Strategy First, SPAM-Avoidance Second
WOW, it feels good when a stranger calls from two time zones away and says “Thanks to you I know everything I’ve been doing wrong.”
Disgusted by his email campaigns’ lousy open rate, he turned to Google. My blog posts kept turning up in his searches, where he learned that long subject lines with words like “Free” and “Limited Time Offer” are surefire ways to shoot yourself in the foot. YES, nice to know my blog is yielding high search rankings and helping people solve their problems.
He then went on to ask if I could write his email campaigns (double YES!)
Whiplash
Not so fast, Tam. Turns out, he doesn’t know “who” his target market is or what triggers them to buy. A writer can’t get a foothold without that information. I can’t knowingly send a client’s money down the drain, and without a strategy, that’s what I’d be doing.
Although cliche, it’s nevertheless true: if you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.
You’re Only Fooling Yourself
Last week, under the presumption of sending me St. Patrick’s Day greetings, I got this from a life insurance agent who likes to pose as a financial advisor:
St. Patrick’s Day is quickly approaching. Even if you’re not Irish, you still get an Irish Blessing to hold on to for the year.
May your pockets be heavy and your heart be light,
May good luck pursue you each morning and night.
This is also the week that I send one of my periodic checklists. Please take a second of time to check-off these questions. It could help reduce your taxes and provide new financial tips. That’s worth a second! Here is the checklist.
This is not a download or an attachment. It is a safeguarded link.
And here’s what I got in that safeguarded link:
Let’s break this down
First,using the elementary school holiday calendar as an excuse to send solicitations is disingenuous. I can see right through your ploy.
Second, when you say you’re providing me with a checklist that will help me reduce taxes and provide financial tips that’s what I expect. You lied.
Third, the visually wretched “checklist” leads with the setup that you are somehow helping ME keep my “records current” when in reality it’s a lead generation form for YOU.
This kind of crappy communications gives the insurance sector a black eye. You earned the Golden Retriever Crappy Communications Award for March, 2010.
Home Office Design Tips — From a Financial Advisor?
In my occasional series of crappy newsletters, here’s another, sent by a financial planner.
The only professional I want to get office design tips from is an interior designer or furniture vendor.
With financial reform and the worldwide economic meltdown on most everyone’s mind, sending a newsletter with fluff like this makes me question whether this advisor is in the loop or out to lunch. C’mon, talk to me about something you’re a credentialed expert in!
Oh, the money saving tips? Crap I could get from Reader’s Digest like take your lunch to work instead of eating out and get DVDs free at the public library instead of renting them. You must be kidding.
This is another fine example of sending something for the sake of sending something. This advisor needs an editorial calendar. Big Time.
Oh, and the last straw? She actually PAID a vendor to give her a proverbial communications black eye.
If your boilerplate requires you to disclaim giving financial advice, at least print some material that verges on the topic!
Sheesh.
The Triumph of Snail Mail?
Although I write a lot about e-newsletters and social media communications I’m always on the lookout for merging them with old school direct mail. I was prepared to skip this WSJ article on direct mail because at first glance it pertained to retailers. Then the article told of an insurance broker using humorous postcards (including the one above) to great effect and I stopped skimming. The broker told the WSJ that when he stopped sending postcards clients complained — many of them collected the cards as “cubical art.” When he resumed his postcard campaign, he scored a $270,000 new account.
This reminds me of the days when computers replaced handwritten correspondence and press-on labels — I opened the printed envelopes first. But now the novelty of a handwritten address gets my attention. Same with email — the novelty has worn off and most of us are filtering, unsubscribing and otherwise purging senders from our busy lives.
The article offered this as best practice for snail mail:
The idea is to send something that’s more appealing than “junk” mail and potentially more noticeable than an email message, says Eric Anderson, a professor of marketing at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. That allows business owners “to offer a personal touch the larger firms may not be able to have,” he says.
How well do you know your tribe?
I’m all for using whatever works for your audience, your tribe. I recently read Crush It! by Gary Vaynerchuk, known to many as the Wine Library TV guy. He’s crushing it on social media, especially video, and shares both his philosophy and tactics in the book. I picked up a thing or two from Gary myself (once I slim down I might even try some video!).
On the other end of the spectrum, one of my clients’ tribe is not web savvy, so she takes extra pains to label hot spots on her website (“click here”) instead of relying on them to mouse over without a prompt. She recently discontinued her printed newsletter, started a blog and sends an email with each blog post. I, on the other hand, don’t want to clog my subscribers’ inboxes with each blog update — a monthly newsletter with links to the past month’s posts works for my tribe.
Let’s start a productive conversation. I shared my content recycling strategy here – what’s yours? Here’s a little something on email’s dominance over social media – is this the case for your business? Please share your experience combining any and all forms of business communications/channels/media.
Where’s the News in Your Newsletter?
My inbox is clogged with so-called newsletters from people who must have made a resolution to “communicate more” or “do more marketing” in 2010.
Most of them are, in a word, crap.
In two words, self serving.
In three words, not worth reading.
Win a lifetime gift certificate for my services
If you can find the “news” in this “newsletter” I’ll work for you for the rest of my life for free!
(Redacted) brings proven, practical solutions to business challenges with a clear focus on the bottom line. We represent (verbal diahrrea). Our Practice Areas include:
CONSULTING and TRAINING (8 bullets)
COACHING (4 bullets)
If you’ve read this far you’re one in a million.
CAREER TRANSITION (2 bullets)
SALES PERFORMANCE AND REVENUE GROWTH (5 bullets)
(Redacted) mission is to assist organizations in developing and sustaining inclusive environments where all employees can do their best work (blah blah blah).
We work with organizations (yada yada yada).
If you’ve read this far you’re one in a billion.
An advertisement lodged into a newsletter template
This is best described as an awful ad or an internal document designed to remind the staff who they are and what they do. Releasing it to the public is a sure way to lose subscribers or gain a reputation with your service provider as a spammer.
Afraid you’ll run afoul of federal CAN-SPAM regs?
Anything I can do to help? 704-907-2811
Best advice: ask yourself, “Would I read this if it came from someone else?” The sender of this advertisement would surely have to answer “No.”
Six Shortcuts to a Knee Whack
We all love shortcuts, but sometimes they backfire.
I see professionals in financial services and the law taking shortcuts with their newsletters and email marketing efforts all the time. Nothing’s worse than a self-inflicted knee whack.
Be sure to scratch these six shortcuts off your list — they’ll definitely get you into trouble.
1. Add everyone from your Rolodex into your email subscriber list/ troll for email addresses online/ buy a list of email addresses
- To comply with CAN-SPAM guidelines, each person on the list must OPT IN, verbally or otherwise
- This shortcut violates the service terms of every internet service provider (ISP) think: Yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail etc
- It really irritates recipients, making them likely to report you as a spammer
- ISPs and corporate email services are aggressively scrubbing unsolicited email from recipient mailboxes. The more services that block you today, the more services are likely to block you tomorrow
What’s SPAM anyway?
The word “spam” as applied to email means “unsolicited bulk email.” The two most important words there are UNSOLICITED and BULK.
Unsolicited means that the Recipient has not granted verifiable permission for the message to be sent. Bulk means that the message is sent as part of a larger collection of messages, all having substantively identical content.
A message is only if it is both unsolicited and bulk.
Unsolicited email is normal email, for example first contact inquiries, job inquiries and sales inquiries. Bulk email is normal email, for example, subscriber newsletters, customer communications, discussion lists.
Point of clarification: The CAN-SPAM Act goes beyond the technical definition of spam; it applies to commercial email sent to recipients in the US and originated in the States.
2. Send bulk email from your own outbox
For an average-sized email list you can send a monthly newsletter for $30-50. Here’s what you get in exchange for your pittance:
- Handling subscribe and unsubscribe requests according to federal guidelines
- Automated management of bounced emails and your email list
- Dealing with spam complaints made against you
- More of your messages hit the inbox instead of the spam filter. Email services have relationships with ISPs that you don’t have and can’t afford to develop
3. Make it easier for readers to hit “spam” than to un-subscribe
If you’re emailing to the US, you must provide a mechanism for recipients to stop receiving your messages. Don’t hide or minimize the unsubscribe link in your email.
When someone hits “spam” or labels your email “junk” your reputation with the ISPs takes a hit (they’re watching). If you earn a reputation with one or more ISPs as a spammer, it’s almost impossible to get your messages delivered anywhere. While results vary by the filter policy of each ISP, the 2008 Lyris report says it’s the sender’s reputation driving 25% of messages to the SPAM folder.
Bottom line: you don’t want to talk to people who don’t want to hear from you.
4. Load up your message with “spammy” words
With 15% of all reported spam last month was finance-oriented, ISPs are aggressively scrubbing emails with references or offers related to money, the stock market or other financial “opportunities” including investments, credit reports, real estate and loans. Here’s a partial list of words that typically trip the spam filters.
5. Bombard your list
In a study by Merkle this year, the main reasons subscribers choose to opt out of email programs are perceived irrelevance (75%) and sending too frequently (73%).
Promotional emails were deemed the most intrusive. Solution? Make your newsletter informative, not promotional.
Merkle reported that 20% of those receiving e-newsletters thought they were worthy of reading,which means 80% thought what they received was crap. Further, people reported receiving on average,about eight newsletters each month. That’s a heap of competition for YOUR customers’ attention.
6. Send crap for the sake of sending something
I receive a monthly newsletter from an Infiniti car dealer. I look forward to it for the same reason some people watch horror flicks.One edition was devoted to movie trends and the price of popcorn while another included a series of profiles of famous explorers from the 15th century.
Crap.
I’m not imaginative enough to tie movies and explorers to the latest model sports car; this dealer doesn’t even try!
The surest way to avoid sending crap is to devise an editorial calendar. Without one, you risk losing subscribers. Or you’ll only keep subscribers like me who want to mock you in their blogs.
For more information here’s a download of a CAN-SPAM guide and a PowerPoint with more details.
Low-Jargon Financial Blogs & Newsletters
I write blogs and newsletters for attorneys, advisors and accountants. These professionals often need to provide complex information without making their clients’ eyes glaze over.
Professionals with compliance/malpractice concerns too often navigate the middle of the road where nothing meaningful is communicated. Some admit they hope readers will pick up the phone and call for clarification “on the clock.” Bad strategy.
Everyone faces this challenge of writing thorough-yet-understandable communications from time to time. Here are writing tips for newsletter or blog writers who aspire to communicate without using jargon on one hand, or dumbing down the message on the other.
It’s a conversation, not a treatise
- Provide links to jargon, technical definitions and 50-cent SAT words like “treatise.” This way, everyone can get as much info as they need on their own and your writing doesn’t bog down
- Don’t mistake your articles for term papers!
- Use headers, bolds and links to enable (gasp) skimming
- Avoid passive voice; use active voice
- Write to the appropriate reading level of your audience
- Run your copy through a fog index calculator (tells the number of years of education needed to understand what you’ve written)
- If you use Google Docs, click Tools>Word Count and find the analysis at the bottom
- You’re not a professor
- Don’t try to tell everything you know about the subject. Pare it down to the essentials
- For weighty topics, write a series of short articles
- Provide an intro to the topic in your newsletter and link to your blog/elsewhere for details. If you can find a video (or make one yourself) your audience will be grateful. Here’s how one of my clients does it
- Leverage industry videos and handouts (be sure to comply with licensing and copyrights)
Engage readers
- Invite them to leave comments and comment on those of others
- Offer a free worksheet to help them apply the information to their lives — invite them to review the information with you off the clock, if appropriate
- Ask readers to weigh in on a topic by linking to a survey that gives them the option to see how their answers compare to those of other respondents
- Poll readers for future articles on similar/related subjects
Brains need variety
This infographic is from a parody site
Use stories – our brains are wired for stories -and people “find” themselves in them.
Use case studies for the same reasons
Link to a narrated presentation deck or video to stimulate the story-receptive part of readers’ brains. One of my clients does this very well
Use infographics or produce your own charts and tables. FlowingData is a great resource to learn about them and you might find one to use there
What techniques have you or others used to make complex information digestible? What have you seen out there that turns you off?
SPAM Tweetup
Looking forward to seeing anyone who wants to talk about SPAM in Charlotte Weds, November 11 at 11:30 :
- Who decides when spam is officially SPAM
- Making sure you’re not mistaken for a spammer
- Best practices for email marketing (including newsletters)
- How to handle spammers
By nature, a tweetup is informal, so drop in at Mama Ricotta’s and meet some great tweeple. Not tweeting yet? This group might convince you to give it a twhirl.
End of Email?
Interesting article in WSJ about email’s younger, prettier communication sister: social media.
For those not using Twitter, Facebook and other means of connecting with the outside world, this WSJ quote explains the difference between them and ye olde email: “We all still use email, of course. But email was better suited to the way we used to use the Internet—logging off and on, checking our messages in bursts. Now, we are always connected, whether we are sitting at a desk or on a mobile phone. The always-on connection, in turn, has created a host of new ways to communicate that are much faster than email, and more fun.”
The story quoted Alex Bochannek, curator at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA: “The whole idea of this email service isn’t really quite as significant anymore when you can have many, many different types of messages and files and when you have this all on the same type of networks.”
What’s this bode for email newsletters?
The article doesn’t make my point explicitly, but sets it up well. Email newsletters and all THOUGHTFUL communications have a place OUTSIDE social media. Said another way, to communicate thoroughly, thoughtfully and confidentially, if you can’t meet in person, start with email.
This mirrors my own experience, as a fairly active Twitter(er) who averages 30 daily updates. For those of you not yet using Twitter, don’t take the impression that I have that much to say about myself — my tweets are usually in response to news items posted by other users or part of a conversation with my “followers” (feels a bit Jim Jones-ish calling them that, but oh well…that’s what they’re officially called).
Sure, I occasionally tweet out the odd “gonna clear my head by taking the dog for a walk” message, but the fun thing about social media is how people find you on the basis of these throwaway tweets. I now have a number of followers who send me pet food coupons and even Cesar Millan aka The Dog Whisperer follows me!
Belt & suspenders approach
Back to the topic at hand. For THOUGHTFUL, well-written communications, there is no substitute for email. The only thing that comes close is what you syndicate through your RSS feed. However, people get busy and forget to check their readers. An occasional email poke to check the RSS feed will probably always be in order.
Here’s my belt & suspenders approach to being heard:
- My website is home base. It’s the hub of external communications
- Primary communications spokes
- Blog and its RSS feed
- Newsletter
- Email
- When I post to my blog ( my website is actually a blogsite), it automatically sends a tweet with the title and a link for all the world to see. It also sends out an excerpt of the post through my RSS feed for those who’ve subscribed and to those directories like Alltop, that carry my content. Those who are linked to me via LinkedIn can see this excerpt on my profile page. Anywhere that anyone sees an excerpt of my blog posts, they can click to read the whole thing on my blog.
- I use Twitter to entice the Twitterverse to read my blog posts. With 140 characters per tweet, I use the url shortening service bitly to get the links down to 16 characters, then use what’s left to tease with leads like “Why Email Isn’t Dead.”
- I also use Twitter to ask specific people to read or comment on posts, according to their inclination and expertise. I know who wants to read my posts about SPAM and who wants a financial blog writing prompt and who’s the best expert to comment on one of my posts. If I’m fortunate, some of my followers will “reTweet” what I’ve sent so their network of followers will have the opportunity to read something they would not have otherwise known existed.
- When I get comments on the blog I Tweet that out to keep the conversation going. This helps those who’ve commented get their ideas in front of a wider audience, too. The least I can do.
- My newsletter promises three things every month: something on whole-brain communications, a bit on brevity and updates on topics related to email marketing and newsletters. Eventually everything from the newsletter shows up in the blog. For those who don’t want to read every blog post or remind themselves to check my RSS feed in a reader, they can read my monthly newsletter and click through to anything else that might interest them in the blog. The newsletter is an efficient portal to all the information I offer.
- I reserve email for my most formal and private correspondence. It’s also how I communicate with those not on social media. As the WSJ article says, some things require attachments and confidentiality and email is the next-best thing to a tête-à-tête
OK, that’s my communications methodology. What am I missing that works for you? Do tell (if you comment, I’ll tweet it out)!
Advice for those who need a ghostwriter
As a writer with some tech savvy and a general tendency to extroversion, social media works very well for me and and I’ve found a way to bind all my efforts together strategically. My experience is that those who invest the time in social media will benefit, but not everyone will want to make that investment. Fine.
If you’re a professional of any stripe, start with a custom newsletter written by yourself or a ghostwriter — not something you stick your logo on and call “customized.” No idea what to write? I offer news-driven writing prompts, if that helps.
Keep a consistent publishing schedule and maintain a searchable repository of your articles (not just prior newsletter editions, the individual articles) on your website. One of my clients does this so that we can eventually compile his newsletter articles into feature articles for professional journals. Another client’s newsletter articles go into his blog and will eventually become a book. Re-purpose your material.
My observation is that people are often reluctant to start small when they have big aspirations, but every desert is composed of tiny grains of sand. They add up.
ADDED 10-19-09
Further evidence of the power of Twitter: this morning one one of my tweeps, @derekhernquist, brought this video to my attention:
A Special Place for Spammers
I’ve been waiting for a good case study to illustrate what I’ve been saying about spam filtering over the last several months.
Last week a global provider of bulk email services had to deal with one of its rogue customers who’d gained a reputation as a spammer. While it did, a large-but-untold number of innocent and spam-compliant emailers couldn’t get their messages into customers’ inboxes.
Aha! The rubber hits the highway. Here’s how it went down:
Spamhaus Project, the international cyber crime fighting organization, placed the rogue emailer’s internet (IP) address on its blacklist of spammers. The rogue’s IP address belonged to the rogue’s email provider, which meant the millions of innocent commercial emailers also using that provider were painted with the same “spammer” brush. The Internet Service Providers (ISPs) who subscribe to Spamhaus’ blacklist wouldn’t deliver anyone’s email from that service until the matter was resolved.
Damage control overdrive with Hotmail, Yahoo! and others
The commercial email service provider had to go into damage control overdrive, suspending the rogue’s account, communicating with innocent emailer senders about the delay to their campaigns, and proving to Spamhaus that they’d taken the right precautionary and reactionary measures required. Until Spamhaus removed the address from its blacklist, ISPs like Hotmail, Yahoo! and others wouldn’t deliver any of the provider’s clients’ email.
Ouch!
This is tough to convey in words, and I acknowledge using some jargon here, so I suggest you visit Spamhaus for flowcharts that illustrate how filtering works.
Follow commercial email rules
The upshot for commercial emailers: if your email service provider advises you to use a double-opt-in subscription process or to certify that you haven’t purchased an email list, or subscribed people without their permission, comply quickly and don’t complain about the extra steps. These procedures are necessary to convince Spamhaus and the ISPs that you’re a compliant emailer, even if someone else using your service isn’t.
This also points out the reason to use a bulk email service instead of sending email campaigns from your own email account. That way, if you are accused of spamming, you’ll have a knowledgeable and experienced company go to bat for you with the international cyber services. If I may be so bold to ask, please consider using my email service.
The Spamhaus Project is a great study for international cooperation. Be sure to hit the tags to the right for more of what I’ve written on SPAM and e-newsletters.
