Yesterday, an email from one of my favorite software businesses arrived in my inbox.
I’ve used and liked this small piece of business utility software for at least a decade. Not many programs can make that claim.
Lately, they’ve been emailing me pretty frequently. This particular email offered a free copy of the latest version if I used their affiliate link to sign up for a free trial with Netflix’s online movie service.
Whaaaa?
Ok, maybe that’s not such a bad deal if I’m not already a Netflix user, but the offer may not make sense depending on what kind of customer I am.
“What does the kind of customer you are have to do with it?”, you ask?
For one, when I got the email, I wondered “Why Netflix?”
It might make perfect sense if this business knows their customer base well. The program is commonly used by both business and consumer customers.
Given that, perhaps they know that a majority of their users are home users, student/teacher users or small business/corporate users.
If that were so, it would’ve been best to segment their email list and mail this offer only to their home users. And perhaps I’m somehow on that home list, rather than on their “business customer” list.
If that’s true, it’s possible that it makes sense to this vendor for me to get this offer.
Except for this: Even if all those assumptions are true, is this a service that most of their users can take advantage of? Does it help their users get more out of their software?
Those are the kinds of questions you should be asking before sending an offer for someone else’s stuff to your customers.
I get the idea that they sent it because Netflix is a really good affiliate deal. That’s only a good reason if the other reasons are a fit.
The offer just doesn’t make sense from a “How can we help you get more out of our software?” perspective – something you should *always* be thinking about, whether you sell software, saddles or transmission oil coolers.
Because it doesn’t make sense in that way, some will see that message – especially at multi-per-week frequencies – as spam.
I’m not convinced that the vendor segmented their email list before sending this out. If they had, it might make sense.
By segmented, I mean “Send the email offer (if it makes sense) only to the consumer-class customers and don’t send the email to business-class customers”.
Segmenting makes sure that whatever marketing piece you send to a user – regardless of media – is appropriate for them.
For example, you wouldn’t waste time selling carpet cleaning to someone with a house chock full of hardwood flooring. Instead, you’d use what you know about them as a customer to offer them something they could actually use.
Marketing 101, as it were.
Leverage
One of the problems with sending the wrong offer to your customers, even your most dedicated ones, is that we’re a fickle bunch. When customers get a poorly-matched offer in your box at the PO, they toss it. If they get it in their email, they often hit the “This is spam” button, which can impact your overall email deliverability.
More importantly, if you’re going to send 3rd party offers to your customers, make absolutely sure they make sense by giving your customer an opportunity to leverage the investment they’ve already made in your products and services.
The other shoe drops
When you build a commodity (mostly) utility, even one as good as this one, at some point your business model is going to flatten out. With no recurring revenue, you start doing things like emailing your customers an offer to purchase a movie service.
Even your business customers.
Think deep and long about that business model. What happens after 100 customers? What happens after 500 or 50,000? What happens 10 years from now?
The more thought you invest in that stuff now, even while building the next-big-thing, the less likely you’ll need to make choices that would never cross your mind otherwise.
Want to learn more about Mark or ask him to write about a business, operations or marketing problem? See Mark’s site or contact him via email at mriffey at flatheadbeacon.com.