Effective e-mail marketing: the complete guide to creating successful campaigns

284 Pages·2002·2.696 MB·English

by  Herschell Gordon Lewis

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Team-Fly®
Effective E-Mail
Marketing
Effective E-Mail
Marketing
The Complete Guide to Creating
Successful Campaigns
HERSCHELL GORDON LEWIS
American Management Association
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Effective e-mail marketing: the complete guide to creating successful campaigns /
Herschell Gordon Lewis
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 0-8144-7147-1
1. Internet marketing. 2. Electronic mail systems. I. Title: E-mail marketing. II. Title:
E-mail marketing. III. Title.
HF5415.1265 .L482 2002
658.8’4—dc21 2002001933
© 2002 Herschell Gordon Lewis.
All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America.
This publication may not be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted in whole or in part,
in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior written permission of AMACOM,
a division of American Management Association,
1601 Broadway, New York, NY 10019.
Printing number
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Preface vii
Acknowledgments xi
Chapter 1: Effective E-Mail—
The Communications Revolution 1
Chapter 2: Adapting Your Message to This Medium 9
Chapter 3: How to Get Opt-Ins 33
Chapter 4: Avoiding the “Spam” Accusation 53
Chapter 5: That Magical Ingredient—Rapport 85
Chapter 6: Psychology Over Technology:
A Valid Conclusion? 105
Chapter 7: The All-Important Subject Line 129
Chapter 8: Personalization and Relevance 141
Chapter 9: Holding On to Fragile Response 153
Chapter 10: Words and Phrases That Work 167
Chapter 11: Words and Phrases That Don’t Work 179
v
vi Contents
Chapter 12: Structuring Sentences and
Paragraphs That Persuade 185
Chapter 13: How to Reduce Opt-Outs 193
Chapter 14: The Interval Enigma:
How Often Should You E-Mail? 207
Chapter 15: Monday and Friday—Poor E-Mail Days? 213
Chapter 16: Rich Media and Viral Mail 217
Chapter 17: Sample E-Mails: The Good,
the Bad, and the Ugly 241
Chapter 18: “And in conclusion, ladies and gentlemen . . .” 257
Appendix: A Potpurri of Tips 263
Index 273
About the Author 287
Preface
E-mail is the first force-communication phenomenon of the twenty-
first century.
In a single package, we have total “one-to-one”—that is, total
command of the recipient’s attention. We also have complete capa-
bility of message testing and an unprecedented ease of transmis-
sion. (In fact, e-mail is an easier form of communication than
speech, because the e-mail sender can catch and repair errors that
readily slip out between the lips.)
But e-mail has a problem.
It is the problem that besets any apparently simple success story:
Everybody—everybody—is an expert. And do you know what hap-
pens when everybody is an expert? Mistakes compound themselves
because we so-called experts don’t recognize mistakes as mistakes.
What types of mistakes that will reduce response and revenue
might the commercial e-mail sender commit? Even a preliminary
list is formidable:
• Overmailing (see Chapter 4)
• Undermailing (see Chapter 14)
• Using dull descriptions (see Chapter 11)
• Sending the identical message repeatedly (see Chapter 13)
vii
viii Preface
• Not knowing the demographic of your targets (see Chapter 6)
• Not making rapportthe key of every message (see Chapter 5)
• Assuming all your targets share the same demographic/psy-
chographic profile (see Chapter 1)
• Eliminating target groups merely because you don’t think they
might respond (see Chapter 6)
• Refusing to test (see Chapter 1)
• Assuming that what works for direct mail automatically works
for e-mail (see Chapter 2)
And that is just a starter list. But yes, mistakes are there to be
made. And mistakes in e-mail invariably reduce response and rev-
enue.
Are you reading this in the year 2004? Three years earlier Jupiter
Research predicted that by this year, e-mail would command 15 per-
cent of all advertising dollars. Were they overenthusiastic or too con-
servative?
Are you reading this in the year 2005? Then you can determine
whether a prediction made four years earlier by IDC of Framingham,
Massachusetts, is valid: that by 2005 there will be 35 billion com-
mercial e-mail messages per day. That’s nothing: The same source
says total e-mails—personal as well as business—will be 9.2 trillion.
And remember, personal e-mails fight for attention against com-
mercial e-mails. Talk about competition! You had better be an expert.
Are you reading this in the year 2006? Then you may dismiss as
an anecdote a “study” by Forrester Research that predicted by 2006,
40 percent of people who have at least four years of Internet-surfing
experience would generally ignore e-mail marketing. Do you agree
with that? I don’t. This so-called study not only deals in opinions
rather than results but also parallels someone saying he or she is
bored with television, doesn’t read a newspaper, or has no interest
in sex.
Preface ix
If you don’t care about reduced response and revenue, this book
isn’t for you. If you care about reduced response and revenue, I
promise you’ll find a nugget here and there that will more than jus-
tify the leap of faith you took when picking up this book in the first
place.
And oh, before I forget: If you’re looking for a book loaded with
technical terms, impenetrable acronyms, and arcane terminology,
this isn’t it. This is a book about e-mail marketing—which makes it
possible for those term-throwers to exist at all.
—Herschell Gordon Lewis
Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Acknowledgments
I am deeply indebted to Jock Bickert of The Looking Glass. This
astute marketer, who developed the “Cohorts” segmentation that
has repeatedly produced quantum leaps in response, not only made
invaluable suggestions but also allowed me to test multiple e-mail
concepts and then shared the results and analyses with me.
For the same reason, I offer my gratitude to Carol Bond of Carol
Bond Health Foods, and Joel Irwin and Mark Irace of Proflowers.com.
These intelligent marketers have shown a willingness to test e-mail
copy and techniques, and I have profited mightily from being
involved in the creation of their e-mailings.
Robert Dunhill of Dunhill International Lists and Jay Schwedel-
son of Worldata, both knowledgeable experts, graciously shared
some of their own e-mail experiences with me.
Steve Hardigree, the marketing expert who heads Opt In Inc., is
responsible for opening my eyes to many of the innovations for
which he can claim origination.
My aquisitions editor at AMACOM Books, Ellen Kadin, is the
principal reason this book appears at all. She has shown the kind of
wisdom and patience an author—especially an author of a trade
book—seldom has the pleasure of experiencing. I also salute her
endurance.
To those venues that have allowed me to speak and conduct
e-mail workshops—especially Direct Marketing Days, New York
xi