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3 Email And Autoresponder Writing Rules For Hard-pressed, Stressed-out Entrepreneurs And Their Emplo
When writing emails, either as a series or as auto responders
, if youre not an experienced direct response copywriter because youre the boss, an IT person, or an unpaid summer intern and have to write them anyway because you cant afford to hire a professional, experienced marketing and sales copywriter (ahem!)You probably dont know how to persuade your list to respond positively to your offer(s) more often than not.
Nor do you know how to compel the loyalty of your converted reader, so that their lifetime value ($) is infinitely more than the cost of their acquisition.
So first Im going to tell you the 5 things you should never, never do, and then Ill tell you the 3 things you must absolutely do when writing emails if you want to sleep well at night, vacation monthly on tropical white sand beaches, and enjoy the endless love, adulation and affection of your customers, co-workers and significant other(s)...
1. Do Not write fake advocacy emails. In other words, do not pretend to be your recipients best friend and advocate.
Fake advocacy emails are generally 2-3 paragraphs in length, contain 2-3 sentences designed to convey a worthy sentiment, such as: Hey, Ive got your back. Dont you worry; Im gonna take good care of you.
But instead say: Look, Im not getting paid by the hour to show you how much I care about you, so hurry up and buy the damn thing.
And the rest of the email then goes on to prove, in effect, exactly that.
2. Do Not write 3 months worth of emails, all entirely the same length, all containing basically the same content, though here and there cleverly reworded.
Formula writing, religiously adhered to will, like many a Sunday sermon, lull the recipient to sleep if youre lucky. More than likely though, because your emails are similar to gnats buzzing around your recipients head on a hot summers night, he or she will, in desperation and despair, reach for the email fly swatter, aka, the Report Spam button.
3. Do Not send an email every, or every other day for 3 months for the same gnat-related reasons unless youre delivering a newsletter and the recipient understands, and has explicitly requested (double opt-in) to receive it.
4. Do Not write how all the recipients problems will be solved, their dreams will become reality, and theyll live and love happily ever after or basically that theyll become instantly rich and everything else I wrote in Do Not #2 above.
That was the job of the sales letter that got them to sign up for the email series. Of course, if each email in the series is 3-5 pages or more, written in impeccable advertorial style well then, you might be on to something (possibly a huge income).
5. Finally, above all, Do Not believe no one reads long emails. The truth is far more reasonable. No one reads long, poorly written emails, which, if you wrote them are probably one and the same.
If youve successfully attracted the attention and increased the interest and desire of your list, yada, yada (the AIDA formula), your readers will read every word you wrote and wish you wrote more, because
You are writing about something near and dear to their heart or wallet and they just cant get enough of what you can tell them about how what theyre interested in purchasing is exactly what the need for all the reasons you can possible list, which pretty much confirms what they already know or suspected.
Now, for the
3 Things You Must Do When Writing Emails
1. Do be sincere and personal, not smart and smarmy. Write to an individual, not a list. Visualize who that person is in all regards. Know their fears and phobias, their wants and needs, their objections and their hot buttons.
The corollary of course is your emails must be written to one person, not to a list. A list does not read your emails. There is no jostling crowd looking over shoulders reading a computer screen or Blackberry. As far as your recipients are concerned, as far as the effect you want to have on them he or she is the only one receiving your email; he or she is the only one in the room with you; he or she is the only one youre endeavoring to build a long-lasting relationship with (and dont worry about ending a sentence with a preposition or a dangling participle).
2. Do use the Pareto principal (the 80/20 rule). Your emails should contain approximately 80% valuable content and 20% pitch. And if you're sending out daily autoresponders for 3 months (for whatever ill-conceived reason), 20% of your emails should have no pitch at all allowing your reader to believe, based on the valuable and actionable content therein, you truly are their friend and advocate that you're not just interested in their money, but rather their overall well-being.
3. Do write as much as you can and need to (whether its one page or ten), to convince, persuade and compel your reader to accept your argument and do exactly what you explicitly tell them to do next (click submit) for all the dimensionalized reasons (benefits) you have listed.
This, of course, is the opposite of Do Not #5 above.
And dont worry if the actionable and valuable content you share is well-known as known wisdom can serve to confirm the reader's already held beliefs or knowledge base, which, in turn, provides you with credibility and authority something that 2-3 paragraphs rushing to make a sale will be hard pressed to provide.
And now, for an unexpected bonus, here is Do #4
Always write with personality. Be unpredictable. Be controversial. Be engaging. Be fascinating. Make your list want to receive your emails rather than suffer them.
And, finally, know this:
The purpose of your email series, and you autoresponders, is not to make a sale, per se but rather to compel your reader to click that oft-repeated (generally, 3 times per email), blue underlined link that takes them to your landing page.
Thats where your real sales letter lies.
by: Barry A. Densa