Red on Marketing Blog

Ex-member, ex-fan -- the cost of having screwed up business ethics

business ethicsThe National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO) appears to have handed over my contact information to guys who want to pitch me on everything from spa treatments to financial advice.

Again.

Sharing my contact info with all comers is a great example of worst practices in building trust with a contact base - of trading high customer lifetime value for short term gain.

Business Communications Group was a member of the NAWBO Sacramento Valley Chapter several years ago. I volunteered as well, directing the chapter's marketing efforts while on the Board.

MarketingSherpa and other researchers have shown that business people at all levels and in every industry and job function are quick to tune out or block senders whose messages do not, for one reason or another, resonate with them. They control who gets into their inbox and what sort of content they receive - either by selecting specific types of communications from their preferred senders, or by turning them off. Turning off and tuning out can happen through unsubscribing, marking a sender as a ‘blocked sender,' or marking a message as spam.

Failing to give contacts control over types of content, frequency, and mode of communication puts an organization at risk of being ‘tuned out' or, worse, destroying trust and decreasing its perceived value.

In this particular case, all those negatives apply. Today, I'm not just an ex-member. I'm an ex-fan.

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