Write emails people will read v2

An iteration on my class at GA "Write emails people will read"

Transcript

1. Write emails that people will read
2. Colin Nederkoorn Co-founder of Hi, my name is Customer.io @alphacolin
3. WHO ARE YOU? What’s your biggest fear when sending email?
4. Sending Irrelevant Emails People’s #1 Fear
5. What will we cover? • Email is an extension of your business • From Addresses • Noreply • Subject Lines • Transactional • Marketing • Content • The Lizard Brain • AIDA • You vs. Me • Plain Text or Fancy? • How many choices?
6. Your emails should reflect the values of your business.
7. Make flying good again
11. Your Company:
12. You now have to decide what 'image' you want for your brand. Image means personality. Products, like people, have personalities, and they can make or break them in the market place. David Ogilvy
13. EMAIL DECISIONS
14. From Address.
15. ACTION REQUIRED: Aspen Sunsetting David Dollar From: Subject: WTF? Who is this? Why are they writing to me? Is this spam or important? What not to do
16. Better... You’ll need to migrate your Heroku App David from Heroku From: Subject: Who is this? Why are they writing to me? Is this spam or important? It’s David from Heroku! Because I need to do something with one of my apps Important
17. Your “From” Address Make it easy to know who you are.
18. Do you send email from “noreply”?
19. Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning. Bill Gates
20. Subject Lines
21. 2 types of subject line Clarity Intrigue
22. Colin Nederkoorn (@alphacolin) is now following you on Twitter! Your Amazon.com order of "The Walking Dead, Book 4" has shipped! ZIPCAR: You reserved Focus Hatchback Flagpole (Inman Sq East) from Tuesday, November 13, 2012, 7:00 AM - 11:00 PM Clarity: Don’t need to open.
23. Are we crazy to not want MORE opens? Opens are not always a measure of success Earn goodwill by serving the needs of customers. Use for transactional email
24. Intrigue: Can’t help but open. This is what someone who makes $200,000+ sounds like What would you do with an extra hour every day? How to Get Lots of Sales Leads Fast
26. “The idea of the lizard brain is this: it is hungry, it is scared, it is selfish, and it is horny. That’s it’s job, and that’s all it does.” - Seth Godin
27. 1. Turn water into soda in seconds! 2. Leave your gloves on and still be able to text 3. Harness the sun to charge electronics 4. Discreetly monitor home or office with this hidden video camera 5. Keep your shoes odor and bacteria free without the spray can 6. Seal your attic entry and reduce your heating and cooling bill by up to 20%. 7. Potty train your cat faster than most people can potty train their kids Where to get ideas?
28. Content: Layout
29. Question: Plain Text Fancy HTML OR
30. Plain text vs. Fancy? w/ Data! http://www.proimpact7.com/ecommerce-blog/plain-vs-html-email-test-which-increased-revenue-by-303/ Plain text: $17,500 Fancy: $4,300
31. Answer: It depends.
32. Do you want to: Look like a friend?
33. Encourage people to reply?
34. Sell 1 thing?
35. Sell all the things?
36. Look more official?
37. Make it easier to process information?
38. Have a Photoshop addiction?
39. Send text when: • You want people to reply • You’re building a relationship • Offering help or assistance e.g. Password Reset, Surprise Personal Email
40. Send fancy when: • You have lots of visuals • To look official • Help organize complex information • Including sensitive user information e.g. New photos uploaded, Invoices
41. Don’t forget mobile.
43. Sending in a single column is the easiest way to make things work on mobile @media queries images: max-width: 100%
44. http://www.zurb.com/playground/ responsive-email-templates
45. Content: Choice
46. One Choice vs. Many? 40% click 21% click
47. So 1 choice is better than many?
48. Not always. Mostly.
49. Savored. Case Study: Thanks Cassie Young for the data @dukecass
51. 0 10 20 30 40 Standalone Email Digest of 4 Incremental reservations per restaurant
54. We found that the shift from 4-12 offers increased overall revenue per thousand emails deployed by over 300% (i.e. other restaurants were getting more reservations too - probably because consumers saw a depth of choices and were more inclined to come to the site).
55. Give people 1 choice When onboarding them into your product. When asking them to correct an error or update information When decisions are high-regret and complex.
56. Give people multiple choices When decisions are similar and low-regret. But test to find the right number of choices!
57. To Do: Review the first email someone gets from you. What’s the primary action? How many choices are there?
58. Content: Voice
59. Remember that the people you address are selfish, as we all are. They care nothing about your interest or your profit. They seek service for themselves. Ignoring this fact is a common mistake and a costly mistake Claude Hopkins
60. People don’t care about YOU. They only care about themselves. From Neville Medhora’s “Kopywriting Kourse”
61. I, Me, My, We, Us, Our You, Your
62. 55% click through rate
63. Content: AIDA
64. A framework for email Attention Interest Desire Action
65. Attention Interest Desire Action
66. Start your email in the template
67. 2 things you can start today:
68. 1. Surprise Personal Email Subject: Help getting started? Hey {first_name}, I’m Colin, CEO of Customer.io. I wanted to reach out to see if you need any help getting started. Cheers, Colin 30 minutes to 3 days after signup
69. 1. Surprise Personal Email 22% [reply rate]. The important thing is we are learning a ton of stuff about our customers early in the funnel, spotting patterns and improving the product/docs. James Smith - Bugsnag ( We get a 17% reply rate for our email )
70. 1. Surprise Personal Email Start manually... send 10 emails today to new sign ups. Automate later... Experiment with timing to find what works best for your customers.
71. 2. Start a newsletter. Your product is a cross-sell from the newsletter. Build trust Teach your audience things of value whether or not they ever pay you.
73. 2. Start a newsletter. The newsletter kept him engaged. Chris signed up 7 months ago. Now he wants to find a way to be a customer.
74. 2. Start a newsletter. Customer.io (advanced)
75. Thanks! Sign up for weekly advice so you can write better emails: http://bit.ly/S9jXN2