best practice – a clear path to B2B excellence so those coming into the field have a standard against which to target themselves – and to ensure that B2B is not overshadowed by it’s perceived more glamourous cousin B2C.

http://blogs.forbes.com/marketshare/2010/06/28/b2b-marketing-is-more-than-leads/

To do B2B Marketing well you need to think over and above lead generation, and in addition to the sales and marketing synergy discussed in the above blog you need to ask yourself:

1. Can you talk in the way your customers talk?

2. Does the way you market match the way your customers buy?

3. Are you talking to the right audience?

4. Are you engaging your customers in your growth strategy?

I could go on..but you’ve probably heard enough.

If you know of good B2B examples – or sites – please comment and list them here.

thanks!

Charlotte

B2B Marketing · Lead Generation · marketing strategy · Sales and Marketing Alignment