When There's an 'E' in the Day - Email It!

Here's three Copywriter's Tips for how you can immediately improve your responses to your emails

Tip 1: Take the time to get your subject line right.

Ben Rothfeld, Director of marketing, Acxiom Digital, called it the "Curse of the low price."

Direct mail was tested ad-nauseum because it was expensive. Email on the other hand is dirt cheap, so testing is often omitted. In fact, the word 'test' doesn't even get considered by many companies when it comes to sending out emails.

But that's a mistake. Big improvements of 10-20% can be gained from simple tests on the Subject Line.

For example, which if these emails would you open?

A: Let me tell you something amazing...
B: It's just amazing!
C: Most people are amazed when I tell them this...

I'm willing to bet you a Mars Bar that the answer you choose is... 'A'

That's because it contains the magic word 'you' in it.

Interestingly, what Email and Ezine marketers are now discovering is what direct marketing copywriters have known for yonks. And this is that the more times you use the word 'You' in the headline (For emails read: subject line) or in the opening paragraph of your sales message the more people will read and retain what you say.

Tip 1. So take your time writing and deciding on your email subject line. Test it on a few people before you finally decide to go ahead and, if possible, always have the word 'you' in your subject line.

Tip 2: Write the copy to fit the time of the year

Chances are that if you pick up a motor magazine in Spring, you will find an article about convertibles in it. Fashion magazines have lots of articles about weddings in May and June. Cookery magazines feature loads of warming and tasty recipes in November.

That's because experience has taught magazine publishers and editors that consumers care about certain subjects at predictable times of the year.

They incorporate this knowledge in their editorial calendars, a monthly running plan of what articles they will feature over the year

Email marketers can learn from this practice by developing an editorial calendar of their own to take advantage of naturally occurring periods of consumer interest. And, like publishers, email marketers can benefit by using this timing to make emails more relevant to consumers.

One group in Ireland that have this 'timing' strategy fine-tuned to a 'E' is the charities, with their Easter Appeals (a time for giving and sharing), Winter appeals (a cold and miserable time), Christmas Appeals (traditional time of giving) and Emergency Appeal (at a time of natural disaster like a tsunami, or a famine or war).

Tip three: Choose your day carefully

The majority of marketers try to ensure their email is not just sitting stagnate in the recipient's inbox first thing in the morning, especially after a holiday. The reason is simple. People tend to have a morning ritual of "cleaning" their inbox from any spam that arrived overnight. You don't want them to see your message when they are in a deleting frenzy, trying to find anything they can "clean up."

Okay... this makes sense, but what are the best days? Your answer is that the best days (in no particular order) are: Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays.

Hold it! Wait a minute. What's wrong with the other four days? Well, for most business email, your target audience is generally out of the office on Saturday and Sunday.

On Monday, your recipients are recovering from the weekend and may not be in full business mode yet. More realistically, they may have a number of things to do on this day and are not quite interested in offers or solicitations.

And yes! You've guessed it! On Friday, they are probably more interested in wrapping things up. In any case, if they like what they read from you on a Friday, it may be totally forgotten over the weekend. And don't forget, Monday, the day after the weekend is a bad day too!

So you are left with Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday as the best days.

As a copywriter I always find that Thursday is not a great day... my advice to you is go for Tuesday or Wednesday!

That's right! Write it down... "when there's a 'E' in the day!... Email it!

Robert Hayes-McCoy is one of Ireland's leading marketing copywriters. His direct mail copy and his online copy has won many national and international awards. He has written some of the most successful fundraising letters and appeals every used in Ireland and his book 'Persuasive Marketing - what you say and how you write it' published by Oaktree Press is in constant demand. 

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