Email Marketing Tips. Part 2 – How to write an effective email.
March 16, 2008 by olehcreativeThis article is the second in a series of short articles each dealing with a certain aspect of email marketing and meant to help you, dear reader, to improve your email marketing campaigns. The second article in the series lists tips relating to the most common activity of email marketing – writing emails.
I hope you find the pointers given here interesting and useful. You are encouraged to contact me with tips based on your own successful experiences – I will add them to the list…
Pointers and Tips, Do’s and Don’ts, Hints and Suggestions,
for writing effective marketing materials for email campaigns
- DON’T – Send for the sake of sending
My mom always said:
“If you haven’t got anything smart to say it’s best if you shut up”.
My mom is always right.From an email marketing perspective there is something profound in this adage. Email blasts should only be sent out to your list when they have a point:
You have some new meaningful content to share with your list members, content they are likely to want to receive.Sending out email simply for the sake of reminding people you exist is usually a pretty bad call. Repeat the practice often and you should expect people to sign out from your list in droves…not a pretty sight.
DO – Keep people up to date
Let your list members know about new and worthwhile content you have to share with them. “Worthwhile content” could be any of the following:
- News from your organization and industry.
- Press and media coverage of your organization and its members or activities.
- New products or services from your company.
- Articles with fresh editorial content, commentary, or hints relating to your fields of expertise and operation.
- Events your organization is organizing, participating in, or sponsoring.
- Special or seasonal offers for your list members.
- DON’T – Nobody enjoys being misledAvoid at all costs creating misleading subject lines for your postings. Not only is this type of deception unethical, in many places it is downright illegal. Using misleading titles will hurt your reputation as a trustworthy email sender and cause massive sign outs from your email marketing lists.
DO – Stay on topicAfter evaluating which of the above mentioned message-worthy content is the prompt for your email, make sure that your content is closely associated to your chosen subject matter.
- DON’T – Yap about yourselfNobody likes a braggart.
Avoid the words “Me”, “We”, “Us”.
DO – Talk about themPeople like hearing about themselves.
Use the word “You” often. - DON’T – Be a bore
Avoid sending emails that are composed entirely of blurbs extolling at great length the numerous virtues of your organization and its products or services. Most of the time we all find these company / product / organization descriptions boring to tears.
DO – Be entertaining
We all enjoy reading “human interest” stories.
Focus your writing around story-telling that puts people at the center.
Instead of giving endless feature descriptions or lists of your organizations virtues, try demonstrating the same benefits through stories about the positive experiences people have had with your products, services and organization.
- DON’T - No really, don’t be a bore!
A dry description of even the most exciting activity, product, or event will still make for a dull and boring read – the kind that will largely be ignored by your readership. On the other extreme, too many superlatives cause readers to doubt the subject matter as being nothing but hot air and fluff. DO – Keep it interesting.
Even the driest most tedious subject matter can be transformed into an engaging and exciting read by a talented writer, this is often the secret of the success behind great non-fiction writing. As a rule, write about people and experiences and keep your audience involved emotionally – A story that touches our emotions is one that we will follow to the end. - DON’T – Give away all the goods in your email.Although this is a technical issue it is very important nonetheless. You should avoid using your email blast in order to tell full stories. The eye fatigue that your reader’s will experience during the course of reading your message from a screen dictates that you should avoid sending out emails that are longer than 250-400 words long.
DO – Use your email as a lead to your site.
A good email blast or newsletter will include several (2 to 4) story headers followed by short lead paragraphs introducing the items that the email newsletter covers.The purpose of including multiple leads in a single email is not only to relieve accumulated eye fatigue but also to allow for different tastes. We don’t all find the same stories interesting. By including a few leads you are multiplying the chance that your email will interest your readership.
Moreover it is in your best interest to have your readers click on a link in your email so that they start viewing your site. Once a reader is on your web-site it is much easier to cause them to perform the action you are hoping for, whether this is the purchase of one of your items, signing up to an event or even just filling in a form.
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- The credibility and authority of an organization makes readers more receptive to their email efforts.
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- In the Email Game, the finish line is not the inbox. You must reach the reader’s mind.
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- Your reader’s poor response may have nothing to do with your email.
- A glossary of terms relating to email and online marketing
Ethics and legality of Email Marketing
February 27, 2008 by olehcreativeThe ethics of email marketing are founded on a simple single understanding:
People’s in-boxes are as much part of their private domain as are their bedrooms.
We all need to understand that sending spam to someone’s in-box is akin to barging uninvited into their bedroom.
The Golden Rule of ancient philosophy, quoted here from the works of Pittacus, and understood to be the basis of all human rights, applies to email marketing as well:
“Do not to your neighbor what you would take ill from him“.
If you do not enjoy receiving spam why on earth do you think anyone else does?
If you do not enjoy looking at commercial offers that are entirely irrelevant to you why do feel that forcing others to do so is a good idea?
Do you need Fake Vitamins? Phony watches? Dodgy loans?
No?
Neither do I…
How much does Spam cost?
In a utopian world the two ideas I mentioned before would be enough to prevent spam from ever becoming a problem.
Sadly, as the following figures prove, the world is far from being Utopian. Spam counts for more than 80% of all the email traffic on the face of the planet. The UN published a recent report stating that spam is responsible for causing a 25 billion $ dent in the global economy every year (no mistake – Spam costs us all 25 billion dollars a year).
Laws come to regulate situations where ethics and personal morals have failed to restrain improper, hurtful or dangerous behaviors. Laws are also often created in situations where technological and scientific advances create new sets of circumstances that require regulation in time frames that do not allow for the natural evolution of new ethics.
The Internet, cyberspace and email in particular, fall into both these categories. We have all indeed witnessed extensive unethical and illegal use of every new field presented to us by the IT sector. It therefore should come as no surprise that most governments in the cyber-savvy regions of the globe have indeed created rules and laws to regulate the usage of the new medium. In general, and also specifically to regulate how the medium may be used for advertising.
The American Anti-Spam law
The United States government published the CAN SPAM act (Controlling the assault of non-solicited Pornography and Marketing Act) in January of 2004.
Although it has often been maligned and criticized, a basic understanding of the principles of the American law remains a good starting point for anyone who wishes to engage in email marketing the legal way.
So what does the CAN SPAM act actually say?
Here’s a basic list of the laws main provisions:
- CAN SPAM forbids false and/or misleading header information
The “From,” “To,” and routing information in your emails, including the originating domain name and email address, must be accurate and identify you correctly. - CAN SPAM forbids the use of deceptive subject lines
The subject line of your email mustn’t be misleading regarding the contents of your message. - CAN SPAM demands that your email give recipients a method to opt-out
You must provide an email address, or other Internet-based point of contact, that allows recipients to elect to no longer get email messages from you. You are required by law to honor all such requests. - CAN SPAM states that it is illegal to sell email addresses
Its illegal for you to sell or give away the email addresses of the people who chose to no longer get your email unless you transfer the addresses so another entity can comply with the law. - CAN SPAM requires that commercial email be identified as an advertisement and include the sender’s postal address
Your email must contain a clear notice informing the recipient that your message is an advertisement and that the he or she can choose to no longer receive commercial emails from you. Your message must also include a valid physical postal address for you and/or your business.
Remember the golden rule…
The American CAN SPAM act and similar laws in other countries came into being because we all neglected to obey the golden rule: “Spam not thy neighbor as thou wouldst not have him spam thyself“.
It is a good idea to test all your email marketing, and indeed all your marketing efforts according to this simple maxim. When your marketing efforts meet the simple requirement made by this maxim you will find that, not only are they far more effective, but also that you and your business are perceived as ethical, honest and pleasant to deal with.
In most businesses I’m familiar with a good reputation is often worth a hefty chunk of change…
Please note that the above is nothing more than my uneducated personal opinion. I am not a trained legal professional, and this post is not to be viewed as legal, or any other form of advice, in any way. Should you elect to follow any course of action suggested in the above text you do so at your own responsibility and under no circumstances will any claims of this writers responsibility for the outcome of your actions be acknowledged.
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- Email Marketing is being used by businesses and organizations to increase their profits and enhance their image.
Email from Non Profits and Charities have high Impact
- The credibility and authority of an organization makes readers more receptive to their email efforts.
Business Email: Send for Impact
- In the Email Game, the finish line is not the inbox. You must reach the reader’s mind.
What factors are distracting your readers from your Email Campaigns’ messages?
- Your reader’s poor response may have nothing to do with your email.
- A glossary of terms
The standardization of Email – What’s up with that?
December 30, 2007 by olehcreativeThe rise of the Internet
The rise of the internet as a popular media form is unprecedented in human history.
Statistics put the amount of people of engaged with this form of media in some fashion at over 1.2 Billion.
Whatever the parameters you choose to focus on for your analysis the Internet’s behavior within that parameter is virtually uncontested by other media types. Never before has a form of mass media gained such visibility, following, adherence and loyalty in such a short period of time.
This stunning success often makes us forget that the Internet, as we know it, has been around for less than fifteen years. Many of us feel that the Web was always there, and that we were always using it, but I still remember discussions I witnessed in the mid 90’s where some people where discounting the Internet as a fad soon to be forgotten, like Teletext, Betamax, Boy-Bands and the Macarena. I guess those people are lucky I can’t remember their names…
The cost of rapid development is low standards
The rapid rise of the Internet as a media form is not without its problems. This is natural and should be expected from a media that, more than any other media, empowers each and every individual engaged with it, to become a creative agent, who is not only experiencing content but also providing it.
One of the major difficulties the Internet faces as a media form is the low level of standardization of the content. Internet content comes in all shapes and sizes – websites, Email, forums, wiki’s, social networking platforms, etc. These are all Internet based forms of content. Each one of them is constantly being created and edited by a mind boggling amount of people who each have their own insights and beliefs regarding what would be the ideal format for their content contribution.
Expectation vs. standardization – an exponentially growing gap
To further complicate matters these creative contributors are all vying for the attention of an unprecedented number of online consumers. These consumers hunger for innovation, a hunger that is fueled by the IT industry’s constant advertising of new and exciting methods for and experiencing and creating content.
Since the computing power fueling these developments is continuing to increase at an exponential rate, this problem will only become more acute in the future. A day will come when consumers will expect their technology fantasies to be delivered by the industry in real time.
The standardization of Painting – a case study
To give a different perspective to this issue I offer that we reflect on a much older form of media, and consider the process by which it became standardized.
Let’s take the evolution of painting as a case study. What in fact is a “Painting”? What do we consider consists a painting? For this we need first to examine our definition of a what a painting is.
Here’s my feeble attempt at this task -
A painting can be defined as:
“A two dimensional rendering made with paint, ink, pencil or another form of marking substance, of an artistic or creative idea, onto a two dimensional format often made of canvas or paper”.
This flawed definition is my own but I hope that you would consider it an acceptable basis for dialog from which a better final definition could be hammered out together at some other opportunity. Defining paintings is not the purpose of this article…
Let’s consider the history of painting to see how long it took for humanity to work out what consists a “Painting”.
The earliest examples of cave painting are over 40,000 years old and they hardly conform to the definition I offered earlier. The canvas paintings that my definition covers more adequately were popularized in Italy around the 14-15 century.
It took our collective effort as a species and nearly 39,000 years, to reach the level of standardization required to allow me to define what consists a “Painting” in the fashion that I did. That’s a lot of effort for a 32 word definition…
Back to the future …of the Internet
I hope the process of standardization takes less time for the Internet because it has been around for just 15 years and 39 millennia is a long time to wait… When we consider that standardization is not only a technological process but also a social one it should come to no one as a surprise that standardization is a major plight for the Internet at the moment.
Technological processes vs. social processes
It is far easier for a technology company to come up with a new product than it is for it to agree with another technology company on how this product should behave and to what standards it must comply. The first process is a technological or development process. Its progress is dependant mainly on access to the funding required. The second process is a social process requiring a group of human beings, with what are often conflicting interests, to sit down and reach an agreement that they not only can live with, but will be also be committed to uphold over a long period of time. I think you’ll agree that throwing money at a problem is a much easier method of solving it.
I personally feel that this gap between development and social processes was the main reason for the bursting of the Internet bubble in 2000. Simply put, technology companies were delivering products at the rate computers could churn them out, to a market that was developing at the rate that humans can comprehend…
Good news on the Internet standardization front
The good news is that much work has, and is constantly being done, in order to reach a level of standardization that will improve the way the World Wide Web is experienced as a media. Projects like the WC3, the IETF, are well received by major Internet stakeholders who are mostly collaborating with the standardization attempts.
Old cousin email got left behind
Regrettably while the World Wide Web’s attempts at standardization are moving along nicely and are being well received, the Internet’s earlier application, Email, has been left behind with regard to standardization. This is a problem we all encounter so often that we have been desensitized to its existence, but it is responsible for phenomenon we are all familiar with. For example, different appearances of the same email message on different email clients (Outlook, Yahoo, Gmail, Thunderbird and all the rest….) are due to the fact that what consists of an “Email” has never been properly ratified by all the stakeholders in the Email game.
The Email Standards Project
But it seems that even in the Email arena things are finally beginning to change. Recently I have become aware of a praiseworthy initiative called the “Email Standards Project” that is working with email client developers and the design community in order to improve web standards support and accessibility in email. The goal of the Email Standards Project is to help stakeholders understand why standards are so important for email, and to ensure that emails display consistently on all email clients.
The Email Standards Project is a community effort aimed at improving the email experience for both designers and readers alike, and that alone is a good enough reason for me to endorse it.
- For more information on the Email Standards Project visit :
http://www.email-standards.org/. - For more information on email as a marketing tool for business and non profit organizations go to:
http://www.readerimpact.com/readerimpact-email-marketing-tips.html
-
Mike Darnell
Creative Director
Oleh Technology and Communications
What can I expect from my new email campaign?
December 3, 2007 by olehcreativeEmail marketing, advertising, and campaigns have many benefits. See this short list:
- With email your message arrives instantaneously
- Email marketing and is a low cost undertaking when compared to printed or other advertising forms .
- Readers appreciate emailed newsletters because they contain timely information (or they should…).
- Your readers are receptive to your email messages since, assuming that you’re using a permission-based ESP (Email Service Provider), they opted-in (subscribed) to your list
- Emails have a impact because readers skim them for details with a high degree of mental focus, leading, in turn to a high level of retention for the information provided.
- Email is a very widely used form of communication. Over 97% of consumers and 94% of marketers in the U.S. use email daily.
Email marketing Vs. printed advertising
While regular emails are like personal letters, marketing emails are more similar to fliers, bulletins, and colorful advertisements. In order to compete in this new media, you need to have emails that match what you were doing previously on paper. You can’t exchange a colorful Non-profit organization or charity bulletin created with Publisher for a plain-text email, but you can exchange it for a colorful, graphic, high impact email.
The methodology of bulk email marketing
Using email saves you money on envelopes, postage stamps. Saves you the hassle of going to the post office and also gets better results. Additionally information reaches your targets much faster. Without lifting a phone or leaving their home or office, members on your lists can RSVP for an event or volunteer to help. Customers can buy Judaica items with the click of a mouse.
Email campaigns = Shorter delivery times at lower costs
The purpose of mass or bulk emailing from a marketing perspective is to provide groups of readers with information they’ll find useful, in exchange for gaining their consent to continue their email relationship with your organization, charity or business. The outcome of this relationship is may well be eventual sales of products/services, or in the case of organizations or charities, increased member participation and donations.
When a business or organization sends emails of worth, providing a clear value for the reader, the sender develops a good email reputation — that’s email-heaven, since readers learn to trust the sender, and his messages are perceived as being credible.
Emails similarity to other forms of advertising?
In the end it’s all about people…
Email marketing is hi-tech, but it’s still based on human relationships. When you strip away all the computer stuff, you’re left with a message created by one person, to be read by another.
Your message and how you present it, determine the responses you will receive. It is vital that you take the time to plan, prepare and write your message well. Even great writers may create several versions before getting it right. Good emails take more time to prepare but gain a bigger impact and have a higher chance of getting your readers to perform the actions you are hoping for. Careful planning keeps your emails from being D.O.A. (deleted on arrival)
How should I plan my email advertising campaigns and promotions?
Finding the exact combination of:
- Email wording
- Email design
- Information provided
- Value proposition offered
- Sending schedules and times
- And other factors, is the primary activity of email marketers.
- No one gets it right the first time.
Fortunately, you’re not alone. Hundreds, if not thousands of ambitious entrepreneurs, businesses, organizations and charities are involved in learning the ropes of successful email marketing – some achieve fantastic results almost immediately while others are frustrated at first but our experience is that trial and error ultimately bring wisdom with results following soon after…
Learn More?
Email from Non Profits and Charities have high Impact
Business Email: Send for Impact
What factors are distracting your readers from your Email Campaigns’ messages?
