Y L F M A E T Team-Fly® Effective E-Mail Marketing Effective E-Mail Marketing The Complete Guide to Creating Successful Campaigns HERSCHELL GORDON LEWIS American Management Association New York •Atlanta •Brussels •Buenos Aires •Chicago •London •Mexico City San Francisco •Shanghai •Tokyo •Toronto •Washington, D. C. Special discounts on bulk quantities of AMACOM books are available to corporations, profes- sional associations, and other organizations. For details, contact Special Sales Department, AMACOM, a division of American Management Association, 1601 Broadway, New York, NY 10019. Tel.: 212-903-8316. Fax: 212-903-8083. Web site: www.amacombooks.org This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional service. If legal advice or other expert assis- tance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Effective e-mail marketing: the complete guide to creating successful campaigns / Herschell Gordon Lewis p. cm. Includes index. ISBN 0-8144-7147-1 1. Internet marketing. 2. Electronic mail systems. I. Title: E-mail marketing. II. Title: E-mail marketing. III. Title. HF5415.1265 .L482 2002 658.8’4—dc21 2002001933 © 2002 Herschell Gordon Lewis. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. This publication may not be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in whole or in part, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of AMACOM, a division of American Management Association, 1601 Broadway, New York, NY 10019. Printing number 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Contents Preface vii Acknowledgments xi Chapter 1: Effective E-Mail— The Communications Revolution 1 Chapter 2: Adapting Your Message to This Medium 9 Chapter 3: How to Get Opt-Ins 33 Chapter 4: Avoiding the “Spam” Accusation 53 Chapter 5: That Magical Ingredient—Rapport 85 Chapter 6: Psychology Over Technology: A Valid Conclusion? 105 Chapter 7: The All-Important Subject Line 129 Chapter 8: Personalization and Relevance 141 Chapter 9: Holding On to Fragile Response 153 Chapter 10: Words and Phrases That Work 167 Chapter 11: Words and Phrases That Don’t Work 179 v vi Contents Chapter 12: Structuring Sentences and Paragraphs That Persuade 185 Chapter 13: How to Reduce Opt-Outs 193 Chapter 14: The Interval Enigma: How Often Should You E-Mail? 207 Chapter 15: Monday and Friday—Poor E-Mail Days? 213 Chapter 16: Rich Media and Viral Mail 217 Chapter 17: Sample E-Mails: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly 241 Chapter 18: “And in conclusion, ladies and gentlemen . . .” 257 Appendix: A Potpurri of Tips 263 Index 273 About the Author 287 Preface E-mail is the first force-communication phenomenon of the twenty- first century. In a single package, we have total “one-to-one”—that is, total command of the recipient’s attention. We also have complete capa- bility of message testing and an unprecedented ease of transmis- sion. (In fact, e-mail is an easier form of communication than speech, because the e-mail sender can catch and repair errors that readily slip out between the lips.) But e-mail has a problem. It is the problem that besets any apparently simple success story: Everybody—everybody—is an expert. And do you know what hap- pens when everybody is an expert? Mistakes compound themselves because we so-called experts don’t recognize mistakes as mistakes. What types of mistakes that will reduce response and revenue might the commercial e-mail sender commit? Even a preliminary list is formidable: • Overmailing (see Chapter 4) • Undermailing (see Chapter 14) • Using dull descriptions (see Chapter 11) • Sending the identical message repeatedly (see Chapter 13) vii viii Preface • Not knowing the demographic of your targets (see Chapter 6) • Not making rapportthe key of every message (see Chapter 5) • Assuming all your targets share the same demographic/psy- chographic profile (see Chapter 1) • Eliminating target groups merely because you don’t think they might respond (see Chapter 6) • Refusing to test (see Chapter 1) • Assuming that what works for direct mail automatically works for e-mail (see Chapter 2) And that is just a starter list. But yes, mistakes are there to be made. And mistakes in e-mail invariably reduce response and rev- enue. Are you reading this in the year 2004? Three years earlier Jupiter Research predicted that by this year, e-mail would command 15 per- cent of all advertising dollars. Were they overenthusiastic or too con- servative? Are you reading this in the year 2005? Then you can determine whether a prediction made four years earlier by IDC of Framingham, Massachusetts, is valid: that by 2005 there will be 35 billion com- mercial e-mail messages per day. That’s nothing: The same source says total e-mails—personal as well as business—will be 9.2 trillion. And remember, personal e-mails fight for attention against com- mercial e-mails. Talk about competition! You had better be an expert. Are you reading this in the year 2006? Then you may dismiss as an anecdote a “study” by Forrester Research that predicted by 2006, 40 percent of people who have at least four years of Internet-surfing experience would generally ignore e-mail marketing. Do you agree with that? I don’t. This so-called study not only deals in opinions rather than results but also parallels someone saying he or she is bored with television, doesn’t read a newspaper, or has no interest in sex. Preface ix If you don’t care about reduced response and revenue, this book isn’t for you. If you care about reduced response and revenue, I promise you’ll find a nugget here and there that will more than jus- tify the leap of faith you took when picking up this book in the first place. And oh, before I forget: If you’re looking for a book loaded with technical terms, impenetrable acronyms, and arcane terminology, this isn’t it. This is a book about e-mail marketing—which makes it possible for those term-throwers to exist at all. —Herschell Gordon Lewis Fort Lauderdale, Florida Acknowledgments I am deeply indebted to Jock Bickert of The Looking Glass. This astute marketer, who developed the “Cohorts” segmentation that has repeatedly produced quantum leaps in response, not only made invaluable suggestions but also allowed me to test multiple e-mail concepts and then shared the results and analyses with me. For the same reason, I offer my gratitude to Carol Bond of Carol Bond Health Foods, and Joel Irwin and Mark Irace of Proflowers.com. These intelligent marketers have shown a willingness to test e-mail copy and techniques, and I have profited mightily from being involved in the creation of their e-mailings. Robert Dunhill of Dunhill International Lists and Jay Schwedel- son of Worldata, both knowledgeable experts, graciously shared some of their own e-mail experiences with me. Steve Hardigree, the marketing expert who heads Opt In Inc., is responsible for opening my eyes to many of the innovations for which he can claim origination. My aquisitions editor at AMACOM Books, Ellen Kadin, is the principal reason this book appears at all. She has shown the kind of wisdom and patience an author—especially an author of a trade book—seldom has the pleasure of experiencing. I also salute her endurance. To those venues that have allowed me to speak and conduct e-mail workshops—especially Direct Marketing Days, New York xi