How Do I Love Marketing With E-mail?
Let Me Count the Ways …
In this issue:
- Why despite declining response rates, e-mail is still the killer online app …
- 7 ways to breathe new life into your e-mail marketing …
- How not to use curiosity to motivate your prospects to click on your links …
- How information marketing’s red-headed stepchild can be one of the most powerful ways to sell your products far and wide …
- Plus more!
Dear Web Business Builder,
Listen to some people, and you’d think e-mail marketing was dead – what with spam blockers zapping your e-mails, and a plethora of marketers stuffing your customer and prospect in-boxes with more pitches than you can shake a stick at. “Long live blogs and direct mail”, they say. “E-mail rest in peace.”
Huh! Let these whiners go running home to Mommy – and dig in for the long haul, because e-mail is here to stay. It’s still the killer online marketing app, IF, you know how to use it …
True, click through rates aren’t what they used to be. And acquiring fresh new names for your opt-in lists is more difficult, time consuming and expensive than ever. But come on guys, did you really think it was going to be like shooting fish in a barrel forever?
Despite all of its challenges, e-mail still offers incredible utility and cost effectiveness.
It’s still just too easy to funnel leads into a series of autoresponder messages that can continually work those leads for months on complete autopilot. And there’s nothing quite as satisfying as being able to broadcast additional promotions to that list at the click of a mouse, and turn on a flood of sales at a moment’s notice.
So in this issue of Web Marketing Advisor, I’m going to tackle some of the most commonly asked questions I hear about using e-mail more productively.
Should I use HTML or plain text?
My experience with HTML is that it does pull relatively better than plain text, probably because you can format copy and use images as attention-getters and therefore drive readership more effectively. But for many of your prospects, it won’t display properly. This, and the fact that it takes additional time to prepare e-mails in HTML, makes plain text my personal preference.
How often should I e-mail my list?
Some marketers I talk to are worried about over-mailing. Others are just lazy and are hoping they can send a monthly newsletter and think they’re actually doing something productive.
If your goal is to use e-mail as a revenue generator – and you should – the answer is to mail your list as often as you possibly can, with the following proviso.
Strike a balance between useful content and straight sales copy in the body of your e-mails. Too much valuable content and you’re sacrificing traffic that could be diverted to other mediums that close sales. Too little valuable content, and your prospects will begin ignoring your e-mails, and unsubscribing in large numbers.
Some of the marketers who habituate my in-box are entirely predictable. I know they’re going to pitch me every single time. And I tend to ignore them. Others I’m not so sure what to expect, and I’ll open their e-mails just to see what they have to say. Sometimes it’s a pitch, sometimes there’s practical information right in the e-mail.
Should I segment my e-mail lists?
Now this is an interesting question, and the answer really boils down to how large your list is, and by extension, how much of a return you can get from slicing and dicing it.
In direct mail, if you don’t segment your lists, you’re dead, because it’s costing you paper, printing, postage and handling to get your message out. You’ve got to use a rifle shot, or you’re going to blow your brains out. But online, a shotgun will do just fine. You can hit your target with buckshot, and the shrapnel that lands on marginal prospects won’t cost you a cent. But there’s a hidden cost …
The downside to sending e-mails that are not laser targeted through segmentation is that it desensitizes your audience to future e-mails. Joe subscriber gets a few e-mails that he’s not interested in and naturally he’s going to be less likely to jump at the next few that arrive.
The trouble is, once you’ve already built a sub-list, it becomes very difficult and time-consuming to segment it after the fact, and there are nearly always technical limitations to deal with as well.
In my own database I have a trade off between keeping buyers in a long newsletter-like autoresponder series, and excluding them from future solicitations for the same product. Every time I look at the cure though, it looks more painful than the disease.
As far as content segmentation goes, I do some, but again, the increased time and effort required to create and source content and promotions for a number of small groups has to be weighed against the increased sales that result. Generally speaking, the larger your list, the more sense it makes to expend the extra effort.
Should I market affiliate products to my list?
As an information marketer, it can be fun to say, “I’m nobody’s affiliate”, and cast affiliate marketing as some kind of red-headed stepchild. But the truth is – done intelligently – affiliate marketing can be a great stopgap that will help you to monetize your list while you’re bulking up on your own products.
If you’re building your list with quality prospects and feeding them nutritious content, their buying hunger will usually outstrip your ability to develop new products anyway. So affiliate marketing – provided you stand 100% behind the products you’re endorsing – can add wholesome profits.
But be selective. These guys who jump on board every new product launch like an army of starving Sumo wrestlers chowing down at a free buffet are just sacrificing credibility – and long-term profits – for a quick buck.
What can I do to increase click through rates
and conversion from broadcast e-mails?
The copy that goes in the body of your broadcasts and in your subject lines is important, but it’s actually secondary to the relationship you’ve already established with your list.
Your credibility and track record for delivering value to a large extent dictates the success you’ll enjoy. “Attention” is the most valuable commodity online, and you’ve either nurtured it or squandered it in your previous communications with your list. So in a very real sense, every time you sit down to write a promotion, your destiny is at least half sealed before you begin. That said, kick-ass copy can easily double your results, especially if you work hard at doing a few things really well …
It goes without saying that the first thing you need to do is get your e-mails opened. I recommend spending at least as much time worrying about the subject line as you do worrying about the body copy.
Brainstorm at least five subject lines, pick the one you feel is most likely to stop your prospects cold (tip, the only way to know for sure is to test). For some great subject line ideas, check out Julie McManus’ recent post.
Should you use a personalization tag in the subject line? Yes, I don’t care how many times your prospects have seen it done, their name is still the sweetest word in the English language. Use it. Use it in the body copy too.
Next to personalization, curiosity is one of your greatest weapons. Human beings are naturally inquisitive. It’s part of our survival program. So use it to get your e-mail opened, use it to get your message read, and use it to get the click! But use it wisely…
Don’t be like the boy who cried wolf and mislead your prospects with promises that are not immediately fulfilled on the other side of the click. I see this being done all the time, the result of a marketer’s enthusiastic focus on the intermediary goal of getting the click, at the expense of the ultimate goal of getting the sale. People are curious, they click, and when they see the promise is unfulfilled, they bail. No sale.
Staying firmly focused on your ultimate objective is key. Every word of copy has to not only serve the purpose of getting the click, but also serve to set up your prospect properly for the next piece of media in your marketing chain.
Very often, brevity is best. Don’t mince words getting to the call to action. Unless I’ve got something very specific I need to set up before asking my prospect to click through, I like to condense my value proposition to a single sentence. I make a promise, imply proof, and call for action right up front in the e-mail. Then from there I expand on that value proposition, usually by telling a short story.
Story is incredibly powerful in e-mail, because it’s the natural way that people communicate with one another. E-mail is after all, a personal communication medium. That’s one of the reasons it’s so powerful. It blurs the line between your prospect’s friends and YOU the marketer, allowing you to enter that very special place in their lives.
No other marketing medium does this as effectively. So don’t refer to your list as a group of people with such language as “for all of you who … ” or “last week I told you guys about … ” Keep things one to one as much as possible.
This highly personalized approach actually greases the wheels of any scarcity tactics you can bring to bear to increase response. Don’t forget to use emotional triggers as well. The really cool thing is that you can use yourself as the catalyst because of the highly personal nature of the medium. There’s nothing wrong with telling your prospect how you’re feeling about something to engage them in some drama that dovetails into your offer.
What’s the best way to
use an autoresponder series?
Nobody ever bought a hammer, because they wanted a hammer. What they wanted was a bunch of nails tapped home just right. Sequential e-mail follow up is ideal for showing your prospects how to achieve their goals with your product.
Remember, the more comfortable your prospects are about the "How To" of using your product or service to solve their problem, the more confidence they’ll have in your ability and willingness to really help them. One of the most effective things you can do with your autoresponder is to offer free courses and tutorials at regular intervals that show your prospects how to use your products to get the results they’re looking for.
It’s the ultimate soft sell, and it’s very effective!
Do you want to know what’s even more effective? Combine your soft sell teaching with a little dismay, disappointment, or surprise as to why they haven’t responded to your offer yet. Of course, this requires some database management finesse because you’re going to look a little silly expressing these emotions to people who’ve already bought.
How should I be tracking
my e-mail marketing efforts?
Well a lot of people pay attention to open rates, but since I use predominantly plain text, I don’t have that luxury. What I’m interested in knowing is the percentage of people who click through on a given e-mail, and what percentage of those people buy.
If you’re using some kind of an integrated e-commerce system like 1ShoppingCart, InfusionSoft, or Goldbar1, versus piecing your infrastructure together using “best of breed” parts, it’s relatively easy to track these numbers.
OK, so there you have it, a crash course in e-mail marketing. If you’ve never tried this stuff before, you really need to grab yourself a $20 a month autoresponder account and get busy.
Until next time, Good Selling!
Daniel Levis
Editor, The Web Marketing Advisor
THE TOTAL PACKAGE™
Daniel Levis is a top marketing consultant & direct response copywriter based in Toronto, Canada and publisher of the world famous copywriting anthology Masters of Copywriting featuring the selling wisdom of 44 of the “Top Money” marketing minds of all time, including Clayton Makepeace, Dan Kennedy, Joe Sugarman, John Carlton, Joe Vitale, Michel Fortin, Richard Armstrong and dozens more! For a FREE excerpt visit http://www.SellingtoHumanNature.com.
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Let us know what you think. Or ask us anything. Or offer your own sage advice.
The only rule: RESPECT THIS HOUSE! Postings that contain abusive language and/or personal attacks will be cheerfully VAPORIZED. One cross word and – POOF! – your well-thought-out post will be gone in a puff of smoke.
– Clayton
Comment by Rob Metras — November 14, 2007 @ 11:09 am
Daniel:
I know why I have bought your products and those of Clayton. It is the culture of information generosity, which does not have to sell something new every time you speak to us that makes the difference in your work.\’Thank you ![I]null[/I][B]null[/B]