ComputerHunter.org |
|
|
|||
|
 |
Why Do Marketers Lie in their Emails?
Coming as I do from a direct response and direct mail background, I'm familiar with the various copy lines used to encourage people to open envelopes. A teaser line. An offer. A time limited deal. There are numerous ways to increase the open rate of an offline direct mail piece. Some are straightforward, some are compelling, others are plain feeble. But I don't recall ever having received a piece of direct mail that had an outright lie printed on the envelope. And I don't expect to. Why would a company do that? If the lie is revealed the moment I open the envelope, then the cat is out of the bag. The company can't be trusted. I would never buy from them. In my experience, companies in the offline world are smart enough not to put their brand and reputation at risk by over-stepping the mark with their 'come hither' copy lines. But this doesn't seem to be the case in the online world. A colleague of mine recently received a B2B email with the subject line: Fw: Please help - unable to reach your IT person Of course, nobody had tried to reach any IT person. It was just a sneaky lie written to increase the open rate. And it succeeded. The email was opened. But after a few moments it became apparent that the company had lied. Hello delete button. But what if my colleague had responded? What if he had been interested in the service being offered? What if he wanted to create a relationship with the vendor but, at some moment, while browsing his inbox, he came to realize that the opening line to the relationship, that first 'Hello', was just a lie? The low cost of email has created two layers of marketers. The first layer comprises legitimate companies who would stay clear of lying in their subject lines. The second layer is made up of the smash-and-grab marketers, who will do anything to take your money before you have had time to think through your decision. This may all seem obvious. After all, you and I would never lie just to get an email opened, would we? I mention it for two reasons. First, because I have received emails from legitimate companies that come horribly close to lying in their subject lines. Second, when companies enter into partnerships or affiliate relationships, they often lose control of how those partners promote their products or services. Which is why sometimes you see a legitimate company being pitched in a very crude and misleading way. The bottom line is to remain aware of the damage that dishonesty does to your brand and reputation. Nick Usborne is a copywriter, author, speaker and advocat of good writing. You can access all his archived newsletter articles on copywriting and writing for the web at his Excess Voice site. You'll find more articles and resources on how to make money as a freelance writer at his Freelance Writing Success site.
Google News - Top Stories
|
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
20 Ways To Increase Your Traffic And Sales Using Free Follow-Up Autoresponder Courses An autoresponder course is a group of articles or information set up to be sent out separately over a set period of time by e-mail. People just e-mail your autoresponder to receive the free course and it is sent out automatically over time. You can find free follow-up autoresponders to use by typing it into any search engine. Below are ten ways to use them to increase your traffic and sales. Is Your Email Address Blacklisted? A lady emailed me yesterday very upset over the fact that her friend's Internet Service Provider (ISP) wasn't delivering important email messages. The Power of a Referral Script The key to the success of e-commerce is in the combination of the power of viral marketing, permission marketing and one to one marketing. Lumpy Mail Gets Your Message Through When it comes to your gravy, lumps are bad. When it comes to getting your marketing message through the mail room, past the gate keepers, and onto your buyer's desk, lumps are just the ticket. I love direct mail for small business marketing and I'm particularly fond of something I call "lumpy mail." Lumpy mail is a direct mail piece or package with some dimension to it. A box is lumpy mail. A balloon arrangement, a kitten, a hoola hoop. You name it. The point is you just can't ignore a piece of lumpy mail. Internet Tip of the Week: Mistakes Count Against You Before the advent of email most of us, other than sending out cards for special occasions, would write very few letters. If we did write a letter, it was carefully prepared, and considerable thought went into it. Today, with computer access available to most people, we have tremendously increased our amount of written communication, and sometimes fall into a trap. There are seven words that will serve as our guide and help us to communicate more effectively. Email Marketing 101 - What You Must Know Before Starting an Email Marketing Campaign Before you start an e-mail marketing campaign it is important for you to know what e-mail marketing is, the benefits of e-mail marketing, and whether or not e-mail marketing is right for your business. Once you are educated on the finer points of an e-mail marketing campaign, you will be poised to either learn more and get your campaign going or else find another means of marketing your products. Is Your Autoresponder Truly Promoting Your Company? Getting other people to promote your web site is one of the most popular Internet marketing methods around, today. Affiliate relationships are all the rave with people who have web sites. Web marketers worldwide are trading links everyday, in hopes of driving each other's traffic to their respective sites. This is certainly something any hard-working Internet business owner should do, but it may be a bit overrated. While using affiliate advertising is a strong marketing ploy, effective use of multiple e-mail lists and an autoresponder is one of the most powerful, multi-faceted marketing tools available today. What is Gmail? Like most other prime search engines, the ability to freely giveaway an email account is a positive tool that signals to the user community that this search engine is here to stay! Google is no different in this approach. Recently, Google has been beta testing Gmail. Google's very own email services repository. Best of all, it's free! Well, it's going to be free, its currently available only in Beta mode, if you are lucky enough to have received an invitation to sign up for a complimentary account you currently enjoy the benefits of ubiquitous Gmail. How Autoresponders Boost Sales By Up To 400% Imagine going to bed and waking up in the morning to find that you made sales while you slept - all because of your autoresponder! How to Structure Your Follow-Up Sequence for Maximum Profit Before I do this, let me describe how autoresponders work. Think of autoresponders as the equivalent of fax-on-demand, but for email instead of fax. You simply set up a message and then whenever someone sends an email to your autoresponder email address they will immediately receive this as a response. Build Credibility With an Email Course When you are an expert, you sometimes forget that others don't know as much as you do. Not only do you understand your topic at a higher level, but you also know what's important for a novice to know. By providing your insight to those at a basic level, you can save them time in learning and applying their newly acquired knowledge. Email: When You Dont Get a Response The lack of an email response is an issue I have grappled with many times especially since I rely on email as a primary means of communication rather than the phone because of my hearing loss. The Importance of a Name in the Sent from Email Address When using an email marketing tool such as Adestra's Message Focus, you are able to specify exactly what sent address you want the email to be labelled as being broadcasted from. From prevalent industry contacts through to brand names, this gives the marketers the flexibility to use 'sent from' addresses that resonate with their audience for improved recognition. Internet Tip of the Week: Seven Rules of Email Now there is no law that says you have to follow these rules, but if you are in business on the Web, you should definitely pay attention. E-mail Whitelist Etiquette A big-time dilemma is brewing online. In an understandable attempt to bypass all that annoying spam, e-mails that onliners want to receive are getting lost in the shuffle. Newsletter subscription requests are not being completed and important e-mails are not getting to their intended parties. Using Internet Direct Mail To Increase Your Company?s Profits "I want to sell my company's products on the Web, but how do I get potential clients to visit my site," a client asked recently. The answer is a strategy that has proven extremely effective for many different businesses?Internet Direct Mail. Free Mailing Lists: Good Or Bad? Advantages of the free mailing lists How to Choose the Autoresponder Right for Your Business? Let's give a definition to autoresponder first. So, what is an autoresponder? Think of it as a 'fax on demand' service. When a customer sends an e-mail to the autoresponder address, this smart 'robot' sends back an e-mail response, usually informative letter. Get More Targeted Traffic, List Subscribers and Customers; Without Paying a Cent! No doubt one of the overriding concerns you have is getting good, targeted traffic to your site. Heck, even the "gurus" can't get too much good traffic. The key is not just getting traffic, but targeted traffic. You want visitors to your site who are hungry for what you have to offer. Weather it is a product, service, or information you have to offer, you want visitors that need it, folks who are immersed in your particular niche. The question is how to get them. 8 Tips to Increase Response in Email Opt in email marketing is no different than normal direct marketing in that small simple changes will increase your response and success. These tips will help with both plain text and html email:
|
|
|
|
|
