Make Email Work for You - Don’t Make Your Customers Work for Your Email

One of the things that we do a lot of here at Optum is help individuals and companies with their web presence and email marketing systems. The advent of Web2.0 technologies has changed everything very quickly. And things continue to change at a rapid pace. Luckily we have a solid team of five who specialize in just that and are absolutely obsessed with technology. Not with keeping up - but staying ahead. 2008 is a special year for a few of us because it is the tenth anniversary for three of us. I hired two of these guys way back in 1998 and they are still working for me today ten years later. That says a lot about each of us.

Right now the Internet is changing at a faster pace than it ever has before and it is for a variety of reasons. One of them is because more and more people from all over the world have access to it. And number two, technology is becoming easier and easier to use and manipulate - therefore more and more people than ever before are creating software, platforms, applications, widgets, and operating systems than in the recent past when “software developing” or “computer programming” was a trade that was in the hands of the very few.

Now we’ve got “third-party apps” becoming the hottest property on the net in weeks being developed by teenagers at home after school “just for fun.” And the truth is, it is fun to see what everyone will come up with next each day. At some point we will cover widgets and third-party apps and all that other fun stuff i a future post. But in the meantime, if it all “sounds Greek” to you, shoot us an email. We will help. Whether it is building your website from start to finish, helping upgrade your already existing website to a more modern dynamic Web 2.0 platform, helping you promote it and gain more exposure and visibility, helping you start or maintain a customer email address database and start doing regular email blasts to your customer base, or simply helping you understand what all this stuff means, it is one of the many things we do here at Optum Consulting. We aren’t good at it. We are great at it. And we are great at it not because it is our job - but because we absolutely love it and therefore choose to make it our job. And in fact, as many are now discovering in generation x and y, the key is not to have ONE job, but to have many hobbies - things that you LOVE doing and being a part of that just also happen to make you money. Speaking personally, this is what Optum Consulting is for me. It was a passion that I turned into a business because the business was already there. It was already coming to me. So I simply opened the doors and accepted it.

It is the same for the other members of our graphics, internet, and technology team here. These are guys who eat, sleep, breathe, and live technology and design. These are guys who send you IMs at 4:30AM about a new blog plug-in that they just discovered - and disturbingly YOU also happen to still be awake and sitting behind your computer. That is passion. Which is what we bring to every client we work with.

Let’s cut to the meat of this particular piece because this is important stuff. I’m going to give you a quick overview of the paradigm, a few dos and don’ts and if you want more information just shoot us an email.

Number one and most importantly, if you own any kind of a business, and that means even if YOU yourself are the product - such is the case with web designers, models, actors, etc - then you need to be doing two things: staying in regular contact with your customer base, and constantly searching out ways to find new customers. Print ad campaigns and direct mail are the old fashioned traditional way of doing this. And yes we still recommend this method to some of our clients depending on their business model and customer demographics. But these methods have slowly been on a downward spiral because they are expensive compared to email campaigns and newsletters. Call them eZines, email blasts, webzines. It’s all the same. But it is certainly a less expensive alternative than snail-mailing a printed newsletter to thousands or millions of customers. As I said, it all depends on who you are and what you are selling.

If you are not sending out regular emails to your existing customer base, call us now. We will help you set it up. It is not expensive nor difficult to do and it is easy to teach you or we can do it for you. So do not be afraid of it. (i cannot tell you how many people I speak to on a daily basis who don’t do this simply because they are intimidated by “starting it.” Once i explain how easy it is, they feel much better and they off on their own in no time. It is an imperative aspect of your overall business plan.

If you are already doing this, here are some tips. There is a tendency today for individuals and companies to make one or more of several mistakes when sending out emails to their customers. One of them is to not send them out regularly enough. Bad move. Choose a date, perhaps once a month, bi-weekly, or every two months and implement a regular schedule. Do not waver from it. Your email can be something as simple as offering a few simple tips, offer a sale, or update your customers on your latest news. But you have to keep your name or your product’s name in the eyes of your customers or your potential customer’s eyes on a regular basis.

Another mistake many companies make is just the opposite: they send out too many emails to their customers. Bear in mind rule #1. YOU ARE a customer. How many emails do you receive each day? Get the picture? If you are sending out more than two emails a month you are most likely bothering people. It doesn’t matter how much they like you or your product. They, like you, are receiving too many emails to keep up with each day and chances are the majority of your emails are being deleted before even being scanned over let alone read. Stick to no more than twice per month, if that.

Yes there are exceptions. Michael Masterson’s “Early to Rise” newsletter goes out every weekday and is known to have the largest opted-in subscription database on the planet today. But though I love reading some of the articles in his newsletter I still relegate them to my junkmail folder simply because sending out a newsletter everyday is just too much for your customers to deal with. That way, if I want to check out what Masterson and his crew is up to, I head to my junkmail folder to read a few issues, but they’re not clogging up my precious inbox. Rob Brezsny’s Freewill Astrology is another exception because he sends out weekly horoscopes. But he only sends them out to people who have subscribed to receive them. So they already know they are going to receive weekly emails from Rob. Great stuff and highly recommended if you haven’t yet discovered him by the way.

Another mistake many make when sending out emails to their customer base is to clog them up with too much information. Border’s booksellers is notorious for this. Their emails are so damned crammed up with pictures and adverts and sales and God knows what else that I cannot help but hit delete the moment I see their name appear in my inbox. Too bad, because I like reading. I like books. But Amazon.com does a much better job at it because they keep their emails nice and clean and simple with plenty of white space. They send you a few recomendations every few weeks and the email is clean and clear enough to keep your attention and sometimes actually make you want to “click through.” Keep your emails clean, clear, on message, simple, with plenty of white space.

“Click-throughs” by the way are the goal of your sending out those emails in the first place. Some call it “conversion.” How many readers of your emails can you convert from readers into buyers by getting them to click on a link and read more or make a purchase? That’s that key. That’s the endzone. But lately there is a new trend in email newsletters that is leading to more “deletes” than a business owner would ever want to see on a monday morning analyzing his “stats report.” And it is this: Sending out an email that announces that you “just posted a new blog entry or just upgraded your website, so have a look.” Unfortunately for those who are doing it, it is an increasing trend.

Let me copy and paste a few examples here:
————————————————————————————————-

Hi everyone,
I just updated my website and thought you might want to check it out. To visit, just click on the links below or paste the URLs into your browser. iWeb Ella
title=”http://web.mac.com/jaybond/Jays_Site” href=”http://web.mac.com/jaybond/Jays_Site”>
Jays Site http://web.mac.com/xxxxxx.Site
Take a look and let me know what you think!
————————————————————————————–

Here is another one equally poor:
Dear Customer,
I’ve just posted a new blog entry/article: Building Trust http://www.xxxxxxxxxx.org/blog/2008/05/09/building-trust/
Do check out the article and leave me a comment. Let’s start a discussion.
Speak to you soon.
Music Business Consultant
—————————————————————

So what’s the problem here? Well the first one has one goal in mind: he wants people to check out his new website. But he offers no incentive to do so. Just a another one of hundreds of emails clogging the inbox that we cannot wait to delete, and worse, it is a bland generic email that only an old maid in a nursing home with nothing better to do would ever click on.

The second one has the same goal: he wants people to read his new blog entry - and he comes off desperate to let you know that - which is another subject that we will touch on in another blog post - avoiding showing your hand; but again, regarding this specific subject, he offers no incentive. Just a plain white ghostly email with a link. And of course his is just one of the hundred-plus emails you received that day. So what are you going to do? Click to open a browser to read his blog? Or delete?

Damn right you’re going to delete because deleting one more email out of that already over-crowded inbox is a great feeling. In today’s day and age it’s one of the easiest feel-good actions we can do. Let’s face it. Deleting email just feels good! Because that’s one less email that you have to deal with. But we don’t want our customers, clients, or prospects to ever get that feel-good feeling from DELETING our email. We want them to get it from READING OUR EMAIL and then forcing a click-through based on something that read right then and there that just made them HAVE TO CLICK TO READ MORE.

Consider this a freebie because it’s some of the most important advice you need to run a successful business in today’s world if you are using email as a form of marketing - which at this point you SHOULD be and NEED TO BE doing.

Now here’s the catch. There is a reason why some individuals and companies are doing this. Some do it because it’s just a lot easier than creating a custom-email newsletter each time and perhaps they just don’t have time or resources or money to hire someone to do it for them. So that is all they can muster. But that is still no excuse. Whoever you are using to host your email address database has pre-designed templates that you can use and all you need do is fill in some information, add a pic or two, and you have created at least SOME content to whet the customer’s appetite enough to get them to click through.

As for the second example, this gentleman who I admire greatly by the way, is taking this new strategy because he is trying to increase his “traffic” to his website. You see, if he pastes his “new blog” into his email then he knows people are going to just read the blog post right there from his email and perhaps not click through to his website. He wants more traffic on his website for a variety of reasons. He wants his stats to be high. He wants people to post comments in order to build “community.” He wants to be able to sell advertising based on high traffic. He wants them to see other things that are on his website that he is selling. We get it. But it isn’t going to work.

The problem is that people are not going to click through just to read your new blog entry when they just received a hundred other emails at that same moment. Sure a few die-hards like “mom” might click once in a while just because they love you to peices, but let’s face it, we click through when we are enticed to. And it takes a lot to entice any of us - and remember WE are ALL customers - to click a link from an email these days because number one we are receiving too many, and number two, we are all just too damn busy. Best case scenaro for these poor fellows above is that some diehards might “flag” or save the email for a few days in the inbox telling themselves that eventually they will get to it. And then a few weeks later it will dissappear into that netherworld of the bottom of the inbox along with those Blue Mountain Greeting cards you still haven’t clicked to open from Aunt Pat, or they will eventually just get deleted because they are now “old news.”

So what to do? Simple. If you want to capture your customer’s or a potential customer’s attention and convert them into a click-through or a possible sale, or at least a “comment” on your blog, give them something in the email itself. The aforementioned Early to Rise newsletter is exemplary at this. Each newsletter is filled to the brim with useful information and keeps you interested long after you should have hit delete. But they are successful at doing this because they offer something in that email. And that something can be anything. It can be an article, a blog post, a picture that will take them to a photo slideshow if they click-through. It can also be a video that if they click on they can watch right there from your email. It might be a few new news items, or the opportunity to take advantage of a one-day sale. That of course is up to you. But for God’s sake do not take the risk of having 99% of your database delete your email simply because you want “more traffic to your website” so you force your customer’s to click in order to get any content.

Content is what it is all about. ITunes are experts at this. Sign up for their weekly New Music Tuesday newsletter. Every tuesday like clockwork an email will appear in your inbox with content galore. It isn’t overcrowded. They use plenty of clean space. But they sitll manage to feature enough pictures and brief descriptions of new music to force even the most dedicated working professionals to click-through in order to listen to a track or two or perhaps even make a pruchase. Digital downloads of music on iTuens have been steadily rising for years straight now and there are many reasons why. This is one of them.

The point is this: If you want your emails to work for you, yoru company, or your products, don’t make your customers work for your emails. If you make them workin the least bit, they are going to hit that delete button. Entice them with your emails. Tell them something, offer them something, and then get out of their way. You are merely one out of a hundred emails they will receive that day alone. If they are interested enough, and they should be if you are good at creating enticing emails, you will accomplish two remarkable goals: you will put your name in front of their eyes that “one more time” that will continue to increase your exposure and brand recognition, and you may just get them to click-through and make a pruchase, or subscribe, or post a comment, or whatever else your particular goal happens to be.

Continued Success in your email ad campaigns! As always if you have any questions please feel free to contact us. We are an email or a phone call away.

Ed Hale :: Optum Consulting for Business