However if you’re selling, there may be a bigger elephant in the room. Is it just the message,  or the fact that we’ve made a connection? If you’re in sales and working with established clients, the message or offer may not be important. It’s the connection and fact we’ve taken the time is the key – Relationship selling concepts come to mind. We’ve spoken a lot on this blog about the emotional factors when selling. An article on what new strategies to employ with email marketing being the most recent. (Read more) 

It perhaps emphasises the need to remain human when selling. Less of the old ‘hard sell’. Local guru Sean D’Souza of Psychotactics had an interesting observation on all this in his weekly podcast. Take a listen…

Why Connection Is Way More Important

Be sure to signup to his newsletters. Better still, buy his book, Brain Audit – Why Customers Buy

Yep, a seemingly handwritten note to highlight an area or offer as shown in red on the sales letter or brochure, left. No changes of copy, just something that’s overprinted to reinforce what has already been said.

It may look cheesy, and most Mac designers will scream, saying it’s amateurish and tacky. But like it or not, for most consumer products or services, this ‘old school’ direct marketing trick still works! In fact it can often double, even triple response rates!

This happens regardless of the media you use, be it printed mailings, sales letters, email or website copy, These ‘doodles’ have been proven to do a great job.

For those of you that are sceptical, try it out on your next email or direct mail campaign. Send out half using your standard ‘professionally designed’ version and the other 50% with the doodles added in. Yes, it may mean adding in colour, which costs more if printed, but if it achieves 50-200% higher responses, it’s money well spent. Even a 20% sample with doodles may be enough to prove it’s value in your own marketing.

We already know that email isn’t perfect and is constantly battling with spam filters.   Delivery is a big problem and for a while, I really thought this technical issue was the main reason that email open rates were so low, typically 10-30%. Yet email experts tell us that the subject line is critical too and fine tuning this did provide some modest improvements pushing up rates as high as 35-40%.  Then  I noticed a couple of my clients individual campaigns achieved over  65% open rates, which for email marketing is almost unheard of. Obviously my old mail was getting through, but people were simply deleting them, since the focus was, quite naturally, on a new product offering or service. So, which campaign ‘subjects’ got opened at these 65% rates?

Well, it wasn’t those messages about new products, services, business opportunity or even [surprisingly] how to save money. Clear winners were those where the subject line and content was more on helping others, charitable works or personal interest stories. (These were often added as an afterthought). Yes, it seems even your customers may want to know if one of your staff is getting married, having children, celebrating an achievement or more often, know more about your charitable efforts or a local children’s fundraiser that you (and they) could help out.

It’s not just about selling – It’s about how messages make us feel

My own theory is that this type of message creates a tiny bond between the recipient and your company, or rather, your people. The lesson here is that your email communications should focus more around topics people can actually relate to, are relevant and perhaps makes them feel better as a person. Invoke an emotional response, which is something top marketers and psychologists have told us for decades. Its been proven that buying decisions are nearly always made from the emotional, not logical side of the brain. Feelings, it is said, is the language of the soul. Invoking feelings means you become less of a big corporate, and more a human being. It obviously builds trust and a closer relationship, which if nurtured will help build your business in the long term.

It perhaps reminds us that we are in fact human, not just another sales opportunity for someone….

Maybe it’s also the fact that we’re being bombarded with clinical, impersonal sales messages every day, and these little personal interest stories suddenly stand out. A tiny light in the darkness called marketing. It reminds us that we are in fact human beings, not just another sales opportunity or prospect for someone.

Where is Emails Sweet Spot?

I think even using the term email marketing puts us on the wrong foot today. Maybe email should be less about ‘marketing’ or selling, and all about educating, communicating and relationship building at a more personal level. It’s certainly what our readers seem to want.

Copywriters who write for all media channels have long noted that email alone is not good at pure lead generation. In fact it’s a bad choice. Too many like to use it this way purely because it is perceived to be cheap and easy to do. But even if you’re able to find or build an email list (which isn’t a cheap process),  sending out a product-focused email blast, like you’d put an ad in a magazine, to those you have no prior relationship with produces very poor results and likely to antagonize people. In fact they’ll probably blacklist or filter out your companies email address so that future emails are never seen, even if they do have some real benefit.

However for existing clients we already know and have permission to communicate with, email appears much more efficient and cost-effective than other media – Ideal for nurturing that relationship and keeping your clients loyal. Considering that finding a new client is 5x more costly than retaining (or regaining) one, this puts email in a very powerful and critical position in any company’s business strategy. And keeping a more human face on our email messages ensures that they’ll be opened, read and treasured.

Read also: Sometimes simple works  and Seth on Web 2.0

Bob Bly has been called "America’s Top Copywriter." He is author of The Copywriter’s Handbook: A Step-By-Step Guide To Writing Copy That Sells. In the podcast below, Bob shares more secrets on writing email and direct mail pieces that get amazing results.

Click on the audio graphic below. This is a 30 min interview.

Download

Interview HotSpots:

• What is direct response and direct mail?
• What’s the most effective format for direct mail?
• How to get response using direct mail.
• Writing effective copy for direct mail.
• What gets attention?

Other tips and trends we got from this podcast includes:

• In some markets, direct mail is on the rise again, whilst email marketing is falling
• Use more Postcard marketing, sending people online to PURLs
• Direct mail is super-effective for small business, selling locally.

What’s best, long or short copy?

Additional article extract, (June 09) by Bob Bly

The debate over long vs. short copy rages on, and a recent Copy Chasers column in BtoB magazine (6/8/09, p. 26) declares that — at least in B2B advertising — short copy is the winner. “In an age when 140-character messages seem to push the limits of the human attention span, it’s best to keep things as short and sweet as Twitter,” the column advises.

“Brevity is always welcome in B2B advertising, as decision-makers need to think fast. Advertisers that can concisely convey a message have a distinct advantage over those that force readers to slog through text.” On the surface, this seems sensible:

1. Businesspeople are busy, and don’t have a lot of time to read.
2. Therefore, they will respond better to short copy than to long copy.

And today, any product information they need is posted on the advertiser’s web site, the URL for which can be featured prominently in the ad. Yet in consumer advertising, there are still some advertisers who hit home runs with long-copy space ads. Two that come to mind are the Institute for Children’s Literature (”We’re looking for people to write children’s books”) and The Teaching Company (”The Great Courses”).

So … is BtoB right –and (at least for B2B) is long copy advertising dead at last?

Or can a long copy ad, in some cases, do a better selling job than Madison Avenue’s minimalist approach to body copy?

What say you?

Bobs blog link