The longest email I ever got was one of those damn Christmas letters. You know the ones I’m talking about, the ones that are written by the family member who just has to share every intimate detail of their lives with people who could care less.
I used to get one from a relative who every year regaled the recipients with tales of their four children, six grandchildren, their two vacations, the hernia operation and the neighbor who adopted a Haitian after the earthquake.
The “family update” stopped coming after I had one too many French Martini’s and replied with “Who cares?”
I never did apologize or speak with them again, but once a year I do wonder how Bob’s hernia is doing.
Oh, back to the point – long emails. I have a rule I follow when it comes to writing or reading emails. If you can’t say it in two to three paragraphs pick up the phone and call me. If you send me an email over two or three paragraphs, chances are my attention deficit disorder will force me to hit the delete button. Unless the subject line says, “This is the longest email you’ll read every word of.”
| guru gu-ru [goor-oo, goo–roo] noun Someone who has attended at least three (3) instructional webinars, one (1) pay-to-feel-good-about-yourself motivational speaker seminar, gets overly excited when speaking about common, everyday things, invokes words or phrases in conversation that don’t exist in the latest Merriam-WebsterDictionary and believes he/she is respected expert in a specific field while talking through their hat. |
Got to give credit to the marketing folks at Domino’s Pizza for this one. They did what every email marketing “guru” (see sidebar) says you shouldn’t do – bombard people with text. But these are the same people who ran television commercials admitting that their pizza tasted like cardboard and they were doing something about it. I happen to love the new recipe, but the chicken wings leave a lot to be desired. Domino’s, are you listening?
Now, none of my eCommerce peeps would ever send out an email like this one, because they’ve been brainwashed by the “gurus” to believe that emails should contain an eye-catching graphic and a paragraph of text. In my mind, email marketing is like underwear. Boxers work for some, briefs don’t.
Case in point, I tested a bunch of different email formats for my stores like any good eCommerce store owner should. I found that while the “gurus” favorite format performed like Justin Beiber on Store A, it was met with as much enthusiasm as Anita Bryant at a Gay Pride parade on Store B and had a lukewarm reception on Store C.
Nobody can tell you exactly what type of email format is going to work for your particular audience. You need to A/B test layouts until you ultimately come up with the style that provides you with the highest rate of return. This testing takes a lot of time, but once you nail it… the rewards are yours.
I’d love to know the stats for the Domino’s email. I read every word of it, if not just for the curiosity factor. I also ordered a large pizza with extra sauce, pepperoni, and cheddar cheese with a 14-piece order of mild wings.
The pizza was great, but the wings… they still sucked.
