Lessons In Email Marketing

Posted: February 4th, 2009 | Author: Chance Barnett | Filed under: Copywriting, Email Marketing, Marketing Strategy | Tags: , , | Comments

Dear Rand (and SEOMoz team),

You asked me to reply and tell you WHY I wasn’t interested in your offer you emailed me.

I’m going to answer you, and hopefully provide something valuable back about why I didn’t take you up on your offer (and perhaps why others won’t as well)

Here’s what your offer said…

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***SEOMoz Offer Email***

To: Chance Barnett
From: Rand from SEOMoz
Subject: Try SEOMoz PRO For Just A Dollar!

Hi Chance,

Thanks for hanging out on the SEOmoz blog this year; I’m thrilled you’re a fan of our work. As a special thank you for your support, here’s a gift that will (in my humble opinion) have an enormous, positive impact on your SEO performance in 2009: a full month of SEOmoz’s PRO membership for only $1.

There’s only one itsy bitsy teeny catch: because we offer one-on-one Q+A with the SEOmoz staff, we’ve had to limit the number of places available at the discounted rate. So while we’re sending this offer out to 122,451 SEOmoz members, it’s only valid for the first 5,000 people who respond. Don’t delay – we’ll be promoting our once-in-a-lifetime $1 offer on the blog on Monday, February 9th. So act now, before the riotous, can’t-be-tamed masses hear of this.

To claim your first month of PRO membership for just $1, visit www.seomoz.org/trypro and enter SUCCESS09 as your promo code. The code expires February 13th (that’s next Friday), but remember, space is limited.

IF YOU DECIDE YOU DON’T WANT TO CLAIM THIS SPECIAL $1 OFFER … then please send a reply to this email with a brief explanation of why you aren’t interested (and don’t worry about hurting my feelings; my wife says it “builds character”).

I hope you have a prosperous 2009!

Thanks,
Rand

P.S. Here’s the link again, just in case you missed it :-) To claim your full month of PRO member services for just $1, visit www.seomoz.org/trypro (using SUCCESS09 in the promo code!)

***End Of Offer Email***

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Rand- here’s why I’m not taking you up on your offer, from my perspective as a prospect of yours…

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REASON #1

You assumed that I would click through on the link in your email to get to the real specific value of the offer you get at in your landing page.

But I don’t like clicking through.

Not unless I can’t help myself and you’ve caught my attention so much so that I’ll literally distract myself and become “your prospect” for a few precious moments.

You didn’t catch my attention enough to cause me to interrupt my time in email and at my computer and click through.

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REASON #2

I’m busy and I don’t care about you and your email.

Inside your email you did not give me a clear simple easy way to understand some of the SPECIFICS I will get as a result of signing up. You made me guess what I might get, without spelling it out for me.

Big mistake.

I wish you would have included 3-5 bullets that would have painted a clear picture of specific things I would have learned or had access to learn in my first $1 month, or specific RESULTS I would have gotten as a result of my learnings and applying them.

You needed to let me know what I would get AFTER I signed up, and the BENEFIT to me… rather than focusing so much on the offer you’re pitching. It’s about me, your customer, not you.

Focus on me in your copy, not you and your company.

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REASON #3

You added an exclamation point at the end of your email subject line.

I’m kind of embarrassed when I see smart people do this.

It’s like you were thinking…

“Hey, let’s do something salesy. Oh, add an exclamation point on it and people will get really excited and respond. Yeah!”

This is the single most obvious junior copywriters mistake out there. I’ve seen many a test result showing that headlines without exclamations perform better. Seriously!

You don’t need to get my attention in these cheap ways. Think of real value, and let your words provide the impact.

You’ve got enough great stuff in your teaching, and your know your clients needs. Stick to that.

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REASON #4

You don’t give enough specific examples of things that actually work and show them working.

If you did, I would have been shooting myself in the foot and denying myself value and opportunity by passing your offer up.

But you didn’t make me feel this way.

You tried to make me feel like this offer was scarce and time sensitive. (Which likely will work with some people too, but not many others)

You’re better than this. In your site and blog, you share a lot on “How to”, techniques, mistakes to pay attention to, etc…. but I haven’t seen a whole lot of “here’s how this really works in action”.

Gimme screen shots, stats. Take me out of the abstract and apply what you’re talking about to specific domains, keywords, etc. more often please.

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As your prospect I have to admit something to you…

I AM DUMB.

I need you to make the value of your offer and why I must click through and take you up so obvious that I already have an idea when I click of what clicking and taking you up on your offer is going to do FOR ME.

As someone who doesn’t know you, and doesn’t know exactly what your membership is and will give me, I’d like you to make this CRYSTAL CLEAR for me and show me what I’m going to get.

What is the specific benefit I’m going to get? Simplify my life and let me know, I’m listening.

Ok, Rand and SEOMoz…

With all that said, I hope this pulls great for you guys, and it’s nice to see you doing some direct copy kind of stuff.

Keep it up!