As a relief from, and contrast to, the hectic and forceful world of email marketing, I support my local rugby club. Some years ago, the club was struggling for income and expansion of membership was seen as the best way of bringing in money. Someone suggested having a women’s team.
It might seem that we were forward-looking but the main reason it was nodded through was the need for money. It was a safe option as many premiership clubs were supporting women’s rugby. We weren’t leaders; we jumped on a bandwagon.
There’s nothing wrong in copying others, at least as long as it doesn’t contravene copyright law. One would think that all successful email marketing companies check their competition for ideas and it is a productive policy to peruse marketing emails outside your speciality. However, the idea of jumping on a bandwagon is seen as rather dangerous, even unfair. I fail to see why.
Bandwagons, or the latest fashion as it could be called, have a lot going for them. Firstly, all the expensive research has been completed, and the risks of an initiative have been settled. Also, bandwagons have a certain impetus that drags people into them.
Downsides are few but can be worrying. The foremost one is that you can become just like all the rest and therefore indistinguishable from them. Not a target for any email marketing company. To overcome that, you can try a slightly different angle, something that shows you are taking the matter seriously.
Depending on the nature of the bandwagon, you might be seen as insincere. While the main motivation of your belief in whatever it is you are supporting might well be financial, it is useful if it is something that you fully support.
For instance, you might think that going vegan might help your image and gain you customers. A sudden conversion might be seen as convenient and it’s no good suggesting that Alan from HR is half-way there as he had a BLT sandwich that morning. It will be seen through and the result might be negative.
In the case of my rugby club, there was a great deal of support for a woman’s team from the club members, ironically few of whom were female. One was an athlete in her youth and her commonwealth bronze added a certain support to our campaign. Within a few weeks, we had enough women, not only in numbers, but in ability as well, to have a team in the new women’s league.
What made our club successful in its initiative was that, once the idea was floated to the members, almost everyone supported it. The popularity of a female rugby team was something that had no reasonable argument against it.
The point with bandwagons is that they generally have a great deal of popular support, otherwise they wouldn’t be bandwagons. You can reach a larger audience to gain subscribers to your email marketing lists. You can also be in at, if not at the ground level, then at least the early days of a popular movement.
