Email Marketing Blog

If you are new to writing email campaigns or if success has eluded you, I’d like to share my #1 tip for writing emails. The best part is that you don’t have to be gifted in order for this to be effective.

The first thing to do is identify your customer. Is this person a man or woman? Age? Education? Location? Marital Status? Children? Why did they sign up to your list? Have they purchased from you yet?

Now, develop your customer in your mind’s eye. Picture them sitting across from you at the kitchen table as you share your news with them.

Write your email to this ONE person. “Speak” your email to John or Jane Doe. Picture how they would react. Would they understand the terminology you are using? Is this something they would be interested in? Why?

Yes, there are many successful “wham, bam, thank you m’am” marketers out there. I’m sure many of them are successful.

But I’ve never been one to go for the one-shot deal. I like to get to know my readers and want them to know me…as a minimum to give them reassurance that I’m a real person with their best interests at heart. They know that I would never recommend products or services unless they were beneficial.

Is this effective? Well, not too long ago I emailed one of my lists about a product that was well-suited to their experience level and interests. The conversion rate at my affiliate site was 45.7%. And this was for a $397 product.

Because of my personal style, I often have people respond to my email campaigns, thinking it is a personal, one-on-one email sent from me to them. People like to do business with people they like.

Try this out for yourself and share your results here!

Debbi Bressler
Email Marketing Specialist
GetResponse

In the previous article, Email Copy Cats, I mentioned the importance of scripting your own message when promoting affiliate products by email.

Today, let me move a little further into the product launch topic and examine a few of the pros and cons of being part of the crowd and how to incorporate your email marketing efforts into these launches.

What is a Product Launch?

John Doe has created a new, big-ticket product and wants to introduce it to the marketplace with a lot of buzz and a big bang, ensuring a lot of attention and (hopefully) many sales. He’s going to utilize his stable of affiliates to help him quickly get the word out to potential customers.

In addition to large commissions, John is offering prizes for the top affiliates. In the past, these have ranged from a one-year of a Hummer - to a $10,000 bonus - to a one week cruise - and more.. John knows that if he can create a feeding frenzy among his affiliates, it will spill over and create that same buzz and excitement amongst their readers.

The launch is generally preceded by a report, some emails, or even a free teleseminar designed to create a launch presale opt-in list, tied to the affiliates’ links.  The launch itself is designed to create an atmosphere no different than that created at the Black Friday sales.  Long lines of cyber-squatters hoping to be the first one in the door to get all the bonuses and special limited-time deals.

Pros and Cons of Product Launches

If you are an affiliate planning an email product launch promotion, there are a few things you may wish to consider.  Let me preface this by saying that there is no right or wrong answer.

Advantages

Fast, Quick Sales

You can “get them while they’re hot”. If your list has been dripped on, they may be eager to buy as soon as the curtain drops.  If you aren’t there with an offer, they may buy through  another affiliate’s link.

Piggyback off the Main Product

If your area of expertise is similar to the launch product, you can provide a bonus that “fills in the gaps” and provides a more comprehensive experience for your customer. Instead of being seen as only an affiliate, you can play off the launch marketer’s expertise to showcase your knowledge.

Provide an Honest Review

Many marketers provide their launch partners with a review copy of their product prior to the launch date.

This provides you with a unique opportunity to provide your list with an assessment of the product’s value. For a credible overview, you should always include what you liked and disliked. It’s also important to advise your list of the experience level required to make the best use of the product in question. (This is one of the biggest complaints I hear from those unhappy with product purchases.)

Not everyone will buy, but you will increase your stature among those who read your review as someone who is fair, balanced, and has their subscribers top-of-mind.

Disadvantages

You Can Get Lost in the Crowd

I’m one of those “find the best deal” kinda gals.  If there’s a product launching that I know I’m going to buy, I will take the time to shop for the best bonus package.

If you can’t bring anything to the table in the way of bonuses, you may wish to wait until a week or so after the launch.  There is much less competition at that time and many people get so aggravated with being bombarded with emails that they don’t even read them.

If you wait a bit, you could be the only game in town and take advantage of all the reviews and forum chat out there.  That might be the perfect time to mail to your list.

People Will Unsubscribe

Opening their email client, only to find 15 messages with the same subject line, touting the same product, causes many people to simply unsubscribe from all of them.  This is especially true if there are pre-launch, launch, and post-launch emails which have been cut and pasted and sent off to “all my personal friends”.

In this scenario, people aren’t unsubscribing specifically from your newsletter. They are fed up with everyone and deleting themselves from all of them. By not being a part of the launch day fray, it’s less likely it will happen to you.

Whether you decide to promote during or after the official launch, I can’t stress enough that your promotion should be in YOUR voice with YOUR thoughts and YOUR personality. Don’t simply copy and paste the suggested emails provided by the marketer.

If in doubt, put yourself in your customers’ shoes!

Debbi Bressler
Email Marketing Specialist
GetResponse

Have you ever received 5…10…20 emails on the same day with identical subject lines?

Now, I don’t know about you, but that’s the fastest way to get me to hit the DELETE key. To me, it shows little respect for the reader. It tell me, “I’m more interestd in my affiliate commission than whether this product or service will benefit you.”

This primarily occurs as a lead-in to a sales letter or landing page, so if you don’t promote affiliate products, this probably doesn’t pertain to you.

But, most people doing any type of internet marketing have joined affiliate programs along the way. And if the affiliate manager is a good one, they’ve provided graphics, banners, and suggested emails, newsposts and other promotional materials to help their affiliates quickly promote their products.

While this is a great idea - and we at Implix provide our affiliates with these types of tools - it is important to make them your own. This is especially critical if a product launch is involved, where numerous affiliates will be mailing their lists at exactly the same time.

The last thing you want is for your prospect to open their email client, only to see a list of emails with the exact same subject line.

Your originality should go beyond the subject line and include, as a minimum, the first few paragraphs of your email. Since most people scan email by reading what is in their preview screen, before deciding to open it, it is not enough to have only a unique subject line. You should carry original comments through the preview screen. (If you’re not sure how much text that entails, send yourself an email so you can test for yourself.)

In the next post, I’ll address the pros and cons of participating in major product launches (the “doors open at midnight” variety) by email.

As always, your comments and questions are appreciates. Let us know what’s on YOUR mind!

Following the expansion of our customer support staff and the extension of support hours until 8 PM, we are pleased to announce another step forward in helping you take full advantage of our service.

Planning your campaign for the weekend?

In addition to the regular 9-8 EST Mon-Fri telephone, live-chat and email and our existing weekend email support, we are adding telephone and live-chat service on Saturdays, 9-5 EST!

Starting next Saturday, October 28th our helpful customer support representatives will be standing by to provide you with all the help you need to turn that Saturday email marketing campaign of yours into a great success!

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all of GetResponse customer support representatives and developers for the amazing work that they are doing.

It takes a lot of effort to maintain infrastructure that delivers millions of email marketing messages every day, and I’m proud that we have such a wonderful team of talented and Internet-savvy folks who enjoy sharing their professional enthusiasm with customers like you.

To give you a flavor of what it’s like behind the operations, please step into our international offices and meet a few of our team members, who ensure that GetResponse runs smoothly every day.

We have plenty more exciting features, technology updates and improvements in store over the coming weeks, so stay tuned for more.

Regards,

Simon Grabowski
CEO
GetResponse

North American Office

When Jonathan, Customer Support Supervisor is not preparing his mouth-watering barbeque, he is providing GetResponse customers with top-notch service over the phone and live-chat.

Marija, always kind, courteous and friendly, is always ready to help GetResponse customers with their support questions. Marija is one of our live-chat and telephone support representatives.

Customer Support Supervisor, Bobbi-Jo, having just received an installment of “Delivering Knock Your Socks Off Service” book is busy… doing just that.

European Office

Eveline is an energetic email support representative and trainer. Always full of great ideas, she has a keen grasp of how to get things done… fast!

Anna likes to keep her paper files, notebooks and at least 4 mugs close at hand. Her office is far from virtual bits and bytes, and her administrative support is invaluable.

Head of GetResponse Business Development, Chris and his team are taking care of our enterprise customers, helping private label partners and forging new business alliances.

GetResponse Project Manager Jacob and Jacek (one of our talented developers) are working together on an exciting new GetResponse technology upgrade.

Complex database structures, algorithm optimizations, email deliverability monitoring procedures… GetResponse developers’ bread and butter.

PS.: To meet more people behind GetResponse, please take a look at our team page.

A popular anti-spam organization, SpamHaus, was ordered by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois to pay $11,715,000 in damages to e360insight and its CEO, David Linhardt. e360insight sued SpamHaus earlier this year over illegal blacklisting of their mailings.

Additionally, SpamHaus was barred from causing any email sent by e360insight or Linhardt to be “blocked, delayed, altered, or interrupted in anyway”. The court also ordered SpamHaus to publish a public apology for deeming the group a spammer.

SpamHaus, a British-based organization, did not accept the US jurisdiction and believes that the order is not enforceable. “As spamming is illegal in the United Kingdom, an Illinois court ordering a British organization to stop blocking incoming Illinois spam in Britain goes contrary to U.K. law which orders all spammers to cease sending spam in the first place” SpamHaus stated.

At GetResponse we use SpamHaus as one of the methods to filter inbound spam and prevent spammers from abusing legitimate email marketing and autoresponder campaigns. We regret that the US court system can be used as a weapon against a non-profit organization that strives to keep our mailboxes clean.

UPDATE

In a proposed court order dated 10/6/2007 Judge Charles Kocoras of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois calls on the organizations responsible for registering the Spamhaus.org Internet address to suspend the organization’s Internet service. Both ICANN and Tucows, the Spamhaus.org registrar, are named in the order.

A spam-savvy Illinois lawyer shares his perspective on the issue and believes that the outlook may be bleak for the anti-spam organization.

UPDATE #2

A federal judge presiding over a spam dispute rejected a marketing company’s request to suspend the domain name of an anti-spam group that ignored an $11.7 million judgment against it.

U.S. District Court Judge Charles P. Kocoras denied a proposed motion from e360 Insight, which sued the Spamhaus Project over its “black list” of spammers. Wheeling, Ill.-based e360 Insight contends it is improperly on the list because it is a direct marketer that does not send unsolicited e-mail.