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The Anatomy Of An Effective Email

Mark Eckenrode — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 22:41:44 +0000

Have you noticed similarities between emails that compel you to action versus all the others you send to the trash?

Some emails appear to have been written and sent on the fly without a second thought. Those probably don’t live too long in your inbox.

Then there are those emails that truly catch your interest or curiosity and, whatta ya know, you made the click and ended up on their landing page.

Good emails aren’t just thrown together. There’s actually a structure for creating the momentum that drives subscribers to open and click.

Let’s dissect and look at the anatomy of a winning email…

The From Line

Your From line is just as, if not more, important than the body copy of your email. If your subscriber doesn’t know who sent the email, or doesn’t care about them, then the chances of your email being opened take a big dive.

This is why I don’t promote using a company name – use your own name. It’s much more compelling to have “Allison Phillips, Realtor” send me an email versus “Red Brick Real Estate.”

Remember, email marketing is really about developing relationships. I can relate to Allison, I can’t relate to Red Brick Real Estate.

The Subject Line

Your subject line’s most important job is to get your email opened. Without this, your email fails.

There are a few ways to leverage your Subject to get your subscribers to make with the clicky:

Curiosity: enquiring minds want to know, right? give them a tease as to what they may find inside
Controversy: make a bold or contrarian statement
Questions: ask a questions that hints to the answers contained in the email
Big Benefit: голова болит секс promise a big benefit in your subject

The Salutation

Your salutation is the first thing your reader sees once they open your email. It also sets the tone and relationship for the remainder of the email.

Start out with a stuffy, business-sounding salutation and folks will continue read the rest of the email as if a business were talking to them (if they continue to read at all)… not a close, personal friend.

You want to approach your reader as if you know each other and have a personal relationship.

Avoid using “Dear {firstname}.”

For building relationships through email you need to use a salutation that’s more personal and approachable.

Some examples are:

“Say {firstname},” or “Hey {firstname},” or even just “{firstname}”

The Opening Hook

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Your Subject is the bait to get your email opened, your Opening Hook is the bait to draw your reader into your message. This is the stage where your reader asks himself, “Do I want to continue to read this?”

If the answer is “no” then they’re gone. Bye-bye. But, if the answer is “yes” then they’ll stick with you throughout the entire email.

Obviously, you want to make your opening hook “interesting.”

Make a mysterious statement
Give your reader a hint
Ask a question
Make a contradiction
Start with a story

The Body

You captured attention with your From and Subject lines. You established interest with your Opening Hook. Now it’s time to build desire in your email’s Body.

It’s time to promote benefits – what your reader has to gain by taking the NEXT action.

For example, let’s say you want your reader to visit a landing page where you’re selling the idea that they should pick up the phone and call you. On the landing page they’ll also learn some interesting statistics that would be helpful in their home buying decision.

In your email sell your reader on the benefit of knowing the statistics. Let your landing page sell them on making the call.

The Ending Hook

Your ending hook leverages all the desire or curiosity you built in your email’s body copy. It’s your closing trigger to get your reader to act and should be directly followed by a link.

At best, make it short and sweet. Even if they’ve skimmed the rest of your email, if you can make this jump out and irresistible then you can still get the click.

Here’s a few examples of ones I’ve used in the past:

“The results were… interesting, to say the least.”

“Fortunately for you, I have the key right here…”

“How could this happen?”

The Closing

Folks often miss using this key branding spot as you sign-off in your email.

You want to keep your sign-off consistent across your emails. Don’t say “Regards” one day and “Your Realtor” the next. Being consistent here creates trust and helps define your personality.

Making sure the email is kept on a personal level rather than something more formal, use a style that’s friendly and natural.

Here are some examples:

“Be awesome”

“Bringing you home”

“Keep it green”

The P.S.

Interestingly, everyone typically reads the p.s. even if they read nothing else. That being the case, what do you want here? Something tempting…

There’s a couple of things you can do in your p.s. You can allude to something previously mentioned (so those that skipped the message go back and read), provide a testimonial, another closing hook, or what I often like to do…

Prepare them for what they will see on the landing page once they click. This is how you merge the conversation between email and landing page: go to your landing page and pick out something interesting and refer to it in your p.s.

As you can tell, an effective email is more than just sitting down and typing away. Each piece of the email has a distinct purpose in drawing your reader in and getting them to act.

As in any aspect of business, success doesn’t just come willy-nilly. Crafting persuasive emails is the same way. Follow the structure outlined above, pay attention to the details, and you find more of your subscribers will click, buy and beg for you.

Email Marketing That Drives Results : A Comprehensive Guide

Mark Eckenrode — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 23:29:31 +0000

Email and autoresponders are quite possibly the most powerful tools at your disposal in online marketing. Webpages pretty much serve as the hub for your online business, but it’s your autoresponder – and it’s sequential drip of emails – that do much of the heavy lifting, especially in high-ticket purchases.

But autoresponders go way beyond the “are you ready?” emails… “Two weeks ago you signed up for my Super Dooper home research tool. Go ahead and call me so we can discuss the homes you liked best and I can let you know what homes have recently become available that best match what you’re looking for.”

Can those emails work? Maybe, but I wouldn’t put money on them, that’s for sure.

Autoresponders, leveraged best, become your 24hour online sales force reaching out, building rapport, overcoming objections, establishing value and nurturing prospects through your sales funnel to the glorious conclusion – an enthusiastic client.

Email marketing can create highly profitable relationships when you know how to use your autoresponder. And that’s what this 7-part autoresponder email marketing tutorial is all about.

A Seven-Part Guide to Effective Email Marketing голова болит секс

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In Email Marketing That Drives Results

we’re going to have some fun exploring the psychology behind email marketing and what emails you need to include in your autoresponder series to get the big bang.

Everything you’re going to learn here is based on successful real-world campaigns I’ve written and managed for my own clients.

Stay tuned

Twitter Pursists Call Me Blasphemous?

Mark Eckenrode — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 23:28:49 +0000

Twitter purists may label me a blasphemer but as a marketer I can’t ignore the market testing opportunities that twitter provides.

Obviously, you can use Twitter to listen to the conversations of your market – what’s hot, challenges, frustrations, excitement, and news.

I also use Twitter to test headlines and time-of-day for broadcasts.

Headlines: somewhere I read that the most responsive headlines are between 80-131 characters. Whether it’s true or not, it fits into Twitter’s fixed 140 character limit.

Using tweetburner you can create a redirect-tracking link for your webpages. The nice thing is that it tracks across all twitter aggregators, too.

Broadcast timing: I’ve also found that my market is active at their PC between 3pm and 6pm Pacific.

I tracked this by sending out the same tweet at varying times of day. The winner was always in that time frame.

Now I know when I should be sending my emails, too.

So, most definitely use Twitter

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to get involved with your market community but look beyond that and use it as a test bed. Besides, it couldn’t be any easier.

An Unsexy Case Study in Control & Persuasion

Mark Eckenrode — Mon, 12 May 2008 16:56:06 +0000

For the past few weeks I’ve been working on a series of projects inside the real estate market but I wanted to take some time out to highlight a product launch that’s going on right now over at Marketing White Papers

The initial “magnet” video used in the launch is full of controls and persuasive elements. The dude does a great job and in what I consider a pretty unsexy market: whitepaper reports.

Anyway, watch this case study video and I’ll walk you through his magnet video and uncover a number of the controls and persuasion points along the way. Cool thing is, after watching this you should have no problem using similar techniques in your own campaigns.

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The 5 C's of Persuasive Marketing

Mark Eckenrode — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 20:36:16 +0000

You ever see Mr. Wizard? It was a cool show when I was growing up… in fact, so cool that it had me all excited about science.

See, Mr. Wizard used to come onto the television and conduct these science experiments. I’d get to see stuff catch fire, fly, explode, and whistle. What more could a kid want?

He also explained the process and the “how and why” the experiment worked. Fortunately for mom, the experiments were “at home” safe… so I never succeeded in burning the house down. Not for lack of trying.

The systematic process and approach to things always stuck with me, though. In fact it’s very much a part of Clickfluence. I’ve come to develop a process for persuasive marketing. Laid out for you here is that process for getting more people to click, buy and beg for your products and services.

These are the 5 C’s of Persuasive Marketing

Content
Character
Confidence
Concrete
Check

Content

With the ever growing power of social media you won’t have a difficult time finding folks that will emphatically tell you that “social media and relationships make the internet go ’round.”

Guess what, folks, the world that the internet goes ’round is Content. Relationships are based on Content and are a key determining factor if someone wants to go ahead and build a relationship or not.

This makes Content the key component in your customer-catching process.

If folks turn to the internet for information then the higher quality information you provide the more people you attract.

Put on your Content Creating Hat because by providing quality content up front you do a few things. Obviously, you attract people to you. You also position yourself as the authority in your market. Good place to be if you want to eventually sell something.

Character

If it’s Content that attracts, then it’s Character that converts. You’ve given them something good in terms of Content… now they’re asking themselves a question: Do I want to get to know this guy?

Most definitely, you want them to get to know you. So show some Character, my man. Boring marketing gets you nowhere… but marketing with Character, now that gets you raving fans.

Look at Howard Stern. Love him or hate him, he’s got Character worth about a bazillion dollars a year.

I also want you to notice the transition here… your Content attracts folks when they look for information – this is the intellectual appeal of your marketing. In order to make a sale, though, we need to start appealing to folks on an emotional level – that’s where your Character comes in.

Emotion is not just the key to the heart (raving fans) it’s also the key to the credit card (hyper-responsive buyers).

Keep Character out of your marketing process and you’re keeping dollars from your pocket. Plain and simple.

Confidence

Now, I’m no Dr. Phil but I can tell you that at some point in the relationship the other person is going to have doubts.

“Is this for me? Where will this take me long-term?” This is part of what Frank Kern calls the Low Self-Esteem factor.

You’ve gotta build their Confidence that “YES, I’m a swell guy and I’ll treat you right.”

Nothing speaks this louder and builds Confidence better than proof. Confidence and proof remove anxiety so that your prospects can move closer, get chummy and, of course, buy.

You’ve given them valuable Content, they see you as a trusted friend because of your Character, and they feel Confident that you can deliver upon your promise.

One thing I want to point out is that proof doesn’t just support your story, it also helps your prospect weave their own.

See, your prospect witnesses those testimonials, those case studies, and inserts themselves as the main character. They picture themselves achieving the results. Even if those results are just half as good, they still picture what it will be like when they come out on top just like those other folks.

Nothing is more persuasive than those visions and emotions they stir up in themselves.

Concrete

At this point, you want to let them feel it because “once you pop you can’t stop.” (mmm, Pringles are good)

By making things Concrete the promised benefits become more tangible. Whether it’s a preview chapter, a video outtake, demo software, trial membership… it allows your prospect to get a richer taste of what is to come.

Once you make things Concrete the whole process becomes far more experiential, too. Your prospect is pretty much putting their hands on the tool or service that will deliver to them the awesome scenario they’ve started fantasizing about.

That’s pretty powerful. Keep laying on the Confidence throughout this stage and your prospect’s emotions begin to really build up… and they’ve made the decision themselves that buying is the best thing for them to do.

Check

Up to this point, you’ve educated your market with Content, built rapport with your Character, removed anxiety and built Confidence, and made access to their dreams Concrete. Now it’s time for the Check Move.

For the life of me, I can’t recall who introduced me to the term Check Move. I actually think it was a link someone posted on Twitter. Anyway…

In chess, checkmate is when your opponent can no longer avoid you or protect himself. In business, the checkmate is when your prospect makes the buying action and gives you their credit card or signs the dotted line.

You can no more pull their credit card out for them than you can cause them to lose a game… they have to do that for themselves. All you can do is create the opportunity for them to do so.

This happens throughout the process I’ve described. You remove the objections and obstacles, their reasonings as to why they shouldn’t buy now, and build up the emotional desire to buy. Then you simply declare Check and present your offer.

You’ll like the result

Just like Mr. Wizard wowed audiences back in the day, follow these 5 C’s and you’ll be wowing your own market and enjoying the 6th C… Cash!

Secret Conversion Tool Gets Laughs And Praise

Mark Eckenrode — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 21:22:48 +0000

This is the reason why:

Secret conversion tool & on-page conversion tips

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It’s an interview with Ryan Jackson (of www.DesignGuruRyan.com fame) where I break-down some of my on-page techniques that get more people to click, buy and beg.

Now, when I share my “secret tool” you’ve gotta swear not to laugh. Honest, it works great and those who’ve adopted the same tool agree… but, you be the judge.

The interview is about 18 minutes long so have a listen now.

When you listen, you’ll also discover:

the step-by-step process for tweaking your pages for bigger conversions
real-life examples of small tweaks that captured money previously being left on the table (how much are you leaving?)
the real truth behind the graphics vs. copy debate and why you may be on the wrong side of the fence

So if you want to see how to approach on-page conversions and what to really look for, make with the clicky.

And let me know what you think of my “secret weapon”

This interview is part of a series Ryan did with other top conversion folks – million-dollar copywriter Michel Fortin, the conversion doctor Eric Graham, offline guerrilla Roger Parker, and the legendary Marlon Sanders and others.

I suggest you have a listen to those interviews, too. Plus grab the free goodies Ryan’s giving away. Grab them here.

How context can ruin an otherwise irresistible offer

Mark Eckenrode — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 16:00:13 +0000

I wish I had had my camera to capture this bizarre offer. Actually, it wasn’t so much the offer itself as much as it was the context it was presented.

Let me set the stage for ya… I live outside of Phoenix, AZ. It’s a desert. Dirt, sand, shrubs, and what we call mountains (folks from the Rockies laugh at our mountains, we laugh at folks from the Rockies when they’re blanketed in snow). Emphasis on dirt, sand and shrubs. There’s really not much else.

I was driving on my road through nowhere and I passed a handmade sign on the side of the road that said “shrimp.” Now, I’m a big guy so I didn’t take this personally.

A moment later I passed another sign that said “lobster.”

Here’s where it got really weird… just a ways down from the lobster sign was a van. Parked on the side of this road through nowhere. More signs, this time making offers of jumbo shrimp and lobster for $2.99 or something.

What the…?

The signs even used the words “fresh.” Out here in the middle of the desert on the side of the road? If I had come across this somewhere along the Pacific Coast Highway I would have had a different reaction entirely.

Needless to say, I didn’t buy any fresh shrimp or lobster.

As marketers we spend a lot of time thinking about our offer. We try to match it with a thirsty market, make it irresistible. The whole nine yards. You get the idea… a lot of time is invested in refining the offer.

You may have come up with the killer offer, but without the story, proof, or reason-why (the whole context of the offer) to give it legs… your offer doesn’t stand a chance.

Anyone for some shrimp cocktail? It’s fresh… really!

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3 Things Online Marketers Can Learn From Mass Media

Mark Eckenrode — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 20:00:37 +0000

As much as the internet is it’s own medium, marketing here still relies on the same fundamental principles as offline marketing. After all, people will always be people.

Here’s some tips on how to leverage some of the more overlooked offline stratgies that businesses use to engage their markets… and how to apply them on your website for bigger wins.

1. Let your visitors “squeeze the Charmin”

Let’s face, we love to put our hands on things and give them a good squeeze or whack. It’s one of the ways we take in and process information. Charmin pushed it. Heck, even Jeep goes beyond the standard test-drive of their vehicles by constructing off-road courses at some dealerships for folks to play on before signing.

Easy to do in the physical world but how do you achieve this online?
Use interactive devices such as:

Checkboxes

Check me out

Responsive buttons сделаем из вас шлюшку (check the color change on mouseover)

Magic links

Magic Link 1

Magic link 2

Some content here

Does Your Marketing Have Rock Star Quality?

Mark Eckenrode — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 18:15:00 +0000

Some call it noise while others call it music.

A buddy of mine, copywriter Craig Garber and I (check him out at http://www.kingofcopy.com) shoot the bull about music sometimes. My musical tastes are pretty wide… from Pink Floyd to Black Flag to Public Enemy (no line-dancing).

I read an interview a while back, I think it was with Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, where he said that there’s a fine line between music and noise.

The thing that’s so attractive about music is the pattern of beats, repetition of familiar notes, and the harmony. If a song misses these things it becomes abrasive on the ears, it becomes noise pretty much.

The same can be said about your marketing. The pattern and repetition of not just your marketing message, but your tone, images, theme and delivery of the message all contribute to your overall success.

From your pay-per-click ad, to your landing page, to your copy, to your email follow-up, to your sales process. It actually goes pretty deep into your attractive character and authority position which we’ll talk more about later…

The more these elements are in line the catchier your tune will be. When you have a catchy tune you attract more buyers… catchy enough and you create raving fans. Get this right and the clicks and customers will keep on coming like schoolgirls to a rock star.

Sing it with me: “money, money, money.”

When they’re out of whack, well, let’s just say you’ll turn people away… there’s a disconnect which brings about a lack of momentum. At that point, it’s just noise and we all know there’s already enough noise in the marketplace.

I actually did a video a while back that better illustrates what I’m talking about.

“The 3 Rings of Conversion”
http://www.clickfluence.com/?p=14

<– make with the clicky

Keep ‘em clickin’

-Mark Eckenrode
“The King of Click, Buy and Beg”

P.S. I’ve had this song in my head for about a week. First person to tell me the song will get a 15-minute coaching session with me:

“I’m a Terminator, like Arnold Schwarzenegger.”

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Why Chicken-Bones are Bad Marketing

Mark Eckenrode — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 21:21:57 +0000

When was the last time you sat and watched live TV?

I mostly try and TIVO everything so I can get my entertainment on demand but the other day I actually dropped into my couch and turned on live TV (wow, what a concept, right?).

On the tube was some fantasy show with an old witchdoctor throwing chicken bones trying to foretell the proper course of action for our hero. It may seem silly and superstitious to some but…

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A quick mention…

Want to quickly and easily find out what your website visitors are REALLY thinking? Find out now and use this info to convert your traffic into hot buyers and increase your profits with little to no effort.

http://www.askmymarket.com

Would you believe many businesses try to sell, market and create product by throwing "chicken bones"? As if by some divine inspiration they will know what product to create, how to sell it and the best language to describe it.

That, my friend, is what’s silly… scratch that, it’s business suicide (here’s your Darwin award).

Here’s how to create an army of buyers and advocates: Get them involved. Folks actually enjoy the interaction – TIVO, iTunes, Sirius Radio, Amazon, YouTube, Facebook, Web 2.0…. ring any bells?

Do this right and you’ll be richly rewarded. The point is this…

Folks will respond with the info you need to succeed.

This is what most businesses fail to understand: the more you interact with your market the more responsive they’ll become. Hmmm… sounds like a relationship to me.

Whodathunkit?

More importantly, interaction is attractive. Throw a stone and you’ll hit someone whining about their conversion rates, refunds, and dry lead sources. I guarantee you these are the same business relying on chicken bones and haven’t built a relationshp with their market.

Winners don’t rely on chicken-bone mojo. They interact, build relationshps and enjoy meaty profits.