The whole mentality especially in America comes from a very "selfish" POV ... "Everything we do is amazing and worthwhile to spread the news", then of course is the consitent "Buy Buy Buy" promotions where the entire agenda is to force someone to make a purchase at any cost.

Instead, what if you provide the customer with all of the pro's and con's and discuss your features and benefits a lot better? If I bought one pair of sneakers already, what makes you think that I would want to buy a second pair? Is it what the customer really needs? Or is that the company really needs it?

People don't want to be pressure sold to and in a market where there is now global competition and everyone can be online. It makes it a lot more daunting for a customer and that's without adding all the scam, fraud and ID theft going on already.

Many companies are tone deaf, thinking that one translates into another, but that is the true art of marketing, you can discount and coupon push all you want, but all you are doing is condition your customer to never buy anything unless there is a sale attached to it and now you are a discount brand. Every deal you offer, they will feel, you can do better. Your brand loyalty is only as good as the "discounts" you provide if not, your competitior will have them.

Keep in mind this is what every customer deals with daily, every single company wants their attention and their purchases. If a subscriber doesn't open an email within the next few hours of receipt another 100 will flood their email box, asking the exact same thing you are! Buy my stuff, but consumers now are a lot more invested into things they invest in.

  1. Do I like the company - does it align with me and my values?
  2. How good is it over the competition?
  3. Are you giving me a value being a "member" or "subscriber" besides the daily "Buy my stuff" emails
  4. Coupons and Discounts is a strategy and you can fall into becoming a discount merchant, if you condition your consumers that way

Your product and service should stand on its own. You shouldn't have to lure customers in everytime by offering a sale because it really says "Your product isn't worth, your MSRP". A product that customer respect & stay loyal to will be bought regardless of a sale, the sale may prompt, increase of purchase as in addition to or getting extra if the deal is good enough vs. the "I just wait until they have another sale". We have seen some customers wait a year or longer.

Start your campaign from "What Can We Offer To The Customer's Confidence To Purchase This Visit?"

Don't you hate when people only want something from you? Evertime they call you or see you, there is a "need" for something but whenever the tables are turned, they are not as enthused as when they are in the asking mode? We see A LOT of those campaigns. Just push their messaging down your throats, regardless if you are a fit or not. If you are a man wearing a size 14, many will push the "women's or kid's sale" unless you "unsubscribe" because you are now so annoyed or you just ignore the whole emails altogether if you used a real (many create spam emails just to sign up for this newsletters which they rarely check unless they are looking for something) email.

If you want to create messages that resonate with your audience, you need to know what they care about..

Nate Elliot
The whole hype about personalization, AI and machine learning IS to target consumers better based on their preferences, behavior and activities.  This requires a well architectured infrastructure that can process all these data points on a subscriber level meaning that everything that you communicate to your millions of email subscribers is tailored to them indivdually instead of sending "Hail Mary's" to your entire database or doing some of the most basic segmentation such as gender, age, etc.