When you’re looking for a date, what are some of the first things you do?  Do you, for example, visualize your “perfect” match, decide where you might find him, and then head out the door looking?  Or…do you just kind of hope…that somehow…magically…he’ll just show up at your front door?  Then, when you open it, he’ll say, “Hi, I’m SuperHeroBob, your perfect date.”

OK, probably not.  You’re probably…somewhat…more realistic than that. 

But what about your email campaign?  Have you really thought about who your ideal target is?   Not just who might be interested enough in your product or service to sign up to get your email, but who might be able and willing to take the action steps of buying and using what you have to offer? Read More→

Creating the right email that welcomes in new subscribers is very important. 

Sometimes I think of it as being like a first date.  Someone knows a little bit about you, about what you do and who you are through your website or through an email from you that a friend forwarded to them. 

But they don’t know you very well.  So your first email directly to her is the part of the date where she gets Read More→

We all want to make it more difficult than it is…or than it needs to be. 

Email marketing is no different.  It’s not rocket science.  If there is a proven formula that works for successful email marketing…it’s “Keep it Simple.” 

Getting the right subscribers, and finding out what product or information is the right information that will help them, that’s the more difficult part.  When your mission is to find people who want and need your help…with whatever it is that you have the expertise and experience to help them with…you want to find them. Read More→

There’s no crowd to appeal to, no typical shopper to write to, no choir to preach to.

Just one person.  One email at a time.  Connecting to that one person, speaking with her as though she sat directly across from you. 

Offering “just-in-time”  information…not loading her down with unwanted, undesired information about subjects in which she has no interest.  Only pertinent, relevant, timely, and requested information that she’ll use.  Information that, with your carefully persuasive input, will allow her to smile and say yes to your proposals more often.

What tools do you need?  What are the points of conversation that your email will need to Read More→

What is the dark side of email marketing?

Blacklisted…in other words…blackballed…by ISP’s (Internet Service Providers).  Poor ratings from customers and email recipients.  Poor choices on subject lines.  Poor choices in graphics, images and content.  Not considered a trustworthy marketer.  No permission-based marketing plan.  No protection…or poor protection…on your purchase page.

That’s ‘the dark side.’

So let’s talk abut what it takes to keep you away from the dark side. Read More→

In a recent New York Times article, Texts without Context, writer Michiko Kakutani explores the effect that digital media is having on our culture. The author reviews a number of books that point to how “online collectivism, social networking and popular software designs are changing the way people think and process information.”

In essence, the premise is that bits of the volumes of information we receive via email, social networking, the Internet, and all our other sources, are dumped into our brain’s hopper, chopped into smaller bits, and quickly recycled through our perception filters, and then regurgitated by us back out into cyberspace.  No fact checks.  No credit to the actual authors of any of the information.  Just a mashing of information bits to create our own new reality, which we share and spread. Read More→

Cognitive dissonance is the theory that humans are uncomfortable holding two different thoughts or ideas that conflict with one another at the same time. 

In Aesop’s fables, the fox thought the grapes looked tasty, but he could not reach them, despite jumping for them repeatedly.  In order to rectify his conflicting ideas:  ”The grapes look tasty” with “I can’t have them”, he created a different idea…”Those grapes are sour, and if I had some, I would not eat them.”  This allowed the fox to resolve the dissonance between his desire to have the grapes and his ability to have them.

In email marketing,  it is important to understand how people resolve cognitive dissonance, as well as the overall consumer thinking and buying process, which goes something like this: Read More→

Think of all the truly fine dining experiences you’ve had.  Whether the experience occurred in Chicago’s Epic on River North, the panoramic view from the Nana Restaurant in Dallas, or the marina and skyline view from the Palisades in Seattle…all are sensual food and dining experiences culminated with dessert. 

I admit it.  Dessert is my favorite part of the meal…even though I seldom indulge.  It has become a treat so rare that it is enjoyed even more.

Dessert…what’s on your menu for email marketing?   Let’s take a look at your menu… Read More→

In 1967, a Harvard social psychologist, Stanley Milgram, conducted a study to see how connected people in the United States were to one another.  The results of the study, in which US postal service tracking methods were used, demonstrated that we can create “a chain of personal contacts leading to any other person, with no more than six links in the chain.”

In 2007, a similar study was conducted at Columbia University, using email as the medium.  That study demonstrated, although rather inconclusively, that we are connected to any other person, with no more than four links in the chain.  Read More→

There is a term “First do no harm” from the Hippocratic oath, or more accurately from the Hippocratic writing Epidemics, which states “To do good or to do no harm” …that applies equally well to email marketing. 

Email marketing, unfortunately, has a history of unethical behavior by marketers who ignored that requirement quite completely.  While no one seems to know exactly how the term “spam” was attached to unsolicited junk email, (Monte Python somehow seems to be getting credit), about 20-25% of today’s active emails still constitutes spam.  While I’m sure not everyone would agree, not only do I think this is bad behavior, I think it’s totally unethical.  In addition to being unwanted, it slows down the Internet and takes up bandwidth that could be much better utilized. Read More→