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Anyone using email marketing in the late nineties knows it didn’t take much at all to get someone on your subscriber list. It took even less for them to stay on your list.
Online marketing was such a novelty, people read just about anything they received.
Fast forward to 2013. Building a list of subscribers takes more effort than ever before. Keeping them on your list is more of a challenge, too.
Getting people to open emails is tougher by the day. So much, in fact, some people have an open rate of as little as 5%. Even when someone opens an email, there’s no guarantee they will read your message to the end.
On the flip side, there are some experts who have as high as a 50% open rate. Their subscribers can’t wait for their next message to arrive, reading every single word in the message.
So what’s the distinction?
Deliverability
The number of emails not reaching their intended destination is staggering. According to Phil Akilade in 2009, 10.5% of emails did not reach the inbox and in the first half of 2011, 19% of email sent did not reach the inbox.
In 2012 the percentage increased.
Imagine if over 20% of your emails are not making it to the intended destination. How much revenue are you losing with this one factor?
No value
Far too many people put little thought into what they write or how the information will benefit their reader. They send garbage information to their end user.
Many think, by simply sending something, that’s all they need to do. Wrong!
No Unique Perspective
The way we communicate in business has changed—dramatically. What people are desperately seeking is perspective and point of view.
It takes more than simply providing information. Your readers want to know about you and what makes you unique.
On a recent business trip, I purposely didn’t check emails in three accounts for over four days. To say I got a huge eye opener when I put time aside for the sole purpose of checking these three accounts is an understatement.
“What a bunch of garbage!” I thought as I went through the accounts.
After scanning the subject line of over 1,000 emails, I deleted 95% of the messages without reading “the next great offer that will change your life.”
In the few minutes it took me to continually press the delete button, it became very clear why most messages are not getting read. In a word, BORING!
There was such similarity with the majority of messages that not much stood out.
With several that I did open up, it became apparent very quickly that not much thought was put into the body of the message. Most were trying to sell me something.
Granted, emails are used to promote and sell, but if that’s all you’re doing, you become a commodity rather than a personality.
If you don’t infuse your personality into what your email marketing, people will buy solely based on price and nothing else. You’ve positioned yourself as a commodity rather than a personality.
However, if you position your perspective and point of view, people buy you. And they often are willing to pay more.
Your point of view is what you stand for, what you believe, what’s important to you. It’s also about what you won’t stand for.
When is the last time you thought about your point of view and how you are conveying it?
One of the quickest ways to find out is to ask yourself these questions:
- What irks the hell out of me?
- What won’t I tolerate?
- What gets me excited to jump out of bed every day?
As for me, I can’t stand wimps. You know the type. People who find every reason why they can’t do something rather than looking for reasons as to why they MUST do something.
On the flip side, I love working with people who say: “This is what I want to accomplish, and I know I will find a way to achieve it.”
As you gain clarity on your point of view, you can infuse this energy into everything you do, including your blog posts and email messages.
Another important aspect of getting your messages read is to know for whom you are writing and to know that not everyone is interested in what you have to say.
The more you know your market (tribe, community, family), the easier it will be to write for them.
In addition, you need to know how to achieve the following:
Increase deliverability
Several posts could be written on this topic alone, but a few simple, nontechnical solutions are: subject line, asking recipients to ‘white list’ you and avoiding using words that will immediately flag your emails as spam.
Create value
Is the information you send of real value to the end user or are you constantly selling? Granted, you want to make offers but you also have to provide high-quality information in the mix.
Focus on creating an experience for your reader that will be highly valuable to them.
Let your readers know you
One of the best ways to get your stuff opened and read is to let people know the real you. Granted, there will be those who don’t want to hear from someone like you, and yet, there will be those who will become loyal readers and raving fans, specifically because of who you are and what you stand for.
Sure, you can try to blend in and be one among many, but as master copywriter Matthew Goldfarb says: “It’s okay to fit in, but it’s better to STAND out.”
What are you doing to stand out and have your voice be heard? What are you doing to create value?
When you are clear on exactly what the answers to these questions are, your tribe will love hearing from you. And I’d love to hear your thoughts on cultivating your unique point of view in the comments below…
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Thank you so much for this information. I know I am hiding behind my content: certainly a reason why I have no success with my blog.
This article has given me something to really think about and encouraged me to make some changes – IMMEDIATELY. When I write the next blog, I will talk about my experiences in my work and why I find it is important.
Best wishes, Doreen
Doreen recently posted..An Ideal Color Scheme For A Small Bedroom – A Grayed Pale Pink For A Relaxing Quality
One of the things I’m working on this year is not being afraid to have a strong opinion and putting it out there on my blog etc. You are absolutely right that there is so much content, so much noise out there, we each have to find a way to show our uniqueness, otherwise there is no reason for people to listen.
Also, it’s one thing to understand in your brain that unsubscribes are good, or that you don’t want everyone to connect with you in all reality, but it can be a scary thing to actually put it in place and be okay when it happens. Working on it, bit by bit.
Cheyl Pickett recently posted..How Long Should a Nonfiction Book Be?
Thanks for your insights Cheryl. Yes, the unsubscribes can be a great thing. It’s about filtering through to what and who resonates with us.
Kathleen Gage recently posted..Thank God she didn’t quit
What irks me is when people who are in traditional forms of media such as TV, radio and commercial production who still believe it’s better than social media. Come on people, it’s 2013, open your eyes & ears and start looking at social media for the power and future it has. If you act like a dinosaur, you’re going to be extinct like the dinosaur. The worst part of this is that they tell naive clients to continue to spend their budget on traditional media. I’m not saying traditional media doesn’t work at all, because it does. But you need to use both and use them correctly.
Julie Musial recently posted..How to Find Guest Blog Post Opportunities
Great points Julie. The type of media does depend on our market. Amazingly, there are some people who are not on social media at all. Knowing this about one’s market is huge.
Kathleen Gage recently posted..Thank God she didn’t quit
I am actually amazed at how many people are not on social media. Sometimes the conversations are so far from reality that I don’t bother.
Julie Musial recently posted..How to Find Guest Blog Post Opportunities
Hi Kathleen,
I appreciated your article on point of view. When people speak their minds, give me a glimpse of who they are… I want to do business with them. I don’t need to agree with their ideas – I simply appreciate any evidence that they are human. It’s the connection that draws me in.
So true Lee. Nice to know the “real” person we are dealing with.
Kathleen Gage recently posted..Thank God she didn’t quit
Well said, Kathleen ~ As a coach, I know that a significant draw for clients is what it would be like to work with me; not just my smarts or ability to help them advance their vision, but having a relationship with me: do I share their values? Sense of humor? Am I compassionate? Hold their feet to the fire and their actions to their commitments? Most importantly, do I ‘get’ them and the filter through which they view life and opportunities? The ability to convey all that comes from putting my personality out there as often as possible in those venues where my target audience is most likely to be found and receptive to my message.
Now, on a personal note – what will get my ‘delete’ finger pumping is poor grammar and the death of the proper use of an apostrophe – when did 3rd graders lose this vital English skill? That and the use of ‘heart-centered’ anywhere in the message. I find this an appalling, low-class descriptor: just what is everyone else who is not ‘heart-centered’???
Andrea Feinberg recently posted..Why is an Ounce of Prevention so Heavy?
And to think there are some people who will deal with someone “only” if they have heart-centered in their message.
Kathleen Gage recently posted..Thank God she didn’t quit