One of the principles of marketing I constantly remind people about the importance of its "context." The term context means the set of circumstances or facts that surround a particular event, situation, scenario, etc.
In more practical terms, what I mean by marketing context is the appropriateness and sensibility of a particular marketing message delivered to a particular target in a particular way.
For example, you should be talking to your current customers/clients/patients differently than you would talk to a prospect. When talking to a customer, the context of your relationship allows you to be more informal and personal because of the existing relationship.
With a prospect, the relationship has yet to be created, so the context of the relationship is one of a "warm-up period where", over time, you allow them to get to know, like and trust you. I always use the analogy of dating. Chances are most people do not ask their spouse to marry them on the first date. There is a courting period, an engagement period and finally marriage.
Let me share a specific example of marketing context and how it relates to day-to-day marketing. My friend and mentor, Bill Glazer, often talks about his most successful marketing piece was a four-page letter on yellow legal paper that appeared to be hand-written. The piece generated a ton of business and Bill even won an industry award because of its success.
Other marketers see this and try to emulate Bill's success. In particular I heard about one story, where a marketer basically did the same thing Bill did, but got ZERO RESPONSE.
The reason Bill was successful and this other person was not was because Bill understood the context of how he used the handwritten letter, whereas the other person did not.
In Bill's situation, he sent the letter to people who already knew him and knew what he stood for (including some pretty outrageous marketing). The context of the relationship was familiarity and a hand-written letter from Bill was congruent with the relationship.
On the other hand, the marketer who copied the letter, sent it to COLD PROSPECTS! Think about this for a second. You receive a funky-looking, handwritten letter from somebody you don't know. Does this make sense?
Probably not, which is why his response rate was zero.
You should always be considering the context of your marketing message and consider whether or not it makes sense for your target. Is it appropriate for the current state of your relationship and the situation surrounding it? Most importantly, remember, the context is from the point of view of your target - NOT YOU!