Do It! Marketing Blog: Marketing for Smart People™

Don't take this personally but... you're making a BIG mistake. 

Yeah... it's bad.

And you don't even know it. 

But it's costing you money, time, relationships, and ultimately it's impacting your bottom line in ways that you cannot even imagine. 

In a word, it is... 

LAZINESS. 

Yup. Sorry. Truth-telling time. 

You're a lazy bum.

What do I mean?

You're marketing mindset is set to "bulk mode."

Over the last two weeks alone, I've had several of my smart, professional, experienced and (otherwise) emotionally intelligent clients either ask me about (or worse - tell me that they already did) the following: 

1. Send out a mass email prospecting for a six-figure consulting program
2. Use a LinkedIn status update to request LinkedIn Recommendations from their 900 connections
3. Use a bcc email to about 20 high-profile authors, speakers and experts soliciting blurbs for their upcoming book

In each of these cases, my reaction was swift and simple -- and as painful for them to hear as it was for me to convey:

This is jaw-droppingly stupid.

Even if you needed to communicate with 100 high-level decision makers at one time (and you don't) - do you think you'd get better results if you sent a private note OR if they see that you put in ZERO effort to reach out to them INDIVIDUALLY because at the bottom of your note it says "Click here to unsubscribe or change your email preferences - Sent by Constant Contact."

Come ON, folks... 

Similarly, would you be more likely to help someone who sent you this LinkedIn Recommendation request via 1-on-1 email...

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Lisa,

Thank you again for inviting me to keynote for your GPPCC Mini-Summit last week. So glad to hear that Bob is recovering from his accident and that the direct mail project we discussed is off to a roaring start!

Would you be wonderful enough to write a few sentences by way of a LinkedIn recommendation for me based on your great feedback you shared with me right after our program last Friday?

Thank you in advance for considering it and let me know how I can be helpful to YOU. 

-- David

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...OR someone who posted this as their LinkedIn status: 

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I'm collecting testimonials or recommendations from my past work. If interested in contributing, please email a testimonial that I can use on my website and other marketing materials... I am positioning for a new book... more to come soon! Many thanks in advance!

===

Not even close, right? 

Here's the math you need:

1x100 is 100X Better than 100x1

Send the same core email - personalized and tailored to each person - to 100 people. 

Do NOT send 100 generic emails to a list and hope for anywhere near the results you want. 

I don't care if you're asking for sales, asking for leads, asking for referrals, asking for book blurbs, asking for help, asking to sell Girl Scout Cookies, or asking for a date.

If you don't make THEM feel special and worthy of your precious time, you can be sure they will reciprocate with the exact same level of effort - aka ZERO - in helping you get what YOU want. 

Not the outcome you're after.

Final note: I've had salespeople and internet marketing types tell me, "Yes but you can personalize those emails."

Come on... your clients, customers, advocates, allies, referral partners and friends aren't stupid. They can tell the difference between a true PERSONAL email (the good kind) and a PERSONALIZED email (the bulk kind). Doesn't matter how cleverly you disguise it.

They. Can. Tell.

Want one more cautionary tale? See this post for a great way to NEVER get a referral. 

Anytime you need a reminder - just print this out and post it in your office where you can see it nice and big (right-click the graphic and select "Save Image As" to save it to your desktop):

Tags: sales mistakes, 1x100 is 100x better than 100x1, doit marketing, marketing speaker, marketing coach

WHAT DO YOU THINK? Use the COMMENTS area below to leave your advice, insights and recommendations on these ideas and join the conversation...

Marketing Coach: 6-Step Secret Sauce for Awesome Email Subject Lines

Guest post by Corey Eridon

How many emails do you receive every day? And across how many accounts? The Radicati Group reported that 1.9 billion non-spam emails are sent every day. Most people aren't reading every one of those emails (do you?), and the way people determine which ones to open and which ones to trash is by looking at the email subject line. It may be one of the smallest components of your email marketing strategy, but it's the keeper between the reader and your message. That's a pretty hefty 50-something characters.

As one of the most crucial parts of your email message, you should dedicate serious time to crafting that copy. But if you know the secret sauce for writing an awesome email subject line, you'll find you need less and less time as you practice and learn what resonates best with your audience. Next time you draft an email message, use this recipe to formulate a great email subject line that will help you get your message in front of more eyes.

The Ingredients

• Deliverability
• Actionability
• Personalization
• Clarity
• Brevity
• Consistency

The Recipe

Step 1 - Check for deliverability. There are two kinds of filters you need to get past: actual SPAM filters, and your readers. Readers have a BS detector up when checking their inboxes, and it's as sharp as a bloodhound's nose. Avoid spammy words like "free," "act now," and "limited time." Don't yell at the reader by using all caps, like "REMINDER," which is another spammy word that should be avoided. Also, steer clear of excessive use of punctuation marks such as dollar signs and exclamation points at the end of sentences.

Step 2 - Make it actionable. To have an actionable subject line, ask yourself one thing: does the reader know what he or she can do in the email? An email subject line is similar to writing a call-to-action; using verbs helps create the sense of urgency and excitement you want them to feel when reading your subject line. For example, a well written email subject line reads, "Meet the Legendary Ming Tsai at Blue Ginger," versus the less actionable "Ming Tsai at Blue Ginger." With the first subject line, I know I could do something in this email to help me meet Ming Tsai, as opposed to the second, where for all I know, Ming Tsai just went to Blue Ginger last night.

Step 3 - Personalize. The only way you can provide value to your email recipients is by knowing them...even just a little bit. And if you've segmented your subscriber list like every email marketer should, you do know something about your recipients! Your email subject line should reflect that you're sending something thatthey want. For example, a realtor may have a segmentation just for renters looking for an apartment in a certain zip code. Reflecting this knowledge in your subject line, such as "View a Vacant 2 Bedroom Apartment in Muskegon" will drive up the value of that email for the recipient.

Step 4 - Scrub for clarity. You know what your recipient will get if they open the email, but try to step out of your own shoes for a moment. Is it clear to an outsider? If your subject line is too broad, it won't resonate. This often happens when email marketers try to be witty with subject lines. If you can find a way to be clever and straightforward, go for it, but never at the expense of clarity. Can you further help recipients identify what the email is about by putting identifying keywords in the beginning of the subject line, alerting someone that their favorite item is on clearance? Include it at the beginning of the subject line.

Step 5 - Edit for brevity. You could write a haiku to your recipient, but it's to your benefit to keep the subject line as short as possible. A good rule of thumb is 50 characters or fewer. Not only do you want as much of it as possible to display in the email pane (especially on mobile devices), but people are quickly scanning their inboxes to decide what to read, and what to delete. The shorter your subject line, the less likely you are to get glossed over.

Step 6 - Ensure consistency. What the subject line promises should correspond with what is delivered in the email. Think about getting an email with a subject line that promises 75% off men's clothing, only to find out that it only applies to men's socks. The old bait and switch frustrates people and leads to lower open rates, lower click through-rates, and higher unsubscribe rates.

As with any recipe, testing is required for best results. Experiment with different verbs, reorder your words, and try different offers to see which ones resonate the most with your recipients.

Have you tested your email subject lines?

Use the COMMENTS are below to share YOUR email subject line secrets of success!

Case in point - a Philadelphia area communications and design firm whose list I have been on for more than 7 years. They have never - NEVER as in NOT ONCE - sent me a single solitary message that was relevant to me, my business, my marketing, my design needs, or my ANYTHING. Not a shred of value in sight. Zilch. Nada. None.

Every single flippin' email blast they send out is about THEM, THEIR awards, THEIR staff, THEIR media mentions. I mean it's over-the-top ridiculous. I could go on and tell you - but I'd rather SHOW YOU...

For some bizarre reason, I'm removing their name to protect the guilty. I dunno - maybe it's the holiday spirit of thankfulness that I'm not this big of an IDIOT myself. (See previous post on the Real IDIOT's Guide to Social Media for the backstory on this acronym.)

I've used green bold text to show each instance of "I, me, my" syndrome in this incredibly self-centered, years-long and completely ineffective email marketing approach.

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Subject: Good things come in three for IDIOT Design+Communications 

Good things come in three for IDIOT Design+Communications
25th Anniversary, ranked 7th and scholarship winner 

[Unnamed town], PA - November 21, 2011 - IDIOT Design+Communications (ID+C), a brand design firm, is proud to announce three major milestones for the company. 

ID+C celebrates its 25th anniversary in 2011.  What started as a freelance graphic design job in 1986 has grown into a full service design agency serving the Northeast corridor from Virginia to New York. Their expertise includes integrative brand campaigns that span internal and external audiences. Branding initiatives include brand touch points that create and spark perception of brand positioning. ID+C specializes in employee communications and internal branding. According to President and founder, Susan Idiot, "I would have never imaged owning my own graphic design and communication business. It is the support of long-term clients and friends that has allowed me to do the work I love and for that, I am grateful." ID+C built their reputation in the industry on strong partnerships and would like to take this opportunity to thank each of their clients. 

Ranked 7th Among Philadelphia Design Firms  In July, the company was ranked Number 7 in the 2011 Philadelphia Business Journal among Graphic Design firms in the Philadelphia region.    

[Blah blah Name Changed here too] Executive Scholarship ID+C wishes to extend a special thank you to Women's Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC) for their continued support and for awarding Susan Idiot the [Blah blah Name Changed] Executive Scholarship. Idiot used the opportunity to attend Northwestern University's Kellogg Graduate School of Management's Executive Program on Branding. From elite scholars in marketing to an international contingency of fellow business owners and branding professionals, Susan Idiot gained invaluable insights into branding strategy. As a result, ID+C can assist its clients to discover and express their brands' positions and future direction in a dynamic, global marketplace.         

IDIOT Design +Communications
address block
website
phone number
Susan Idiot

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Questions for YOU:

• Is this the kind of email you would pass along to your best business colleagues?
• Would you be motivated to go through your database and see who else could benefit from such a terrific email newsletter?
• Would you rush to your web browser and immediately check out their site to see what OTHER valuable resources they have to offer you?
• Finally, would YOU give these people your email address so they could spam you with their accomplishments, awards, milestones, and anniversaries and spend nary a second in 7 whole years talking about branding, advertising, communications, or marketing ideas that might help you, your organization, or your career?

Yeah... me neither. Click. Unsubscribe. Bye, bye.

BOTTOM LINE: Don't let this happen to you.

What do YOU think? Please use the COMMENTS area below to share your thoughts on "I, me, my" Syndrome or share a success story of more prospect-centered email marketing! 

Email marketing campaign tip: A slimmer email can lead to healthier results for 2009...

Many people enter into the new year with a personal goal of living a healthier lifestyle and shedding the unwanted pounds brought on by another season of holiday excess. The same commitment should also be applied to the messages being sent to your subscribers-messages that may have slowly packed on the pounds right under your nose without being noticed.

How It Happened
Emails tend to start off with very streamlined designs, making them easy to use and less likely to run into display errors in different email clients. However, as marketers reach a level of comfort with email marketing, and quality content continues to be developed, more and more of that content begins to find its way into their email communications.

It can start with something as simple as a sidebar, or additional space for images. As the months go on, additional content accumulates on your email template, and soon it hardly resembles the streamlined communication vehicle it once was.

Think this might be the case with your own email? Ask yourself a few questions about your email marketing campaign:

What am I trying to communicate?
Trying to communicate more than two or three main ideas in an email is difficult in light of how quickly most email recipients sift through their inboxes. Identify the one idea, if you could only choose one, that you would want recipients to take away from your email-is it the first thing you notice on your test message? If not, consider moving or eliminating excess content.

Am I overloading?
Giving visitors to your website a variety of options is fine, but an excessive number of links and linked images on an email can make it difficult and frustrating to engage with. Many marketers rely on emails to drive traffic to their sites, but the amount of clicks an email receives has much less to do with the number of available links than the relevance of those links. Also, too many links on an email increases the chances of frustrating site visitors who wait for a page to load only to realize they clicked on the wrong link in your message-an easy mistake to make with several links in close proximity.

Where can I make changes?
Some content on your emails will be non-negotiable, but be mindful of including any non-essential elements. For example, a large graphic about an event could have a negative impact if it's the first thing a recipient sees. In this case, the recipient may believe the event is the focus of the message-even if that is not the case-and could abandon the message due to lack of interest in the event. Scaling the graphic down, or simply using stylized text to promote it, would slim down the message and make sure the recipients' focus is on your products, editorial, or whatever else you consider to be the key takeaway (see #1 above).

One common email element not likely to be eliminated by any marketer is advertising space, but there is no greater contributor to a bloated-looking email than a slew of rotating banner ads. At the very least make sure clearly defined borders separate advertising from your own content, and avoid using any unnecessary images of your own, which can contribute to the cramped appearance.

Your email marketing campaign: Less is more
The tendency of emails to become inflated stems from marketers' desire to communicate as much information as possible with their subscribers. While this desire is perfectly understandable, it does not always take into account the user-experience of those who will be receiving the messages.

It's a good thing to have more ideas than can fit onto one email-for your subscribers' sake, try not to overload your messages. One idea on an email can still get great results, but only if your recipients can find it.

Guest column by Karen J. Bannan

How long was the subject line in your most recent e-mail marketing campaign?

You may not realize it, but the number of characters you use can positively or negatively impact the success of your campaign, according to a new white paper released by direct marketing agency Epsilon.

The white paper, "Rethinking the Relationship Between Subject Line Length and Email Performance: A New Perspective on Subject Line Design," details some of the more important considerations that marketers should be thinking about, said Kevin Mabley, the company's senior VP-strategic services.

Here are four tips you can use to boost your subject line prowess.

1) Front-load your subject lines with the most important information.

It would seem like this tip is a given, but take a look at the messages in your inbox. As you'll soon see, it's a strategy that few marketers embrace. The biggest problem is with ordering information. If you've only got 38 to 47 characters-the average number of characters that show up in the subject line of 57% of all U.S. e-mail recipients' e-mail programs-you need to put the most important information all the way to the left.

Use urgency and relevance as your guide. Is your offer or newsletter timely? Put that right up front. Also, make sure your brand is in the first few words. However, if your company has multiple brands or categories underneath its umbrella, lead with what's most recognizable and important to your customer.

2) Keep the subject line as short as possible to convey the message.

Epsilon's research shows that shorter subject lines have higher click-through and open rates. Still, you don't want to go short for short's sake, Mabley said. Instead, you're looking to pack the most information you can into the smallest number of words.
And avoid words that have a sensationalist slant, such as "free" or "discount." "Don't just say '20% off your next purchase.' Your messages need to be rooted in your customers' expectations," Mabley said.

3) Don't forget to test.

This is another common suggestion, but one that still isn't heeded as it should be, Mabley said. "At the minimum, you should be performing an A/B test on every message that goes out," he said. "The general rule is you can test 10% of your list in order to figure out which option is a better one."

This is how you're going to figure out if your front-loaded data should be the brand name or the actual benefit to the recipient, and it's something that may change on a day-to-day and message-to-message basis, he said.

Your messages should also go through a spam filter so you know, on a scale of 1 to 100, how likely it is that an ISP will consider your message to be spam, Mabley said.

4) Dynamically personalize the subject line.

This is something that's simple to do, and shows that you know who you are e-mailing and what they are looking for. "Whether you use their first or last name or their company's name, it makes it more personal and provides better reception," Mabley said.

And then leave a comment below with your questions, thoughts, and advice on the ideas above.

Are you a DO IT freak? Welcome to the club!! Please use the social media buttons at the top of this post to share it with your network. YOU are a rock star!

Here is a piece I wrote for Sales & Marketing Management. Due to deadline issues, it didn't make it into the magazine, so here it is for your reading pleasure:

Salespeople can gain more and stronger leads through e-mail correspondence by becoming aware of the trends in overall email marketing - and in getting ahead of the curve by FOLLOWING those trends with their email practices!

Email is the most revolutionary tool in marketing history, and everyone should take advantage of its flexibility, ease of execution, low cost, and trackability. Here are some guidelines to make your email more impactful - and to help you ring the cash register more often!

1. Let the customer choose
Providing customers with some level of control makes them feel as though they are in the driver's seat. For example, don't have one email newsletter - have several on different topics or "tracks" and let people select the one(s) they are most interested in.

2. Don't worry about frequency
Let the customers' requests dictate frequency. As emails become more relevant to recipients needs, the question of how frequently to email subscribers goes away. If you'll help solve my problems, get me new customers, or show me how to work smarter, I'll gladly open your emails 2-3 times a week.

3. Data Integration
Email is uniquely positioned to take existing data and elevate it to the level of relationship marketing that most marketers have only dreamed of. Amazon.com is a great example. They know what I've bought, what I like, and they regularly email me suggestions about new titles that match my buying patterns. Database marketing drives relevance. Relevance drives sales!

4. Use the Personal touch
People buy from people. Email technology provides a way to leverage this knowledge and deliver emails coming "from" real people. These emails can include pictures, personal notes based on prior engagements, working reply addresses... just like a real relationship!

5. Use your signature file smartly
Your email signature file should not only have a 'hot' (clickable) link to your website, but you also need to give people a REASON to click. Nobody is going to click on a link because they're thinking, "Wow, Joe's company has a website... wonder what it looks like." Kick your signature line up a notch and add a CUSTOM line or two based on who you're writing to. For example, when writing to a hotel industry client, add this line to the bottom of your email signature block: "Ask about 'Inn Service' our latest offering for the hospitality industry."

The idea is to use every email (both personal and automated) as a marketing vehicle, mini-teaser, or venue for generating further inquiries into your services!