Skip to content

{ Category Archives } email marketing and copywriting

“Urgency can drive action,” Mr. Greenbaum said. “Shorter subject lines will outperform longer ones, so you want to be clearer and concise in them.” (AdAge)
One of the very few potentially useful tidbits in this Ad Age email marketing piece. Seems like most marketers still don’t get email.

2009 03 31 Mike Comments (0)

Spam?

I got one of these text messages last night.
Under most permission standards, it was neither personal nor relevant (I have never watched the show) nor anticipated. As the article implies, the definition of spam, in your users’ minds, is very subjective. If they didn’t expect or ask for that message, they’ll probably spam it.
So it [...]

2009 01 14 Mike Comments (0)

Email Marketing: tell a story, include useful information and entertainment, finish with a relevant offer

Get Elastic shares a study confirming what successful email marketers already know: en email providing useful information and a related, well thought-out offer pulls better than a straight, mindless product pitch.
Entertain. Teach. Offer. Profit.
If you have trouble remembering, put this on your wall.

2008 11 14 Mike Comments (0)

Putting your message to the right ears

An email list, when properly built and cultivated, will be your company’s largest asset.
Of course, that makes you wonder, “How often do I contact my list?”
While it is impossible to find the right answer, you CAN find the “most right” answer for each different promotion. Yaro explains how he segmented his list to focus only [...]

2008 11 05 Mike Comments (0)

What’s your point?

(My point is that the easiest way to start is to do so with one nugget of intention and build out from there.)
You sit at your desk, staring at the blank page and wondering what to write.
Before the deafening nothingness of the page consumes you, ask yourself, “What’s the point?”
What point are you trying to [...]

2008 10 27 Mike Comments (0)

Gary B. and the 90/10 rule

I was perusing some Gary Bencivenga material today and struck a real diamond.
More email marketers should think about it.
He was talking about how to get your advertising consumed by more people, a task growing in difficulty as we’re bombarded with more and more messages from every direction, and how your advertising message should provide value [...]

2008 10 26 Mike Comments (0)

Your 1st Scintillating Sentence

This little nugget gets little air time, but its importance is paramount as more and more copywriters continue to not understand email.
Many (if not all) of the popular email programs now show your readers not only the subject line, but also the 1st line or so of your body text.
This places even more importance on [...]

2008 10 25 Mike Comments (0)

What’s your (email) story?

The 1st step to your savagely successful email campaign is understanding you can do it the right way.
“Right way”?
Yes. That means your email is appreciated by all, even those who don’t buy from the link you’ve inserted one or more times casually and logically into your story.
I found it ironic that I would receive the [...]

2008 10 24 Mike Comments (0)

Killing with Context: What Email Marketers Should Learn from Thai Tuk Tuk Drivers

One of the unwritten, unadvertised “benefits” to tooling around Asia, like I just did for 7 weeks, is subjecting yourself to the most relentless marketing effort you’ve ever received.
Thank the cunning entrepreneurs some call “tuk tuk drivers.”

Of the many merchants/fuckers I ran into, these are my favorite. Because they’re all about effort.
It doesn’t matter if [...]

2008 10 23 Mike Comments (0)