Tony Attwood’s Blog

These three factors are very simple to explain - in fact so simple I can put them down as single words…

a) Text
b) Pictures
c) Content

Indeed it all looks so simple put like that, but in fact these simple facts can and do trip people up very regularly.

Text represents not only the flow of the text, plus the exciting and stimulating use of the language, but also the avoidance of words and phrases that will send the email into filter systems or worse, reduce the chance of your next round of emails actually arriving.

Clearly the words that can’t be used vary from context to context. In its simplest form the word “Free” can cause difficulties, so can mentioning the name of the Schools Secretary (Ed Balls). Discussions on the anniversary of the abolition of slavery often came unstuck with any reference to selling children into “slavery and bondage”.

Moving into other areas we have the case of the dance club that changed its name from Ceroc Central to Ceroc Passion (they speak of themselves as being passionate about dance, just as Odeon cinemas are passionate about film) – which has led to a number of club members not receiving emails announcing dances and venue changes.

Curiously the word “sex” doesn’t seem to set off too many alarms – even in schools – but a lot a pharmaceuticals (and even the word “pharmaceutical” itself) can cause problems. I have no idea if anyone does sell Viagra legitimately on the internet, but if they do, I can’t think how they get the advertising through.

Moving on, pictures are also a real problem. People stopped putting pictures into emails (known generally as embedding) when it became clear that interception software was stopping a lot of emails with pictures being delivered. There is also the problem of speed of transmission - a small picture (such as a logo) might increase the size of an email from 50kb to 1500kb - nothing to notice.

But that does mean you are using up 50 times the amount of space in sending the emails - and if you are sending out a lot that can well mean you will be running a lot more slowly - and will get a lot more rejections.

The alternative approach to pictures embedded in text is the approach which has the picture resident on a hard drive. The client needs to click on a bar to activate the picture.

The problem here is that (depending on the setting of the software) all the reader will see is a blank screen (possibly with a little red x in one corner). Not a very good way to start the advert, when the customer typically will only give on one second before deleting.

The simple answer is to avoid pictures, and instead put all your effort into writing brilliant text, which forces the reader to click on the link to the web page.

And that fact tells you why most firms go for pictures - they don’t have the skill to write exciting text.

Which brings me on to content.

How you write an email is as important as how you write direct mail. Sadly, many firms just sit down and write a sales piece without any proper thought. And so they get poor results.

Just read the first three lines of any email advert that arrives in your in box, and I suspect you will see exactly what I mean.

Some firms specialise in getting emails out to the recipient - and of course that is important. But it is equally important to ensure that the email is received, and read.

If you would like to talk more about sending out emails and getting sales from them, give me a call on 01536 399 000.

Tony Attwood

To me, successful direct marketing is always about combining two areas of work.

On the one had there is the exciting creative stuff (the clever turn of phrase, the twist that takes the reader to one place when he/she thought you were going somewhere else, and so on…)

On the other hand there is the technical stuff that relates to the way the system works and the way the psychology of perception means that our brains process the piece.

Let me take just one example of this latter point

When I write a sales letter I occasionally use bold to highlight the first few words of a paragraph - but I never use bold for individual words or phrases within a paragraph.

The reason why the bold words and phrases within a letter or email don’t work - and in fact are counter productive is complex but has to do with the way the brain skims through text looking from the left while subliminally taking in what is on the right. Putting bold in the middle of the text ruins this flow, and reduces readership.

These technical bits of information are boring and dull, but they make a huge difference, and I have found over the years that time and again really exciting sales pieces have been destroyed in this way.

Why the positioning of bold is so important is not intuitive - which is why so many people do get it wrong. Indeed I have some clients who take my copy and change it to incorporate bold within the text, even though I plead with them not to, on the basis that they have seen other firms do it so it must be right.

So, my gentle word of warning is:

a) If you want to make a sale you have to write stunning, exciting and exhilarating copy, which grabs the reader by the throat, and

b) You have to abide by the findings of studies in the psychology of perception.

If you would like me to look at any email or direct mail that you have sent out or are thinking of sending out, please do send it through to Tony@hamilton-house.com and I’ll give you a call back to tell you what I think. No obligation, no charge.

Tony Attwood
01536 399 000

The Advertising Association (AA) has suggested that more non-broadcast adverts should meet the Advertising Standards Authority requirements.

According to reports “The recommendations, if accepted, will bring companies’ marketing communications on their own websites, and other non-paid for space online, such as brand activity on social networking sites, within scope of the CAP Code.”

All other marketing communications activity in paid-for space online, such as search marketing and display advertising, is already within the ASA’s remit and subject to the CAP Code.

The idea is to bring this into play before the end of the year, and then effectively stop government control of advertising to children by claiming it is all “self-regulated”.
Rae Burdon, chief operating officer at the AA, says: “Contrary to general understanding, much advertising online is already in remit and there’s a very high level of compliance with the existing rules. There are some complex issues in the remaining space which require careful analysis.”

“The industry has delivered to CAP a clear mandate that first and foremost will protect consumers and children, that will also – crucially – protect editorial content, and that will, if accepted, maintain CAP/ASA’s reputation as a world-class operation. The whole industry has pulled together to make this happen. What’s important now is effective implementation and raising consumer and stakeholder awareness.”

Tony Attwood
01536 399 000
Sales@hamilton-house.com

Pictures in emails present a problem: they are intended to increase response rates, but do in fact often reduce readership of the message.

This happens in two ways - which are themselves complex - which I suppose is one reason why the use of pictures in emails continues. Intuitively it seems a good idea, and the reasons why it is not are complicated.

We work on hundreds of email campaigns a month and I can say definitively that the response rate of each has nothing to do with the pictures or lack of them - except that as a generality emails with pictures tend to do worse.

Indeed pictures can in fact harm your response rates - for two reasons.

First, the way pictures are presented in emails causes problems. If you want a picture in an email you have two ways of putting it in. Either you can embed the picture or you can web link the picture.

Embedding the picture means you drop the image into the email, so it is permanently there. The problem with this is it will slow down the loading of the email, and some email systems will be set up to reject emails of above a certain size.

Web link pictures are not in the email at all - but are on a web site. The reader normally can’t see the pictures until he/she clicks on a button at the top of the email to reveal them. This also allows the sender to track an open rate.

The problem is that when the recipient first sees the email it can look blank - because the pics can’t be seen (apart sometimes from a little red x at the top of the box). This hardly encourages people to read on - given that they only look at each email for one second before deleting.

The second reason that pictures cause problems in emails is that pictures are “read” by the right hemisphere of the brain. Text is read by the left hemisphere. Although the brain is a fairly nifty bit of kit, the one thing it doesn’t like doing is switching from left to right hemispheres - this requires a lot of extra brain power being used. And the one thing people don’t hand out willingly is the use of their brain when they are trying to get rid of their emails at high speed.

If you buy a magazine that you are committed to reading you will of course put a lot of brain power into reading the magazine - and the pictures will enliven the text. But this is not the case with an email you send out.

So that’s the problem: people don’t “read” emails in a way that makes pictures plus text work readily together, and when you do put pictures into emails they can cause problems themselves - either by being rejected straight off or because they give white space until the reader clicks.

Why then do people really continue to use pictures?

There is a belief that pictures work, just because people believe pictures work. But also, the fact is pictures are an easy way out - because it is easier to plonk in a picture rather than find a good piece of text which excites the reader.

Pictures can be of use, of course, but they should be put on the landing page of the web site. This overcomes all the problems - a person who clicks through is by then willing to give more brain power to the issue (they have CHOSEN to look at the web site) and there should be no loading problems - no blank areas etc.

If you would like to talk about this, please do give me a call on 01536 399 013, or email me at Tony@hamilton-house.com

Tony Attwood