According to two sources I trust implicitly—J.R.R. Tolkien and Drew Barrymore (okay, technically I trust her character in Donnie Darko)—the most beautiful combination of words in the English language is “cellar door.”  Now, you can debate this assertion all you want.  But to do so would be fruitless unless you’ve penned a tome as lengthy and beloved as “Lord of the Rings” or you won the hearts of millions in E.T. the Extraterrestrial.

So, rather than debate the most beautiful combination of words in the English language, I would like to propose the ugliest.  Here goes:

Email List

Hold on…let it sink in for a bit.  Do you feel the fingernails scraping down your mental chalkboard? If not, take a moment and consider what one of your subscribers hears when these words are spoken.  Do you think they feel special, unique or valuable?  Or is it more likely that they feel like a nameless, faceless number?

Language matters.  And when we focus on issues concerning the “email list” instead of the needs of our “email subscribers,” we do ourselves a great disservice.  We focus on us and our needs as opposed to our subscribers—our customers—and their needs. 

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard a marketer proclaim “we have to grow our list!”  When pressed, however, these marketers readily admit that list growth isn’t the real goal.  Their real goal is increasing the number of subscribers who respond to their email program by purchasing or responding or interacting in some measurable way.

If you share a similar objective, I’d like to suggest a simple, semantic exercise to help focus your efforts. For the next month, try substituting “subscribers” for “list” in your email marketing vocabulary.  Give up trying to “grow your list” in favor of trying to add subscribers and increase your knowledge of their unique needs. 

The exercise may be simple, but the perspective gained will help you avoid burn and churn tactics in favor of programs built to maximize subscriber value.

Subscriber-centric.  Now those are beautiful words.