Are you (or your email marketing efforts) fun?

Another concept I’ve been considering when it relates to our own email marketing efforts at ExactTarget is the concept of fun.  I’ll ask you the same question.  Are you fun?

In Blink, Malcolm Gladwell talks to us about a very telling case involving speed dating.  Mary said she wanted someone intelligent & sincere….but was actually hooked up with someone who was attractive & funny. 

Fun is attractive, fun is sincere and fun is intelligent.

The fear we all have about being funny in our marketing, and email marketing, is that we might be perceived as unprofessional.   Most B2B marketers specifically are very much trying to build credibility and fear that humor will undermine that.

What we forget, is the number one rule of marketing as taught to us 50 years ago by Zig Zigler;  People buy from people.   More importantly they buy from people they like!

We like people who are fun.   We tolerate people who are responsible or reliable.   When your goal for lead nurturing email is to get engaged with a prospect…..well it might be a good idea to be fun. 

Comments

[Joe]

I am grateful to you for this excellent content. Happy 2011.

[Mary Schmidt]

Well, Mark...at least "we" got a reaction from you. Would be interested to know why the "stink" People shouldn't have fun? You hate email in general?

[Mark Wiznewski]

You guys stink.... really stink.

[Mary Schmidt]

Absolutely! I often have clients who come to me wanting to stand out, to be different, but are highly resistant to - um - showing any real personality. A great example of how we like people who are fun and (barely) tolerate people who are responsible - The 2000 (and 2004) presidential elections. Bush got a lot of votes because he was perceived as a "good guy to have a beer with." Gore and Kerry both had the "smartest kid in the class" problem.