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7 Proven Profit Triggers for
Email Copywriters
by Doug D’Anna
A prospective customer recently asked me to name the chief reason why his email
marketing sales messages did not work. After all, his messages were easy to read, and he
used the most powerful spam-busting technologies. After looking over his email copy I
painfully told him that his messages did not SELL for four reasons:
1) The subject lines were not interesting.
2) His content did not differentiate his company from his competitors.
3) His letter did not make an irresistible offer.
4) The call to action was weak.
The fact is, if your email message does not SELL, then all the money you’re
dumping into your efforts is worthless.
To become a financially successful email marketer, you must — I repeat, MUST
— create a marketing message that triggers a lead or sale.
This white paper is designed to help you come up with a creative, compelling
direct email marketing message that works, based on the test results of hundreds of splitrun, email, and direct mail copywriting tests.
PROFIT TRIGGER #1
Create the Right Sales Appeal
Before you write one word, you must discover the RIGHT APPEAL that will
pique your customers’ interest. All too often, email marketing managers decide by
opinion — guesswork, if you will — which sales appeal to send to their prospects.
The only opinion that matters is that of your prospects, who vote with their
dollars. So, if you’re serious about creating a winning sales message, you must develop
an appeal that is based on fact and not the mere theory of the company “brain trust.”
How do you find a compelling sales appeal that strikes a chord with your
customers? Ask them!
I realize that this may not sound like computer science, but it is truly the very first
step in finding a winning sales message with the highest probability of working.
The fact is, the days are long gone when a company could just have a staff
copywriter — or even a hired gun, for that matter — come up with a persuasive email
without first understanding what, exactly, its customers really want.
As I regularly remind my clients, your existing customer base knows what they
really want more than you do. If you ask them in the right way, they will give you the
factual ammunition you need to create an extremely profitable sales message.
How to Pretest Your Sales Message
If you’re thinking, “This guy’s talking about a customer survey; we’ve done that,
and it doesn’t work,” you may be half right. However, if your survey didn’t work, most
likely that’s because you did it the wrong way.
The problem with most customer surveys is that they ask the wrong questions.
And if you ask the wrong questions, you’re going to get the wrong answers.
The fact is, you already know who your customers are. You know their age, what
publications they read, their income, and their other “statistics.” But you’ve probably
never asked your readers questions that target their psychological wants and needs as
they pertain to your products or services.
Mark my words — if you ask questions that target your customers’ psychological
interests, the information they will return to you will place your next breakthrough
marketing idea squarely in your lap.
Here’s what to do:
•
Brainstorm internally — or with a consultant —to come up with five to 10
marketing headlines that you think would catch your subscribers’ interest.
•
Rework these headlines into titles of “special reports.”
•
Send a test group of your customers what I call a “we’d like to make our
product or service more valuable; that’s why we’ve written these special
reports” letter or email.
•
Let your customers choose one, two, or three of the reports out of the 10 or so
available — FREE.
Here’s what you’ll learn:
By surveying your existing customers in this way, you will find out specifically
what marketing ideas appeal to them. That’s because they will have “voted” on the
information THEY WANT by requesting the reports that interest them the most.
Your job is to simply tally the votes, no different from when you tally the results
from two competing email or mail messages. Using these results, you will not only have
taken the guesswork out of the marketing promotion process but also have increased your
chances of success for finding the most effective sales message.
PROFIT TRIGGER #2
Write a Compelling Subject Line
Now that you’ve found the correct appeal, you must find a way to transform that
appeal into a subject line that not only piques your customers’ interest but also makes it
through their spam filter.
If you pretest your headlines using my customer survey technique described
earlier, you’re halfway there. Now you must boil down this message into just 45
characters, including spaces.
When you think about it, we’re talking about seven to nine words!
Choose the right words, my friend, and you will have struck the equivalent of
Internet gold. Choose the wrong nine words, and your message will get filtered upon
receipt or quickly deleted.
Reason: If your subject line doesn’t ignite a clickthrough, then the copy that
follows might as well be written in Greek.
Three Most Responsive Classes of Subject Lines
According to John Caples, in his book Tested Advertising Methods, the three most
successful classes of headlines are:
1) Self-Interest: This should be obvious, but for many emailers it’s not. As I
remind my clients, your subject line should talk in thoughts, terms, and wants that are
important to your prospects. Which is why a message from you that triggers an
internal want should get opened quickly.
2) News: News headlines are increasingly popular, as more and more
businesspeople turn to the Internet, ezines, and other online publications for industry
news and product updates. A news announcement that targets your customers’ current
wants also has a high probability of getting opened.
3) Curiosity: Curiosity headlines have been known to work well in many email
marketing messages. However, when you’re working with a subject line that’s only seven
to nine words, it’s paramount that it hit the right appeal to your customers; otherwise it
will be discarded as spam.
How to Pick the Right Words
After analyzing the results of dozens of direct marketing tests, I’ve found the
following five-step test quite helpful for writing headlines and subject lines that have
increased my clients’ profits by 20% to 40%.
If you can’t honestly answer “yes” to at least four of the following questions, you
should spend more time strengthening your subject line.
•
Attention Getting: Does your subject line shout READ ME without getting
deleted?
•
Tempting: Does your subject line unleash your desires to find out more?
•
Full of Benefits: Does your subject line appeal to your customers’ selfinterest?
•
Specific: Does your subject line avoid ambiguous claims that confuse readers?
•
Unique: Does your subject line STAND OUT as curiously different?
Winning Examples:
•
The Next 12 Months Could Make Your Retirement Years
•
FLASH ALERT: Wall Street’s Next Big Shocker!
•
Is the Sell-Off Finally Over?
•
Boom or Bust Ahead for Technology Stocks? The Shocking Answer...
•
91 Powerful New Vitamin Cures That Work
•
Did you miss my 2007 Earnings Cheat Sheet?
•
My $99 Sale Ends in 24 hours
•
Have Oil Stocks Finally Had It?
•
50% Richer or Free
•
Don’t be fooled by the China Sell-off
•
When I saw my Aunt Lilly’s big smile, I knew…
IMPORTANT: Always test two or more subject lines.
Remember: No matter how much time and effort you put into developing your
subject line, it is, in the end, only your educated opinion — even if you’ve followed my
pretesting ideas.
That’s why it’s critical to the success of your email marketing program to test
two, three, or four subject lines. And not just once, mind you. I mean every single time
you send out an email.
PROFIT TRIGGER #3
Develop a Compelling Sales Argument
When I meet with a new client, the first question I ask is “What’s the most
powerful benefit or advantage to doing business with you?”
Often clients get tongue tied. They know they are unique. They know that they
have a significant marketing advantage over their competition. They just have a difficult
time putting it in words.
That’s why you could have the greatest subject line in the world — with the right
appeal that totally targets your clients’ self-interest — and get lots of clickthroughs but no
sales.
5 Ways to Increase the Selling Power of Your Email Message
1) Use a “reason why” copywriting approach. This is where most emails miss
the mark. The writers don’t give a significant explanation why to take the desired action.
Give readers a “reason why” you are writing. A reason why your product will
help their needs. A reason why they must act now or miss out.
Remember: If you don’t give your customers a reason why they should buy from
you — they won’t.
2) Write in the first person, present tense. Remember: You’re not writing a
press release, a white paper, or an annual report. Your email is an electronic sales letter.
Which is why you should always write to your customers in the first person and not in
what I call the third-person impersonal: from a company to a company.
3) Write so a 12-year-old — not an IT engineer — will understand your
message. You’ll never sell to anyone if your message is full of complicated thoughts.
Follow the Reader’s Digest approach: keep it simple, and get to the point quickly. It’s an
old saying that the quickest way between two points is a straight line. Don’t make your
sales message a puzzle.
4) Break up your copy with indents, subheads, and bullets. In order for your
sales message to get read, you must make it easy to read. This means:
•
Indent paragraphs.
•
Avoid paragraphs with more than three sentences.
•
Use bullets to highlight action points.
•
Call attention to key words using ALL CAPS.
•
Break up a long thought with ellipses at the end of one line...
•
…and then continue that thought on the next line.
5) Make your first paragraph sing! Next to your subject line, your first
paragraph — specifically, your opening sentence — is crucial to the success of your
online lead and sales efforts. And if your first couple of opening lines don’t strike a chord
with your readers, they will quickly delete your email.
Most effective: Continue the thought you started in your subject line.This
approach will follow up on the appeal that triggered your prospect to open your email in
the first place.
PROFIT TRIGGER #4
Make Your Prospects an Irresistible Offer
When I set out to create an email offer that a prospect simply cannot refuse, I
always ask myself these two CRUCIAL questions:
1) Have I removed ALL the psychological and financial reasons for saying no?
2) Have I guided my reader to a no-brainer YES decision?
If so, then I know that I’ve done everything possible to get my readers to do a
swan dive to the order page. However, if can’t honestly say yes to both questions, then
my prospect will never click on to the order page, and I’ll have missed out on a sale that
could have easily been mine.
4 Ways to Make a Can’t Say No Offer
Take a lesson the profit kings of the irresistible offer —magazine, newsletter, and
book publishers and music and home video clubs — offer. What they do, and do so well,
is actually reverse the risk of a purchase from you to them.
A few examples:
1) Offer a free trial. Information publishers, as well as software publishers, have
found that just getting their product in prospects’ hands to test drive will ultimately result
in sales. Also, you can use this free trial as a lead generation device for your salespeople
to follow up on.
2) Offer a risk-free trial. With a risk-free trial, you actually collect your
customers’ money first. This means that customers can get their money back if not
satisfied.
Example: I recently purchased a rowing machine online that came with a 30-day
risk-free trial. If I did not achieve results as promised, I could return the product (except
for shipping) and receive a full refund.
3) Offer a limited-time FULL money-back guarantee. If you’re selling cars,
computers, or life insurance, offering a money-back guarantee may not apply. However,
for companies that have confidence in their product (and whose business model can allow
for returns), this is the ticket.
4) Give away a few freebies. Newsletter publishers always include with a trial
purchase a number of FREE special reports prospects can keep regardless of whether
they decide to continue their subscription. This is a great way to “sweeten the pot.”
Example:
Try “Healing with Vitamins” FREE for 21 days. You pay nothing if you’re not
100% satisfied. Plus you’ll get these two free reports just for looking, “Vitamin Powered
Foods” and “The Ultimate Guide to Buying Vitamins” To sign up for your 21-day free
trial, click here.
PROFIT TRIGGER #5
Develop a Great Call to Action
Ultimately, every piece of your email marketing message should be strategically
crafted to get your prospects to do three things: BUY,BUY, and BUY.
If you are not asking your prospects to try or buy your product, then your efforts
are simply an exercise in public relations. That’s why it’s crucial that your call to action
is structured in a way that gets your prospects to ACT NOW.
Here are a few tested and proven calls to action that will help you spark an
immediate response:
•
Limited-Time Offer. This simple strategy gives your prospects a deadline to
make a decision; otherwise they will forfeit savings that could have been
theirs: Two examples:
1) “Hurry! Sale ends March 20.”
2) “Get an extra $50 off. Sign up by March 20.”
•
Limited Supply. This offer works great for selling discontinued items.
Reason: It triggers a horse race response in your prospects. The race is on, and
your prospects must act quickly if they want to make certain they don’t miss
out.
•
Free Gifts. Dozens of split-run marketing tests have proven that giving your
prospects a free gift with a purchase can increase orders by as much as 20% to
50%. Familiar Example: Sports Illustrated television commercials
Subscriptions are always marketed with everything from a free team shirt, free
Superbowl video, free clock, free radio, etc.
•
Fast Response Bonus. This strategy is used regularly in the newsletter
publishing business to help trigger an immediate response. Example:
“Respond in 10 days and get this free copy of Prevention’s Guide to Buying
Vitamins.”
Place Buy Links Throughout Your Email Message
One of the great things I love about email marketing is the ease of purchase.
Unlike the email marketer’s direct mail cousin, with email there’s no hunting for a
checkbook, no need to grab a pen, and no envelope to take to the post office. Your
customer is only a mouse click away from owning your product or service.
In fact, not only the selling process but also the product delivery is instant —
especially in the case of software that you can download or magazines that you can
access online.
For these reasons, you’re missing the boat if you place your email link only at the
end of your sales letter. Suggestion: Place at least three “click to buy” links in any email
sales or lead generation letter: one near middle of your letter, one near the close, and one
in your P.S.!
Why Every Email Should Have a P.S.
Those of us who have been in direct marketing for some time know that most
readers scan email letters; they don’t actually read them word for word. That’s why we
bullet information, break up paragraphs, and add subheads — to move the reader along to
the end.
Decades of direct marketing research have also proven that when prospects scan a
letter, they first check out the headline, then read the bulleted information, and then skip
to the P.S. That’s why it’s crucial that your emails always include a P.S. that reduces your
entire sales message to about 25 words. Think of your P.S. like a classified ad for your
entire sales letter.
If that’s all prospects read, why not use it to trigger immediate action? Always:
Include a buy link in your P.S.!
PROFIT TRIGGER #6
Test More than One Approach
Mark my words, if you follow these proven strategies when developing your
email marketing message, you will see an increase in the response of your email and also
an increase in sales — no other outcome is possible.
Each one of these techniques has been tested by direct marketers in the mail, in
catalogs, and now in email and Web marketing. These techniques work.
Which is why it is essential that you always test more than one approach. In my
email and direct mail testing, I have seen a headline change increase orders 40%! I have
seen a premium change increase revenues 20%.
That’s why I always recommend that you test at least two approaches. These
marketing tests do not have to be complicated. However, if you are not testing anything,
you’ll never discover new ways to sell your product or service that could result in the big
financial breakthrough you’re looking for.
What to Test
From Line: A recent survey showed that the from line is actually more
important than the subject line. Reason: With inboxes deluged with spam, recipients tend
to open email from people they know and companies they do business with...and delete
messages from those that they don’t know.
Subject Line: This is your sales letter headline. As I mentioned earlier, just a
few word changes can result in a big difference, not only in clickthroughs but also in
direct sales.
Price: Wouldn’t you love to find out if you could charge 25% more for your
product or service? Of course you would! That’s why it’s key that you test price on a
regular basis.
Premiums: If you are planning to offer a free gift with a purchase, testing
which gift your customers want only makes sense.
Copywriters: Copywriters are no different than salespeople.
They take different creative approaches to selling the same thing. Just like the
other tests, you’ll find that one copywriter’s words will outsell another’s. That’s why the
country’s top publishers not only pit copywriters against each other in split-run test
“battles royalle” but also reward them with performance bonuses for bringing in more
money.
IMPORTANT:
Unless your company has sophisticated, multiple testing technologies, I highly
suggest that you only test only one thing. Otherwise, you won’t know which specific item
increased or depressed your response.
PROFIT TRIGGER #7
Keep Your Mind Open to New Approaches
If you keep marketing your services the same way, you are going to keep getting
the same results. If you want to achieve more, you must continually try new things.
Suggestion: Look how other companies in other industries sell their products. To
be sure, the products may be as unrelated to your business as toothpaste is to technology.
However, I promise that if you keep an open mind, you will always see something
that you can apply to your business down the road. In fact, I’ve gotten great email
marketing ideas from companies as diverse as insurance agencies, sporting goods
catalogs, and vitamin book sellers.
For these reasons, I hope the strategies that I’ve shared with you here will trigger
new ways of selling your own product or service via email.
About Doug D'Anna
Doug D’Anna is principal of D’Anna & Associates. Since 1987, his direct
marketing strategies have generated over $120 million for America’s top magazine,
newsletter, and book publishers. His clients include Phillips Investment Resources,
Lombardi Publishing, Forbes, KCI Communications, Men’s Health, Personal Finance,
Prevention, and The Cabot Market Letter. He is also the author of four business
opportunity books: 24-Hour Cash Flow Miracle, License to Print Money, The Power of
Positive Cash Flow, and Quantum Wealth System.
For more information, contact Doug D’Anna at (650) 274-7326 or
dougdanna@rcn.com.