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The #1 relationship no-no šŸ“© email marketers should know

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The #1 relationship no-no šŸ“© email marketers should know

To quote Rocky Balboa in Rocky III, ā€œHumpday ain’t nuthin!ā€

And to get momentum to conquer that hump, today’s Feature Story lays out how to use relationship marketing principles to improve your email campaigns or newsletter. 

Includes 5 solid examples of brands giving a dang about the customer relationships. After you soak that up, you can sift through the following sections… 

  • The Knowledge Base  

  • Self Help (Aristotle in Bike shorts) 

  • Facts & Stats (word game boom)

  • Get Hacking (influencer-adjacent) 

Appetizer: The one thing hardly anyone’s doing with their 168 hours per week.

Now, let’s wade neck-deep into today’s Feature Story…

Feature Story

Relationships are Relationships 

How many friendships and marriages end because one party isn’t putting in much effort? 

Same principle with email marketing. If emails are lackluster, there are a million other emails subscribers can open instead. 

So… avoid the #1 relationship mistake according to this Professor of Psychology:

1ļøāƒ£Taking someone for granted.

Your email campaigns are competing against all the other email marketers. Worse - your emails are up against busy people’s time constraints, video content, and spam filters too. 

Your subscribers’ attention is a gift. Can’t take it for granted.

Is Losing One Email Subscriber a Big Deal?

Yes and no. 

You’ll never keep 100% of readers. But losing any subscriber because they don’t feel appreciated is like throwing away money. 

Chasing new customers (or subscribers) is fun because it’s a challenge, I guess. But have ya ever noticed it’s mostly chasing?

Better to ease up and focus on current customers so they keep buying from you and opening your next email because I didn’t take them for granted.

It’s easier to sell to existing customers than to someone you’re chasing, which is like stalking. 

Real-Life Examples of Relationship Marketing

My buddy, who used to own the beer / check-cashing store, never failed to be open.

Never failed to have folding money on-hand to cash every customer’s check, either. 

Every single payday, 200+ people depended on him to cash their checks. 

Same repeat customers like clockwork every week.

But, then…

He sold the place. The new owners stopped cashing checks for 3 weeks.

It took just one week for word to spread, though. 

Groups of workers at the same company all went to another business or started using a bank (which they hated in the first place - plus banks don’t sell beer).

Those customers never returned. Relationships can end fast.

It Isn’t Rocket Science

Relationship marketing can be as simple as being insanely consistent so you never let your customers down. 

If you promise a weekly newsletter. Never miss a week. 

If you promise weekly discount codes, send them 52 weeks a year.

If you promise uncommon opinions and perspectives, don’t ever mimic bland content.

5 Relationship Marketing Examples (beyond the beer store)

#1 IKEA - Changed font back when customers hated the new one.

#2 Sam’s Club - Early hours for VIP members to avoid lines.

#3 GE - Produced sci-fi podcasts (not much in it for them, just entertaining for customers).

#4 Hill’s Tool Rental - Local business owner helped me find parts for a pressure washer and didn’t charge me for taking up an hour of his time.

#5 Enterprise Car Rental - Gave me a full-sized truck and let me bring it back with an empty gas tank because they didn’t have the smaller car I’d reserved.

Proof Relationship Marketing is Worth the Effort

Good customer relationships make selling easier. But that’s not all.

  • Brand missteps will be more forgivable

  • User-generated content is an easier ask

  • Only 5% of Americans have ā€œa great deal of confidenceā€ in faceless corporations 

Also, consumer surveys show people are let down when they receive offers they have zero interest in or have already bought. Why? 

The brand has shown little interest in getting to know them.

Onward now to The Knowledge Base…

The Knowledge Base

The future of retail (includes how brands benefit from knockoffs)

šŸŖ“5 phone-busters if you’re in the 43% of folks who feel addicted

ā€œMagic The Gatheringā€- the tip of a $1 billion digital iceberg?

šŸ’”3 ways to turn docs into assets via Google NotebookLM

These wise people played the XL long career game

šŸ¦ā€šŸ”„Why corporate social feeds are boring & how to fix them

Watch: Why home improvement sales depend on video now

🦄How convenience is destroying culture

šŸ‘‡Coming up, don’t sit in the standsšŸ‘‡

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Self-Help

You could do a lot worse than listening to The Art of Manliness podcast to soak up some everyday wisdom. 

Recent episode had life lessons from an old-school dad and football coach. Dude wore Bike coach’s shorts and taught his son…

  • To never run in the rain

  • To get out of the stands

  • That nobody cares what you did last year

Episode’s here and I’ll give you the context on the second bullet above. All the fans in the stands want to switch places with athletes on the field. Fans do not want to sacrifice what it takes to get where the athletes are, though.

Facts & Stats

Budgets…

Sales of Hamburger Helper are up 14.5% this year as consumers tighten budgets (Seattle Times).

Word$…

More than 28 million people play NYT’s word games (NYT).

Cuts…

AI has directly caused over 10,000 job cuts in the first seven months of 2025 (CBS News).

Bonus: In April 2025, readers spent an average of 92 minutes on _____, outperforming social platforms like Snapchat, Pinterest, and LinkedIn. Answer at end of email.

Get Hacking

A specific strategy to implement today

Nike got Caitlin Clark. Biggest ā€œgetā€ of an influencer in a while. 

Not many brands get a shot at a major influencer. But even the smallest companies have a shot at signing potential influencers who have access to influencers with medium to large followings.

Think about the back-up point guard on a team with a star. Or the mom of a fashion influencer. 

Micro influencers have been proven hits for brands - better engagement than mega-influencers.

But most of us don’t think about how to get the micro-influencers before anyone else knows about them. Or how to help them evolve into an influencer.

ALT Hack: Easy pickins for content creation. Sports writing is horrible today. 

Most articles are either AI slop or filled with fan tweets. If a sports writer has nothing to say and leans on dingbat fan opinions, what kind of writer is that? One that can be replaced by you. Just find a way to connect sports to your campaigns here and there. 

Thanks for reading Inbox Hacking. Please share it with your peeps - it’s sugar-free but stings a bit.

Shane McLendon - Copy Kingpin

Bonus answer from Facts & Stats section: Readers spent an average 92 minutes on The New York Times Digital games, beating social platforms like Snapchat, Pinterest, and LinkedIn (NYT).

ā€œThe man who doesn’t read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read them.ā€ ~Mark Twain