A huge number of direct marketers who sell online have a regularly published
e‐newsletter they distribute to their e‐list.
But the most profitable e‐mails you can send are your solo e‐mails marketing
messages promoting specific products.
Those of us who generate direct sales by sending e‐mail marketing messages to
our house file know that the more solo e‐mails we send, the more money we
make.
Then why don’t we send e‐mails all the time? Because too‐frequent e‐mailing can
produce a spike in our opt‐out rate which in turn causes our most valuable asset,
our e‐list, to evaporate.
As a rule of thumb, the frequency of solo e‐mail marketing blasts to your e‐list
depends, to a large extent, on how often you distribute the e‐newsletter they
subscribed to.
A marketer with a daily online newsletter can probably send a solo e‐mail to his
list at least daily.
But if a marketer with a quarterly e‐zine starts bombarding his list with daily
e‐mail sales pitches, they’ll jump ship fast.
The best way to find the optimal schedule of e‐newsletters and solo e‐mail blasts,
of course, is to test.
“There is a point of sending too much, yes, but it varies based on the niche, the
relationship, and the content of the dedicated mailings,” says online marketing
consultant Andrew Palmer. “If the offer is relevant to the list, and can be seen as
helpful, and a good relationship exists already with the subscribers, then you can
be more aggressive.
“But if the e‐newsletter is monthly, the relationship is not as strong. So sending a
solo sales e‐mail every day is out. Even once a week might be a bit too aggressi
ve. Twice a month is more reasonable.”
To create more slots for solo e‐mails each month, Andrew advises clients to pu
blish their e‐newsletter weekly rather than monthly.
E‐newsletter frequency, of course, depends on two factors. First, can you do it?
Do you have the time and resources to write two, four, or more issues per month
instead of the single issue you do now?
Second, does your topic merit increased frequency? A daily e‐newsletter on preci
ous metals prices makes sense. But do you really want daily e‐mails on leader
ship or time management?
“You can e‐mail information in the form of a newsletter every day, as long as the
content can support this frequency,” says Dwayne Jewarski of Strategic Profits.
He notes that for a monthly online newsletter, not e‐mailing to the list for a few
days prior to distribution increases readership.
Jewarski lets opt‐out rates tell him whether he is e‐mailing too frequently. If the
opt‐out rate spikes above 30 unsubscribe requests per thousand, he knows he’s
e‐mailing too much. “There should always be a call to action, or a reward for
receiving the e‐mail,” he adds. “The recipient should always see value in the
message, and every message should have a purpose.” Michelle Feit of e‐list
broker ePost Direct says that you can e‐mail your list daily if you can provide
them with must‐have information. If your purpose is to maintain contact or ge
nerate sales, then five to six times a month is plenty. “The monthly newsletters
I manage vary from 800 to 4,600 opt‐in subscribers,” says Bob Martel of JMB Mar
keting Group. “We usually send private‐offer, limited‐time solo e‐mails for vari
ous products or services, with some seasonal, some inventory sales, and some
cross‐selling efforts.”
Adds Martel: “You have to poke at it to find the point of annoyance and in
effectiveness, then back off a few turns. If it’s an opt‐in e‐list, and the solo piece
has a high perceived value, as evidenced by the subject line and the history of
past value‐building solo e‐mails, then I think there is a higher tolerance.”
“Frequency of e‐mail marketing messages is the million‐dollar question,” says
Katie Yeakle of the American Writers and Artists, Inc. She notes that some sub
scribers would prefer that you never e‐mail them sales messages, while others
appreciate you more for keeping them informed about things that are of interest
to them.
“The more offers we send out, the more profitable we are. We haven’t crossed
the line…and we keep testing to see where that line is.”
Copywriter and site optimization expert Nick Usborne says, “I think that if your
e‐list is accustomed to receiving a newsletter once a month, it is hard to sudden
ly start e‐mailing them a few times a week. You’d get a lot of unsubscribe
requests.” He suggests that if you want to maximize frequency of e‐mail sales
messages, clearly state up front, when the user first subscribes, how many e‐mail
messages he can expect each week or month.
Here are a few rules of thumb that can help you optimize e‐newsletter and e‐mail
marketing distribution schedules for maximum revenues:
•If you have a monthly e‐newsletter, you can send a solo e‐mail marketing
message once a week. If people complain and unsubscribe, cut back to every
other week. If they seem receptive, you might consider testing twice weekly.
•If you have a weekly e‐newsletter, you can safely send a second, sales‐oriented
e‐mail, in addition to the newsletter, to your subscribers each week.
•If you have a daily e‐newsletter, you can send subscribers at least two e‐mails
every day: the e‐newsletter plus a second e‐mail with a marketing message.
Another strategy that works: say you want to increase e‐mail revenues, but your
e‐list complains when you increase the frequency of sales messages.
Solution: alternate your straight e‐mail sales messages with “editorial” e‐mails.
These are e‐mails that ostensibly contain content. But here the content in the e‐
mail relates to, and leads to the sale of, a specific product.
Example: you write an opinion piece on how many entrepreneurs waste time,
and give them a few time management tips. At the close of the e‐mail, you men
tion your new time management seminar on DVD, and place a link to the pro
duct page.
You can, in your subject line, position the editorial e‐mail as a “supplement” to
the subscriber’s regular e‐zine subscription. The regular issues look and read like a content‐driven e‐newsletter, with articles. The editorial sup
plement can read more like a personal communication from the editor to his
reader.
This works especially well if the regular e‐zine issues focus on your regular con
tent, such as news, tips, and advice, with the editorial supplement being more in
the nature of personal opinion and advice from the guru to the subscriber.
Section 8 In Copywriting, a Lot of Knowledge is a Dangerous Thing
Years ago, I hired a gray‐haired tile guy to tile our bathroom.
My wife—a lover of home improvement projects objected. “I can do it myself
,” she volunteered knowing I had neither the time nor inclination to do
the project with her. I hired the tile guy.
As she watched him work, she became distressed. Apparently she did not think
he was using proper technique. When she told him how she thought it ought to
be done, he asked: “Who told you that?” “I saw it done on This Old House,” she
told him. He stopped working, sighed, turned, looked her in the eye, and said:
“Miss, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.” But in my profession, copywrit
ing, the opposite can also hold true and a lot of knowledge can be a dangerous
thing. This is especially true when selling a technical or complicated product to a lay au
dience. Say you are marketing a course “Getting Started in Options Trading” to
people who have never traded options before. You are a copywriter. You know
financial products. But you are not an options trader. Your client is an experienced
options trader. He has been trading options for over a decade, and he wrote the
course you are selling. Therefore, he has a better understanding of how to sell his
course, right?
Not necessarily.
Product knowledge is important. Copywriters probably spend up to half their time
on a project doing research. The client already has more product knowledge than
the copywriter ever will.
But more important than product knowledge is prospect knowledge: understand
ing the potential buyers for the product: their worries, concerns, fears, problems,
desires, hopes, and dreams.
In the case of our options course, the market is people who have never traded op
tions before.
The course author, an experienced trader, is not a member of the target audience.
He is a veteran trader. As such, he knows a lot about options trading. But the
copywriter is a member of the target audience. He is an average investor who
might consider options trading, tempted by the promise of big profits, but hesitant
because he perceives options trading to be difficult and risky.
The client possesses a lot of knowledge about options trading, but in a promotion
aimed at newbie traders, that can be a dangerous thing, creating an inability to re
late to the mindset of a rank novice. The copywriter has the advantage of being in the same boat as the prospect: per
haps learning about how to trade options according to the client’s system for the
first time—and therefore better able to address concerns and questions in his copy.
My colleague Don Hauptman says the key to copywriting is to start with the
prospect, not the product. Therefore, while product and prospect knowledge are
both important, understanding the prospect is the more important of the two.
But what if you are not a member of the target market? Just as you research pro
duct facts, there are shortcuts you can take to get up to speed on the beliefs, desi
res, and emotions of your buyers.
1.In business‐to‐business marketing, subscribe to the one or two top trade jour
nals serving your target market. You don’t have to read every article. The most useful feature to read: letters to the editor. These letters show you what people in
the industry care about, what the hot buttons are.
2.In consumer marketing, order a product or two from each of the major direct
marketers in that niche. Doing so will get your name on every list, and you will
begin to receive a huge volume of promotions. Save the most interesting promo
tions in a swipe file, and mark those you receive multiple times. You know the
ones mailed repeatedly are strong controls. There is no better way of understand
ding what’s working in a particular market than to study the controls.
3.Attend trade shows and consumer expos that prospects in your target market
attend. You can see first‐hand how they react to different products, and hear the
way they talk about their business or passion, whether it’s information technolo
gy or gardening.
4.When writing direct mail, study the data cards for the lists your package is be
ing mailed to. Pay particular attention to the average order size. If the average or
der size is $100 and your product costs $50, you know you are in a price range
comfortable for your prospects. On the other hand, if the average order is $100,
and you are selling a $500 offer, you must work hard to overcome price resistant.
Two ways to do it: write powerful copy showing why the price is a drop in the
bucket compared to the value the product delivers, and stress your unconditio
nal money‐back guarantee.
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