I receive about 25 spam e-mails an hour. Although I may have provided an email address to a few of them at some point, I never asked any of them to check in hourly without even offering to buy me a drink. More than a third of them state in the subject or the first line what the spammer needs from me.
Example from Monday: Subject line, “Are you the right person?” The first line then requested that, if I’m not the right person, could I direct the spammer to correct person?
Does that really work? Please share if it has worked for you.
Some might say, “Kill spam” altogether. But as the head of a company that regularly uses outbound email campaigns, I won’t suggest such drastic action. I will, however, provide free tips for email marketers and spammers everywhere.
If you hope that I or my company will purchase your product or service, make your message about what you can do for me, not what you want me to do for you. At least pretend you have something I need or want.
Start with the subject. If your subject describes how wonderful you are, I’ll delete without opening. Period.
Stop being so predictable. Your spam is more obvious when it arrives with the masses. If your spam arrives overnight on Sundays with everyone else’s, I get to delete all of you in one shot so I can deal with what really matters on my Monday morning, which is properly caffeinating enough to kick off a new week.
And those email marketers who think it’s a good practice to blast on the first or last day of the month? Sorry, you make it easier for me to unsubscribe from all of you.
Try emailing at 1:47 pm on the second Thursday of the month when Venus is in retrograde during a non-election year, for example. Surprise me. Hook me with a funny or useful subject line. Show me immediately how smart you are and what you are going to do for me. Make me think you offer enough value that I want to learn about it. Then hook me again in your opening line without using the “you are probably trapped under your file cabinet” thing, which has never been funny or original. Besides, what’s a “file cabinet” (#usethecloud)?
Do what your poor employer is paying you to do: Be an email marketer, not a lazy spammer.
Make me want to subscribe. If I subscribe to your emails, they’re technically not spam; I requested them. Give me options of how frequently I hear from you and what kind of content I’m willing to receive.
Customize your messages to my needs, not your convenience. This might require more work, involving intelligent, segmented targeting of your company’s database with subject lines, opening messages and content targeted to each category of your customer base. That’s why it’s called email marketing.
If you show me value, you’re marketing. If you show me junk, you’re spamming.
