Tony Attwood's Blog

Time and again I say to clients and potential clients – send out text only emails when advertising – they are more likely to get through.

And quite often I get a look, or a sound down the phone, that suggests I am from the planet Zonk – a being with no knowledge of such matters.who ought to be put out to grass with the other water buffalos.

But I know what our response rates show – text only works, pictures cause problems.

And now a report on emailing from Marsys confirms that others are getting the message too.  The report says, and I quote, “The number of HTML emails sent by B2B companies has reduced slightly, while the amount of emails in the Text-only format has significantly risen.” This probably indicates that HTML emails are jumping over the hurdles better than those emails with pictures. Some key hurdles being: getting the email into the inbox, rather than being unduly caught by Norton antivirus/antispam; encouraging the reader to scroll past the first line, and, most importantly, engaging with content. You can find the full original report here.

Of course what I really want is for people to do the test – send half their list a text only email and the other half an HTML and see which list gets the most click throughs, the most emails back, the least unsubscribes and so on.

“At least,” I say, “give it a try,” but time and again my words are ignored.  “Woe, woe, and thrice woe,” as Frankie Howerd used to say.

Tony Attwood

01536 399 000.

Hamilton House Mailings Ltd reg number 2444392 VAT 354907535GB.  Phone 01536 399 000.

I love that headline – “despatches from the war on error”.  It was in the Observer last week.  The book review it related to wasn’t of great interest to me, but the headline was.

So I write a farewell note (farewell for just a week that is) with my eternal thought… get the headline right and you have a chance of getting readership.  If the headline is bland, nothing much is going to happen.

With email you have around a second to grab the customer’s attention, so that he/she will read on.  With postal direct mail you have maybe four seconds.  Either way you have to intrigue and encourage the reader to set aside what she/he was going to do, and instead read your advert.

It is a tough call, which is why headlines are so important.

If you would like Hamilton House to create a few headlines for you, please do get in touch.

In the meanwhile I am going away for the next week so you won’t be bothered with my communications for a while – back on 18 June.  But you can still talk to my colleagues on 01536 399 000.   And you might like to have a look at one or more of these in the interim – in case there is anything you missed.

Hamilton House Mailings Ltd reg number 2444392 VAT 354907535GB.  Phone 01536 399 000.

Metaphor: the new approach to increasing response ratesI’ve been writing for a while about the fact that in recent years successful advertising has become more gentle, more like a friendly conversation, and less like a shouting match.

Now it seems that there’s an extra twist that you can add to good written copy: the good metaphor.

My point overall is that advertising is not what one does with the product on offer: it is the product.  How we write about the product is part of what the product is.

And the way to manage this notion is through metaphor.

The point about metaphor is that is allows us access to the unconscious and if you can get inside your readership’s mind and make them think about your product even when you are not pushing an advert at them, then you are probably home and dry.

Let me give an example.  When George Osborne said that he would tackle Britain’s “addiction to debt” he not only got a lot of mentions on the media he also gave us an image of ourselves.  That image stays much longer in the mind than would anything more literal.  If he had said, “I want us to reduce our debt” nothing would have been remembered.  Accusing citizens of the UK of being addicted to something which it is by and large impossible to be addicted to, is memorable.

Try this one: “Email is the motorway of marketing”.   Not the greatest metaphor of all time, but I quite like it.  Motorways can be fast, and can deliver you from a to b.  But they can be clogged up so you don’t get there – and that means you need to be clever.  With a motorway an intelligent smart nav system will warn you of problems ahead and get you where you want to go.  With email, the way you write gets you around the fact that there are billions of other email ads doing the rounds at the same time as yours.

But metaphors have to be used carefully – because they can quickly become tedious.  I wouldn’t ratchet anything up at the moment, nor would I talk to much about a surge in sales.

If you are not convinced, let me try one more thing.  The Office of Incisive Analysis in the US (and yes it is real, not a joke) is running computer programs that analyse the metaphors used in emails, because they give a real insight into the writer’s frame of mind.  Which takes us back to the subconscious.  The American military really do see the metaphor as a signpost to the mind.  So do I as well as being a way to enliven text and be remembered by the readership.

With metaphors you can have fun, as in “If we can hit that bull’s-eye then the rest of the dominoes will fall like a house of cards… Checkmate.”  Or you can be more serious, as with my email example above.

Either way they remind us that advertising is not just a bowl of cherries.

If you would like to explore new ways of direct advertising please do get in touch.  Hamilton House Mailings.  01536 399 000.    And there’s more thoughts on www.goodad.co.uk

Tony Attwood

Hamilton House Mailings Ltd reg number 2444392 VAT 354907535GB.  Phone 01536 399 000.

The average click through rates in email campaigns have been released by EMarsys in its Email Benchmark Report 2011.

The bad news is that overall email click throughs are declining. The current (2010) click through average is 11.08% across all emails, rising to 13% when one just looks at B2B emails.

In reading these figures it is important to remember that they can be taken from all sorts of campaigns – including quite often campaigns to regular subscribers to a newsletter such as this one.

Likewise there are industries where the receipt of a particular email each day is key to the working of that industry.  For example, imagine a travel agency that puts up in its window each day various last minute deals at discount prices.  Knowing each day’s offers is the life blood of the agency, and so the emails bringing in the news will be read avidly.

Compare that with an company whose work does not rely on daily new information – they will treat news emails in a totally different way.

The task therefore is always to get industries and companies where the receipt of news is not considered vital, and get them to change their attitude towards the email, so that their opening and click through rate rises.   It is, in the end, a matter of content.

If you would like to talk this through, please do give me a call on 01536 399 000.  There’s also details of the various ways in which we help companies with their email marketing on www.velocity.ac – just click on the Business option.

Tony Attwood

Hamilton House Mailings Ltd reg number 2444392 VAT 354907535GB.  Phone 01536 399 000.

Email open rates are again in decline – but there are some simple steps you can take to ensure your email is read.The number of people looking at emails, both at work and at home, has been in decline over the past eight years.

In 2003 the B2B “open rate” as it is known was around 57%.  By 2006 it was at 41% and in 2010 it was 28% according to figures from the Marsys Email Benchmark Report

B2C figures  started at 51% in 2003 and are now at 24%.

What’s worse is that the drop of 4% over the last year is far more than the minor drop a year ago.

Of course the level of spam, and the huge number of emails going out are a major part of the cause, along with a growing awareness of the number of emails that can lead to dodgy sites.  Indeed it is possible that even an old cynic like me might have opened the web site telling me that I had won the Monrovian lottery back in 2003.  Not today though.

So what’s to be done?

First, you need to work to ensure that the “From” line that the recipient sees is one that rings true.  It can either by your company name (if that is widely known and respected) or a name that sounds that it should have information of interest to the recipient.  “Booksellers Centre” is a name that a book retail company might use, if it feels that J P Splodge is not well recognised among those it is mailing.

Second, you need to have a good subject line each time you email – that certainly helps.  “70% discounts” is not a good subject line (too vague), but as you will have guessed something more specific such as “open rates decline, so what can you do” is a better bet.

Third you need a headline.  The general rules on headlines that I have often mentioned before are worth considering.  Some people will be able to see your opening without clicking on the email to read more, and so the headline is important.   (I don’t use one too often on this newsgroup, because everyone here has opted in, but if you are cold calling, the headline is helpful).

Try and avoid all pictures, because they will enhance the level of being blocked (many filters now analyse the number of pictures against the amount of text, and then block on that basis).   Put your pictures on your web site and have a link there.

Finally, you need to email regularly.  That way you can begin to be accepted, get people to dip in from time to time, and build the trust.

If you would like to work through some emails and discuss how to get your open rates up, do give me a call on 01536 399 000.  Or email me a copy of your email, with your phone number and I will call you back in complete confidence.  No charge, no obligation, no whatnot.

(You might also find some of the stories on the Creative Direct news group helpful – to subscribe send an email to CreativeDirect-subscribe@yahoogroups.com )

Tony Attwood

PS: You can also follow us on Twitter @HHMailings

Hamilton House Mailings Ltd reg number 2444392 VAT 354907535GB.  Phone 01536 399 000.