Goodwill has a huge value in business ( and is often factored into the selling price when the business is transferred to a new owner ).
There are 2 main ways to accumulate goodwill …
- People can build up a favourable opinion of you directly, after dealing with you and possibly buying something from you before.
- They can also receive a good opinion of you from friends and others who had a good experience – particularly opinion leader, who are people they respect and trust.
Does goodwill apply to emails ?
Emails and Goodwill
When it comes to receiving emails from you, if you have some goodwill, it results in a huge increase in open-rates and people clicking the links in you emails.
So … mailing to a list works well IF the people receiving the email can recall a previous good experience with you ( or a friend or opinion leader’s good experience.
It mostly doesn’t work well when the email addresses you have weren’t gathered at your site, or they came from some unrelated source, because you haven’t built up any goodwill with the receivers.
The rule-of-thumb as I’ve observed it from my own emails …
- If the people receiving the email are or have been a client, then most of them open the emails;
- If they recall getting something of value ( even just a price list ) from me the open rate’s ok;
- But if they don’t recall either of these things, the open rate’s terrible.
5 things to do …
- Build a quality email list : ask people that you deal with if you can add their email address to your mailings so that you can send them useful stuff (make sure it is info they’re interested in). Build up a quality list that way.
- Also offer people things on your website in exchange for their email address.
- Email regularly : Once people have joined a list, you need to email them regularly. If you don’t, then they tend to forget where they know you from.
- Make sure that the emails you send out are on the subject that they’re interested in.
- Stay on-topic : if you send people to a page, keep the headlines & images similar so that people can tell they get to the right place.
The value of a good email list is very high, because it keeps the communication line open and builds familiarity and trust. The value of a list of emails where the people don’t know you is extremely low and can even be detrimental if you get a reputation for spamming.