Mike, if I’m not mistaken, I thought the point of this post was to note what we can learn from Guitar Center about smart email marketing. The post about how badly Guitar Center sucks should be a post on your blog.

If Guitar Center drops the ball at any point beyond what they did right, does that mean they are all wrong? Does that mean that a full exposé of their alleged shortcomings is necessary in this comment thread?

Mike, when seeking knowledge, sometimes its necessary to mine for the jewels and discard the junk. If any part of what you are saying is true, that’s fine point to keep in mind, but it doesn’t diminish Derek’s observations in the point he was making in this post.

This got me thinking – how can affiliates use this. Well, I love to hear your thoughts. But will try to see how I can make it fit.

This really highlights the right way to design content that appeals to prospects/clients. I really need to think and redesign the content that goes into my emails and whole emailing strategy.

Thanks for sharing.

But “fact driven” follow-ups, much like Guitar Center seem to send out based on the examples Derek gave above — are not the most effective way to play the game (and don’t just take my word for it: http://amzn.com/0307587959).

Storytelling should be the framework for your sales message. It’s what you wrap your message around. Injecting stories into email follow-ups is the big game-changer.

Just saying 🙂

Andre

My husband, however, is a professional bass player who has NOTHING good to say about Guitar Center for many of the reasons expounded by other commenters. I’m guessing Guitar Center recently hired a new social media/marketing person who sees the light. I guess I’ll find out the next time he drags me in there because he couldn’t wait to get something online 🙂

First, thank you Derek for the post, once again you’ve put in our face a good strategy that could definitely help us grow our business and I thank you again for that.

Now, maybe Guitar Center will lose there focus and start email blasting like a shotgun loaded with birdshot, but at the end of the day, I say, let see the bigger picture and learn from what they are doing right and stay away from what they are doing wrong.

I know that the post title said “What Guitar Center Can Teach You About Smart Email Marketing” but it could have been what NIKE did that transform my business, What I learned today from AMAZON.COM etc.

Lesson 1: **Highly targeted emails is the way to go**. How many of us have subscribed and then unsubscribed from IM related list because all the emails we received was about the latest course or the latest 1 push magic button software that will put our site up in the Google Heavens… now all those emails were absolutely not targeted(or maybe targetted at making money in their pocket by using their list as a cash cow) but on the opposite, people like Derek Halpern or Pat Flynn of http://www.smartpassiveincome.com have understood this concept and are very successful today, with a very good decent list in part because of that strategy.

So lesson #1 is that not only catching emails is important but after catching those emails when you’ll communicate with your list, just give them what they opt-in in for. It’s okay to sell, we all do it and all need to do it but doing it right is the key and this is what Derek attempted to teach us here.

Have you noticed that in most if not all the emails we receive from Derek there is a link to buy the Thesis theme. I never felt that it was aggressive as there was always very good content that came with the soft sale. Very good job on that.

** ok there might be more to the email but that is what I got from it.

Now Lesson #2: Maybe it’s just me but there is one little phrase that caught my attention… ” As we begin to roll out other products, we’ll share information about them, too.”
What other products? What is coming out? and When?…. is it just me or products other then thesis are currently in the making… if it is, I just can’t wait to see what’s in the making.

Anyway, keep posting those tips and trucs.

I also wanted to thank the ones who shared their bad experience with Guitar Center because it only confirmed that targeted email is the way to go if you want to avoid that people on your list get annoyed like some readers did. So if Guitar Center turns out to be a birdshot factory, they’ll not only teach us how to do our email follow at first but they will also teach us what not to do as well.

thanks for reading if yo read that far.

I’m out

Philippe

Don’t throw out the baby with the bath water.

Derek’s post is about effective follow up marketing for a brick and mortar or online organization and for that Derek gets an A+

Thanks Derek!