This post titled Spray and Pray Is Not A Marketing Strategy originally appeared in Inbound MarTech on February 7, 2016.
Is your association marketing strategy centered around spray and pray email tactics? You know, upload a list to your email engine, write a membership email, and send it out to everyone (multiple times)? Do you then sit back and wait…and pray…hoping people will open the email and click on a link? Is this working for you? Really?
If you’re nodding your head, you’re clinging to outdated marketing tactics. Times have changed, homey-g. Hope is NOT a strategy. Spray and pray email is outbound marketing. It’s interruption-based. It’s about you, not the member. It’s bullhorn marketing. It’s spam. And the result is that your members and prospects aren’t listening. They’re tuning you out. They’re unsubscribing (gasp!). So stop it!
Now consider the opposite. Marketing with a magnet instead of a bullhorn. Say what? Yes, a magnet. Create awesome content that pulls people in – that solves problems for your members. Focus on inbound marketing tactics like search engine optimization (SEO), keywords, blogging, ebooks, infographics, webinars and lead nurturing. Focus on building your blog subscriber list. This is permission-based marketing, not interruption-based. And people will listen, share and promote your association content. Ready to get started? Take these three easy steps:
- Read this Inbound Marketing Overview from Hubspot
- Subscribe to the Hubspot Marketing Blog
- Read my post about other inbound resources
