Did you notice a few more emails than usual over the last few days?
Yes, “Unsubscribe Friday” and “Spam Monday” were out in full force again this year.
I’m still mopping up a few emails along the lines of “It was so successful our servers crashed so we’ve added another day.”
Spare me. Please.
Normally I’d call straight BS on this, but this year ClickFunnels went down on Black Friday, making a lot of internet marketing types very angry, and others very smug.
I did a bit of an analysis of who got dumped this year, and who made the cut.
First for the chop were brands I’ve not heard from since last year.
If I have one piece of advice for any company I work with on email, it’s to email more.
The monthly newsletter is a thing of the past. Don’t batch up 5 pieces when you can send one each week and actually be remembered.
Relationships with brands are a thing, and so are relationships with individuals.
Next were the breathless “massive 10% discount” emails
I know, if you work in electronics and your margins suck then it’s always going to be hard, but when I see people selling digital products at tiny amounts off I get the feeling that they’re joining in “because they think they should”, not because it helps their customers or their own business.
Three types of emails got through though
First, anything that didn’t lead with the discount, or that was at least imaginative about it.
I saw one that led with an amount off based on the England / USA World Cup Score.
It was pretty smart as it started a series of emails that stretched the whole weekend on a new product launch, so who knows if it was a discount anyway.
Second were the entertaining ones.
There were almost none of these.
Seriously. Copywriting courses with headlines like “Last Chance!!!!!!” aren’t showing their best side.
Only the regular newsletters kept up their standards.
Which brings me to the last ones that got through. Probably the most resilient of all.
The emails that have trained me to click.
Honestly, there’s a couple I’m powerless against now.
The one I want to point out though if my friend Paul Metcalfe’s Founder newsletter at https://getfounder.com/
Paul has pulled off a great trick with this one.
Hi emails are incredibly short so I always have time to read them now rather than putting them off for later, or so I think.
The information they link to nearly always takes me a good 10-15 minutes to watch or read.
I know this.
I’ve told Paul this.
But I still think of them as “quick”.
If the aim of your newsletter is to get someone to an offer, (like I do when I’m sending affiliate offers) it’s a great format to follow.
Take a note of these tips and put a note in your diary for next November. Let’s see if we can’t raise the bar on our emails together.