|
Below, you'll find extensive information on leading
email marketing campaign articles and products to help you on your way
to success.
Email Marketing Campaigns - Robots, Humans And Shoes Slashed
Email Marketing Campaigns - Robots, Humans And Shoes Slashed
By Elaine Currie, Mon Jan 2nd
Copyright 2005 Elaine Currie When you are planning an campaign, there are twoimportant issues to be addressed. The first issue is ensuringthat your campaign gets delivered and the secondis persuading the recipients of the campaign toopen the emails and read them. Email Marketing Campaigns - Robots
Despite the scare headlines about the death of email marketing,it is alive and well and campaigns are stillfighting a running battle with their arch-enemies - thefilterbots. These are the poorly trained robots that filter outlegitimate marketing emails and correspondence from yourrelatives but persistently deliver enormous amounts of rubbishright into your mailbox. You have probably had the experience of signing up for an emailmarketing campaign - you know, the sort that offers a usefultraining course or a series of interesting articles - and thenfinding that you only get about half or two thirds of thepromised emails. Sometimes a ten part email campaignmysteriously disappears after part seven or you receive all ofthe campaign except parts 1, 5 and 9. It alwaysseems random but we are told that the filterbots are trained toseize mail containing certain words, symbols or combinations ofwords and symbols. The really infuriating thing about the bots is that they seem tobe unable to distinguish the difference between a junk emailmarketing campaign and email from a contact in your personaladdress book. How dare these bots decide on your behalf that youwill not receive email from your excitable friend who usesdouble and triple exclamation marks in correspondence! Ok,multiple exclamation marks are vulgar but being eaten by robotsseems rather a harsh punishment for a mere lapse of taste. Thefilterbots, although not particularly intelligent, are cunning:they leave no evidence, they devour every scrap of the mail theysteal, so you can't prove they have committed the theft. Youcan't fight the bots so you need to weave a cloak ofinvisibility for your campaigns. Anyone doing research in the hope of creating a successful emailmarketing campaign will come across advice on how to get pastthe filterbots and will discover in advance that certain wordsand phrases must be avoided. These dangerous words include"money back", "100% satisfied", "money-back guarantee" and"order today". So whilst the author of an email marketingcampaign will have this advance warning, such matters will nothave come to the attention of your Granny. Granny will wonderwhy you didn't reply to her email asking for your advice on herproposed stair lift purchase even though she told you in heremail that the company offers a guarantee and she wanted to sendoff her order today. If Granny is deaf, she won't be able tosort this out with you by phone, and the filterbots will havecreated a terrible rift in your relationship. Email Marketing Campaigns - Humans Armed with your knowledge of the bots' weakness for certainfodder, you can make sure your campaign containsno tempting words that would turn your campaign into a series oftasty bot snacks. So, you've done your research, you know thewords to avoid and you have found a neat tool that will readyour email and tell you if you have accidentally used a "bad"word in your campaign. The next thing toconsider is getting the emails read by the recipients. Havinggone to a lot of trouble to plan you campaignand robot-proof it, you want to give the emails the bestpossible chance of being read. With one eye on the banned wordlist, you need to think of the human beings who will receiveyour email and create subject lines that will make them want toread each email. A tall order but not impossible. There arethings you should do and things to definitely avoid. Your emailsubject heading should (a) stand out, (b) engage the recipient'sinterest, (c) relate closely to the body of the message and (d)not look like hype. To make your campaign stand out, you can indentthe subject by using ">>>>>>>>" or "__________" or "********"but don't be tempted to use exclamation marks or all capitalletters. These will catch the human eye but they will alsoattract the scrutiny of the filterbots who will most likely gulpthe email down without even bothering to look further than thesubject line.
Don't be tempted to put L@@K in the subjectheading of a business email, that sort of thing is fine if youare writing to a friend but it does not convey a professionalimage. To engage the recipient's interest in your email marketingcampaign you can employ one of the following techniques: (a)state a powerful benefit - "xxxxxxx Satisfies Your Need for xxx"(b) pique curiosity - "xxxxxxxx Has Uncovered the Secrets ofSuccess" (c) write your subject line with a news angle -"xxxxxxxx Launches xxxxxxxx For Those Who Want to xxxxxxxxxxxFast!" (d) offer Immediate Gratification - "With xxxxxxxxxxx,you can start xxxxxxxxxx before the sun goes down tonight" The subject line of your email must be relevant to the body ofthe message. If you want to annoy people and ensure they neveropen another email from your marketing campaign, pick animportant sounding subject line - eg "Urgent - Re Your Account"for an email that has nothing to do with any account held by therecipient. People do not like to be misled or tricked and willnot forgive you if they think you are trying to fool them. Usingan irrelevant title to get someone to open an email istantamount to lying to them. People will remember this behaviourand might even block all future emails from you. Words such as": time-sensitive, only 3 days left, powerful, offer about toexpire, exclusive, limited, secret" are known to attractattention but should only be used in appropriate circumstances,ie when they relate to the contents of the email. Create an campaign subject line that doesn'tlook like hype. This has to be the hardest one of all as it issubjective. What looks like hype to one person will look like areasonable proposition to another. A perfectly genuine statementwill be suspected hype to an overly cynical person. The firstthing to do is to avoid anything that you personally think lookslike hype. Ask yourself if it would convince you if it turned upin your mailbox or if you would immediately hit the deletebutton - if you can't even convince yourself, you will becausing a similar reaction in other people. Never makeover-inflated claims in the subject line, make sure you can backup any statements you make. If you can do this and still createan alluring title for your email, you will have a good chance ofgetting your campaign read if it gets past thefilterbots. Email Marketing Campaigns - "Shoes Slashed Whilst Lions Roared" "Shoes Slashed Whilst Lions Roar" is my favourite email subjectline of all time. I believe this is an example of a near enoughperfect subject line for an campaign. It has allthe elements: the words stand out from the run of the milltitles, it engages the recipient's interest, it relates closelyto the body of the message and it does not look like hype. This subject line was used in an campaign run bya mail order company I had previously used for purchasingonline. I might or might not bother to read emails from thecompany depending upon how busy I was. I couldn't resist openingthis email because the title intrigued me. Although it was easyto guess that the "Shoes Slashed" would relate to reduced priceson footwear, I couldn't figure out where roaring lions wouldcome into a clothing and footwear catalogue, so I simply had toread the email. The email carried details of special offers onfootwear (as anticipated) and English Lions Rugby shirts, whichwere apparently a roaring success. The dramatic sounding subjectline was, in fact, directly relevant to the body of the mail andnothing about it bears the tell-tale mark of hype. Email Marketing Campaigns - Final Word About The Beginning The first mails in your campaign are the mostimportant so should be especially carefully crafted from theaspects of both bot-proofing and engaging human interest. If youcan get the first couple of emails delivered and read, peoplewho are interested in what you have to say will recognise yourname and will want to read any further emails from you thatarrive in their mailbox. It is also a good idea to suggest inthe first couple of emails that the recipients should add you totheir "white list" to ensure they don't miss future importantmail. All this might not make your campaigns100% filterbot proof but it is the best mere humans can do inthis particular battle. About the author:Elaine Currie has a Work At Home Directory at her Plug-In ProfitSite to help everyone who wants to work at home:http://www.huntingvenus.com
|
