“Nobody looks at emails anymore,” is something I’m certain you’ve heard a great deal over the years.
But ...
“The emails you send are the ONLY emails I read,” reads an email from a customer of one of my clients.
“Email marketing is a waste of time,” says one marketing expert.
“Email marketing is alive and well and becoming more important,” says another marketing expert during a marketing conference.
I don’t look at email marketing numbers when it comes to world volume. That’s a lot like trying to determine the precise amount of snowflakes in a large avalanche or the number of raindrops in a 2-hour thunderstorm. However, this direct response copywriter remains an email believer. It’s still a powerful and cost-effective way to reach current and prospective customers and clients.
So I’d like to start a series about successful email marketing. I’ve had a lot of success in this space. I’ve also worked with some the world’s top marketers and they know a thing or two about successful email marketing.
After reading this series, you’ll have some thoughts about how to improve your email marketing and your direct response copywriting.
Let’s start with the challenges email marketers face.
Deliverability … getting emails into the right inboxes.
Open rates … motivating people to open your emails.
Third-party lists … yes or no?
Relevant content that converts.
The biggest challenge right now, by far, is the sheer volume of scam emails. No, that’s not a typo. I didn’t mean to write spam. The email marketing world is replete with pure fraud. These emails include those delightful missives from people claiming they will put $35 million in my bank account tomorrow thanks to a prince who works for the United Nations. Then there's the person who is ‘phishing’ for information and then the scuzzbucket selling something they will never deliver.
You call is spam. I call it fraud.
“But,” you’re saying, “we’re legit.”
“So what?” I say. People are automatically putting you in the same bracket at the fraudsters. And it’s only getting worse and it’s not going away. I wonder who organizes this stuff.
Thankfully, this presents an opportunity for legitimate companies who use some fundamental direct marketing and direct response copywriting principles.
Where do I start?
Let’s start with 3rd party lists. If you’re selling outdoor furniture, you can get an email database of people who may be in the market for outdoor furniture.
This approach may or may not work. But here’s the biggest problem: compliance. You can get into trouble. The company that markets this list might tell you it’s compliant but how do you really know? Plus … is that really how you want to market your company initially? The copy and the offer might be brilliant but it doesn’t matter: you’ve got a major problem with this approach. Many of these emails have been harvested illegally and this method essentially breaks the law, at least in the United States.
How can you harvest emails legitimately?
I worked with a company that successfully harvested 2 million opt-in emails. They bought traffic to motivate people to visit a web page. They used a questionnaire based opt-in and this was very effective. Then they presented the new member of the community with a product almost immediately … to defray the acquisition/traffic costs.
You’ll want to include a direct response copywriter in this process. You can also legitimately harvest emails by providing some type of free information in return for an email address. This requires some direct response copywriting to “sell” the freebie. This opt-in method then requires follow-up emails, sometimes called an autoresponder series.
In the next blog, I’ll talk about other ways to gather emails to build your list.
