Today I unsubscribed from Hallmark.com’s email list.

You see, I’m information hungry, but I only have so much attention to give.

So I unsubscribe occasionally from the emails which are LEAST RELEVANT to me.

That’s a lesson in itself.

I believe everybody’s doing that. And in response as marketers we’ve got to adapt to that in three ways:

• When we communicate, say something worthwhile, not just communicate for the sake of it
• Target customers more finely with better segmentation
• Focus on quality rather than quantity in building mailing lists

When you write any communication, ask yourself how it deserves the attention of your recipient and why they should want to read it.

Hallmark subscribed me as a condition of me using their free e-card service (which is fine, and a perfectly acceptable strategy in my book). But subsequent communications didn’t engage me or maintain any relevance.

However, they did one thing really really well.

When I unsubscribed, they asked for my feedback as a customer and they followed the golden rules of customer surveys which I talk about on Disc 11 of Profitable Small Business Marketing.

The result? I gave them the feedback they wanted. They got a minute of my time (even though I was unsubscribing because their emails wasted my time) and I told them what they could do better.

If you can get plenty of customers to tell you what they think about you and what they can improve – you don’t need to guess about anything.

You just need to listen to improve.