Do you send out marketing emails? Do you want to increase your open and conversion rates? Here are some tips I sent to a client a couple of weeks back. He’s in the public relations business, so the whole thing has a bit of a PR angle to it. Still, it’s useful advice whatever industry you’re in:

1. A good basic approach is to think like you’re headlining a story or a release - try to summarise the benefit/angle in the subject line.

2. Taking the story idea further, one of the advantages of email is that people at first only see the ‘headline’ (i.e., the subject line). They can’t scan the top of the ’story’ (i.e., the body of the email) to see if it measures up to the expectations the subject line has set up. That means that you can use your reader’s curiosity to your advantage. A good way to do this is to make the subject line a question or a startling fact that readers want to know the answer to/more about.

3. Remember that getting them to open the email isn’t the same as getting them to read it. So the bodycopy really has to deliver on the promise of the headline.

4. Building from that, make your recipients a promise and deliver it. I always think the best email marketing (and this is particularly the case with email newsletter marketing) offers its readers a benefit in and of itself. In other words, the marketing shot takes the form of a newsletter with some interesting or useful information that the readers can benefit from even if they don’t take up the offer. In this scenario you might not make a sale from an individual customer but you have had a chance to build trust for next time.

5. Split test.  Write two or three different subject lines and send emails headed with each one to a small percentage of your list. Study the return rates and choose the one that gets the best response. As well as increasing your response rate, over time this helps you build up a picture of what your audience responds to, giving you useful information for when you’re writing releases/ website copy/ brochures and the rest.

6. Even if you do it very well, your open rate will be small and your response rate smaller. Based on my limited experience, and from what I’ve heard, a 1-10% open rate and a conversion rate that’s about 1-5% of that is about average. If you send out 10,000 emails and get 50 leads, you’re doing very well. So the size of your list is important. Obviously the rates vary by market, offer and quality of the email.

Fuel strikes notwithstanding, I’m off over to Lincolnshire tomorrow to check up on my mum and dad. I’m still available for work, though, so feel free to get in touch if you have any new projects.

I’m now more or less finished with my recent bout of work for Which? - I’m going to blog about it this coming week, as it’s been pretty interesting from a media point of view.

Hope you’ve all had a good weekend.

A big hello to the folks at the National Childminding Association. They recently commissioned me to write a feature for their members’ magazine, Who Minds? The piece is about how to develop a web presence on a budget and is aimed at child self-employed sole traders. It’s in this month’s issue of the mag, and may appear on their website - I’ll post a link as and when.

On the subject of magazines, I’ve got a bunch of features coming up in Business Matters over the next month or so, and my new blog is launching on the BM site soon. Again, I’ll post the link when it’s up and running.

I took this when I was in London last week. It’s a floor tomb from the priory church of St. Bartholomew the Great in West Smithfield, just outside the line of the old City walls.

I’ve no idea whether the late Mr. Thornell’s piety and virtues really were ‘worthy of imitation’. What I do know, by golly, is that the decline in the number of British hair merchants since 1757 is greatly to be lamented.

After more than a month of solid work on the latest Which? project, I’m busy getting back to normal. With a bit of luck I’ll be able to show you the fruits of my labours soon (it involved the new version of the W? website, which is still being tweaked before going live.)

In the meantime I’m resuming normal service, so if you have any projects you’d like to discuss, get in touch!

“Johnny Depp T Shirt -As seen on Amy Winehouse in Heat!”

Thank God for accurately-used prepositions.

As I’ve barely got time to sneeze at the moment, let alone write blog entries, I’ve been casting around for something quick and easy to post. Here it is, from the email archives: a note I sent to a would-be copywriter from UK Business Forums a couple of years back. Hope it’s useful.

* * *

Hi Grant:

Definitely read Bly and Ogilvy. The problem with a lot of copywriting
books out there is that they’re aimed at writing ads - i.e., they
reflect a pre-internet mentality. Most web copywriting involves
writing longer copy. The Diana Wimbs book I mentioned is good, and do
make a point of reading that Orwell essay if you haven’t already -
it’s available online at:

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm

Everytime Orwell uses the word “politics” mentally replace it with “marketing”!

As for what changes to make to this site, you need to identify what’s
wrong. Good copy has three attributes:

1. Clarity

2. Simplicity

3. Orientation around benefits

To elaborate on (3) a bit further: as you’ve probably already grasped
from the stuff you’ve read, people don’t buy features, they buy
benefits. So if you’re flogging a vacuum cleaner you don’t say it
“cleans ten square meters in one minute”. You say “it cleans your home
quickly - leaving more time for relaxation!”. That’s a cheesy example,
but you get the idea.

I just can’t stress enough how important it is to work really hard on
your written English. I’m incredibly self-critical, and I hate making
mistakes - though like everybody else, I do make them. When you’re
dealing with clients or posting in forums or sending email or doing
ANYTHING that shows off your English to the outside world, up to and
including writing a note for the milkman, make sure it’s as perfect as
possible. That’s the ideal, anyway; I don’t live up to it, but it’s
important to aspire to it. Anything that goes to clients should be
spot-on perfect: that means not just the copy but email, invoices, MSN
messages - the lot.

Kill the fancy language - it’s your worst enemy. Remember that Ogilvy
quote about using everyday language. People don’t “invest in” books,
they “buy” them. They don’t talk about an “enterprise” when they mean
a “job”. Also beware of useless adjectives and adverbs: what’s the
point in calling yourself a “complete novice”? “Novice” means someone
who is new to something - so you either are one or you’re not.
“Complete” isn’t needed. OK - I’m being hypercritical and
hypocritical: I’m guilty of sins like that too, but it’s important to
realise that they are sins. From what I’ve seen your use of English is
well above average, but you need to be in the top tenth of the top
percentile of the population to cut it as a copywriter

With enough drive you will probably get there. But I’d suggest that
you need to spend at least a month or so working on your English
skills. Obviously the writing of yours that I’ve seen is probably not
representative of your best stuff, but you make more small errors than
most copywriters I know. Copywriting is often time-critical and you
need to be able to spot mistakes fast. Spelling and grammar checkers
are good, but not to be relied on for perfection. Being a good writer
is like being a good pianist - learn a bit of theory and practise,
practise, practise. Eventually you’ll get better. Like I said, if you
want to be a good writer you MUST read widely. Good style can’t be
taught - it rubs off. Get down to Waterstones!

As for what I mean when I say copywriting is hard, I mean exactly what
I say - it’s hard. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried writing a sonnet:
fourteen lines of iambic pentameter, rhyming something like
ABABCDCDFEFGG. If you haven’t, try it. Writing a hundred words of copy
for a clients’ homepage should cause you just as much strain and
stress and should take just as long.

One of the problems of being a copywriter is that people often think
it’s easy, simply because it involves manipulating the English
language, which we all speak every day and all have at least a GCSE
in, if we’re reasonably bright and we live in the UK. Once again, the
sonnet analogy is a good one: when you’re writing copy you should be
thinking about the implications of word choice, the sound and rhythm
of the individual words and any subtext you may be introducing -
deliberately or otherwise.

Hope that’s useful.

~B

I’ve been busy, all right? I’m currently working on another big project for Which? - I’ll write more about it when I have some time.

Meanwhile, seeing as you’re here in search of something fascinating to read (why else?) you could try this piece by Jamie Whyte in today’s Times, a reminder of why that organ is still the greatest newspaper on earth; or this entertaining essay on H.L. Mencken - one of my all time heroes, and I don’t have many - that I discovered earlier, when I was trying to think of a headline for an article on kids’ food advertising (don’t ask.)

Normal service, whatever that may be, will resume shortly.

OK… so what are my thoughts on Twitter now I’ve been signed up for a few days?

I thought I’d better write something about it, as there seems to be a vague feeling in the online community that it’s quite difficult to pin down why Twitter is so good. See, for example, Rex’s post on the subject, which Anita told me about. Via Twitter, natch.

In no particular order, Twitter:

• tightens up existing networks;
• reveals the people behind the names. I had no idea that Mark wore a flat cap, a piece of information I find quite immoderately funny;
• is an easy and informal way of getting to know new people…
• …and makes it simple for them to follow me;
• offers a way of promoting news, projects and blog posts without having to make a big fuss;
• is beautifully unobtrusive;
• integrates smoothly and quickly with the rest of my online existence (Facebook, blog sidebar)…
• …without trying to take over my life;
• gives me a choice. (Updates to my phone? Not for now, thanks);
• is tasteful. No Pirates/Zombies/What’s My Stripper Name-s on this network, oh no;
• acts as a constant reminder that I’m not alone in this mad self-employment malarky;
• gives me control over what I receive. Twitterspam? I think not;
• is surprisingly good entertainment;
• is haiku rather than epic;
• is a public conversation;
• is, if not Web 3.0, then at least Web 2.1.

Any more, anyone?

Technorati Tags: Twitter

Careful readers may recall I touched on flash ads as direct response mechanisms. I was thinking of doing an analysis of one, but it looks like the good folks at iqcontent have beaten me to it, and said a load of other interesting stuff into the bargain.

A great analysis, and a lovely site they’ve got there, too - first time I’ve come across it, and it’s well worth a look.