e-Newsletters: Track Them, You Must
The first week of the month is popular for publishing newsletters. I publish the first week. So with the June flurry largely passed, here’s food for thought before firing off your July edition.
"Do it, you must!"
In a study reported on MediaPost on email marketing (which isn’t exactly newsletter campaigns, but sufficiently related), roughly 18% of marketers admitted they were NOT tracking campaign performance. Stunning.
Marketers that do not track normal site conversions
- Don’t know how 42.86%
- Don’t have budget 4.76
- Don’t have time 14.29
- Other 38.08
Newsletter metrics
Of course I wish you were using my service, since it provides exquisitely detailed reporting, but no matter. If you’re using an off-the-shelf provider, start with what you can track and pay attention.
How’s your open rate over time? What about subscriber base?
Do specific topics generate a higher click-through rate? A higher unsubscribe or forward rate?
Clients ask, I answer
Yesterday a client called for my input. She wants to move her ad-sponsored printed newsletter clients over to an ad-sponsored blog and wanted to check her logic with me. She asked why I bother to publish both a blog and a newsletter.
Answer: I want to make it easy for clients and prospects to hear from me. My audience ranges from the tech-savvy to the tech-impaired, so whether they stream my blog to a reader or hit a blog post I’ve tweeted or look at the monthly newsletter in their inbox (and click through to the blog, or not) I’m doing the hard work so that they can skim what they need and move on with their lives.
This works for me because I’m *good enough* with technology, I have a sales and marketing background, and I love writing, a lucky combination. Few people, including my client, have the same mix of strengths and preferences, so my advice to her and anyone else is to go with your strengths and minimize your weaknesses.
This might mean hiring a ghostwriter, but should never mean publishing an off-the-shelf newsletter. Realtors can get away with recycled articles like carpet cleaning tips and how to stage a house for showings, but I can’t think of a profession besides theirs that should even consider it.
Goal-driven newsletters
From time to time I have tactical goals, like drumming up attendance for a speaking engagement, but my overall publishing goal (blog and newsletter) is client acquisition and retention. I want to keep my services and expertise top of mind. Someday, someone will remember I’m a Business Person who writes like an English Major and engage me.
Staying top of mind is also why I publish free blog/newsletter topics for clients and prospects in the industries I know best: financial services, consulting, services and environmental. I exercise the “give to get” philosophy that feeding professionals ideas for their publishing endeavors will someday yield a harvest for me.
Whether your goal is converting readers to a seminar series or a sit-down session, you need to start with that goal, figure out how to make it happen, and how to track what’s happening along the way. With rare exception you’ll need to make corrections to your current path that will bring you to your goal. But if you don’t know you’re off course, you can’t get back on track.
Unless you’re a statistician, analysis isn’t the sexiest thing you’ll do with your day. But to quote Yoda, “Do it, you must.” Feel free to reach out if you want my feedback.
Royal Whitepaper
When people take the time to read my b-card they’ll sometimes ask “What’s a whitepaper?” I quote the verbiage on my site, which turns on the lights for about 2% of people.
With Google-driven marketing everyone should know what a white paper is and how they can use one.
Follow treebanker on Twitter
I had an “aha moment” this morning. I decided to build a repository of white papers I like in different categories for general perusal. First up, The Prince’s Rainforests Project Report, which I thank my Twitter follower, Dan Tefft for bringing to my attention.
Three-purpose post
This post suggests changes to the paper that would make it more engaging, discusses its core idea of Rainforest Bonds, and then offers writing prompts for professionals in environmental and financial services.
Reading like an editor
Professionally, I prefer minimizing passive voice and maximizing design to help the reader navigate a dense document such as this (52 pages). Certain professions prefer passive voice (government and academia top the list) so I suppose a report on behalf of a Cambridge-educated Royal conforms to expectations.
The summary as written: “Reducing tropical deforestation will be vital if the world is to avoid catastrophic climate change and preserve important ecosystem functions. An Emergency Package is needed to provide substantial funding to Rainforest Nations to help them address the drivers of deforestation and embark on alternative economic development paths. Rainforests cool the planet, regulate the water cycle and provide a home to countless species; it is right and essential that the world pays for these services.”
I’d rewrite: Rainforests cool the planet, regulate the water cycle and provide a home to countless species. To preserve the world’s ecosystem functions and avoid catastrophic climate change, we must reduce tropical deforestation. The world should provide funding to Rainforest nations to help them address the drivers of deforestation and embark on alternative economic development paths. Since the rainforests provide “services” essential to planetary life, justice dictates that those services be compensated.
Writing Prompts for Environmental, Financial Services
The Prince’s Report outlines a plan for “Rainforest Bonds,” a fixed-income security, issued in private capital markets. Such bonds typically offer investors a fixed rate of return, normally an annual coupon, together with the repayment of the principal on maturity. Over US$400 billion of Sovereign, Supranational and Agency Bonds were issued in 2008. The Project has held discussions with pension funds and the insurance sector (through The Prince of Wales’ P8 and ClimateWise initiatives) which indicate that there would be significant demand for AAA-rated bonds with long-term maturities.
“Rainforest Bonds could be issued by the World Bank, or by an independent entity with support from the World Bank. The bonds would be guaranteed by developed country governments, which would be responsible for payment of the coupon and repayment of the principal.
“However, it may be possible to mitigate the financial calls on these governments, for example by channelling some of the money into green investments that would generate financial returns – this would have the added benefit of supporting broader clean development goals. Private sector bonds provide a way to raise large amounts of finance for tropical forests in the nearterm, while allowing underwriting governments the time to generate revenues for repayment from clean development investments, domestic carbon permit auctions or other schemes. The Prince’s Rainforests Project is working with the World Bank to develop this bond concept further.”
- Is the World Bank the right entity? Or the only entity?
- In light of current global financial priorities, how would these bonds perform financially?
- Environmentally, are these bonds a powerful incentive to change economic development and human behavior?
- Any better options on the table?
SPAM “Arms Race”
Confession: I’m an NPR junkie. I get a real return on my taxpayer dollar (for once).
Ukraine, World Spam Capitol?
Yesterday they ran All Tech Considered focused on SPAM, which is mushrooming across all media, including mobile phones.
In this segment, Omar Gallaga of the Austin American-Statesman said most email (in volume) is SPAM, but the American ISPs have gotten pretty good at scrubbing it before it hits our inboxes.
But the bad news is that the spammers have set up camps abroad, notably Ukraine, where risk of prosecution is about nil. Spammers constantly adapt to anti-spam efforts. All Tech Considered ran a story-within-the-story interviewing a computer security expert who said “From my perspective, it seems … kind of like the arms race of the Cold War era. We built more bombs. They built more bombs. We built bigger bombs. They build bigger bombs.”
Why this matters to emailers like YOU
Corporate web servers are starting to use “reputation scoring,” which looks at sender, time it’s sent, whether it’s a trusted source aligned with a real person, and other indicators of wholesomeness. This is why it’s so important to send e-newsletters and other digital media ONLY to people who signed up for it.
Mr Gallaga also discussed “Bacn” which is email that might be useful to you but that is not generated by a real person.
Bacn bests Spam
An e-newsletter or social network notification, like who’s following you on Twitter, are examples of Bacn.
The rise in Bacn led to the development of a service called “other inbox“ which separates Bacn from real-people email. With other inbox you can open that notice from your bank when it suits YOU, instead of having it glare from your inbox while you’re trying to do the work that generates the check that pays the overdraft.
I want to know who’s using other inbox, which is apparently included with gmail right now. In your case, does it intuit the Bacn from the real-people-email? Tell me a funny story about what went into your other inbox.
Laryngitis, LinkedIn and Me
I spoke at a networking event last week on one of my favorite topics: email marketing and the scourge of SPAM.
Savvy Jackie
More correctly put, I whispered my way through it. Laryngitis. It helped that people wanted to know about CAN-SPAM compliance — audience members shushed each other so they could hear me croak away. Afterward, someone told me that Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis spoke in a whisper to make people pay attention. Savvy, Jackie.
The topic was well received, so I went to LinkedIn and in-mailed it to selected contacts. Within three hours a friend asked if I would present it to his company at a Friday lunch-n-learn and another asked if she could link to it in her blog.
Later, I offered it to a LinkedIn group. Within 24 hours I learned that it had been Tweeted around the world and one group member wanted to post my guide on her website and use my presentation for a Chamber of Commerce event! This social networking thing is amazing, eh?
About 40% of my new web traffic comes from LinkedIn and newsletter efforts. My subscriptions include people from around the world. Worthwhile CONTENT on your website can drive eyeballs.
If you want to see what the buzz is about visit http://tamelarich.com/food-for-thought/canspam-download/
