Samsung spent all that money to get a front page ad on Facebook and…
… that’s the piece of trash they’re driving all those clicks to?
We’ve got a lot of work to do, people.
I used to think copywriting was one of the more difficult things in life, until I read this.
It’s nice to get things back into perspective.
Imagine if every organization that relied on fundraising paid this much attention to their metrics.
HT: Ramit.
Best email marketing article I’ve read in a long, long time.
Money quote:
On the website Mental Floss, someone has created a quiz called Obama Campaign Email Subject or Message From My Aunt?, which includes such hard-to-guess examples as “Is this still your address?” and “This email will offend you.” I scored only a 45% — 5 out of 11 guesses correct.
Imagine if these folks took that $1 million they spent on airport ads (to “convey imagery”) and instead spent it on direct mail to “generate actual sales.”
Money quote:
He likens the spectacle of the Violin ads to “ego campaigns” that actors in Hollywood sometimes demand of studios. “This is so the CEO and Violin employees can see their ads.”
I have no idea how I started getting the Chevy monthly newsletter.
In most cases, I’m willing to give the sender the benefit of the doubt. Sometimes you forget you signed up to something, sometimes you get a promo email via one of your subscriptions, etc.
But the very last line in this particular email gave me pause:
If you prefer not to receive any unsolicited marketing emails regarding GM vehicles, please click here.
If you must include that in your email, you might consider a review of your strategy.
You don’t often find yourself breaking bread with 3 published authors.
But tonight, at the invitation of Ramit Sethi and Michael Fishman I did just that. I was well out of my league sharing time with those two plus:
A few observations:
1. You know you’re surrounded by intelligent entrepreneurs when an early question is, “So how much did everyone else read about the other guests?” The funny thing is, we all laughed at the joke because each one of us did in fact prepare. Researching fellow guests isn’t something you get with most crowds.
2. Hosting a dinner of mutually interesting and potentially beneficial guests is a superb method for boosting your personal stock price. Ramit and Michael brought us together (I’m assuming) because, aside from friendship, we all have the potential to help and be helped by each other. The relationships I started tonight are living evidence of how Ramit and Michael (RaMichael?) have helped me. Obviously, I’ll be looking to help them any way I can to keep the karmic pool balanced. Wins all around.
Any one of us could do the same and put together dinners like this to become nodes in our own right.
A short squeeze-ish page generates 47% more paid signups than a long copy page for their Highrise product.
Here’s what we don’t know yet (and this is crucial): which one generated the largest profit? You can’t really form a conclusion until you know which version created the highest average customer value.
Nonetheless, this will be interesting to all copywriters.
From a recent TechCrunch article:
Headline: Index Leads $4 billion Valuation Round In Dropbox
First sentence: Dropbox is finally moving to close that massive valuation venture round we’ve been talking about all summer.
Emphasis mine. Notice how the headline implies the deal is done, yet the first sentence reveals the real truth. It’s almost done.
Bet he wrote the headline that way to get more traffic from Techmeme. I’m sure it worked, too.
From a customer:
Haha, I caved and bought last night. I’ve wanted one for so long, and after receiving such personal emails (even before the one where you personally replied), I decided that was enough to convince me to buy on customer service alone. I really look forward to working with you. Thank you!
Yes, autoresponders / drip series work.