You may have heard of Marlon Sanders, a very well known and long established Internet marketer. Marlon specializes in teaching others how to succeed in Internet marketing using his proven formulas. I’ve purchased a number of Marlon’s products and have found them to be high quality and full of good information.
I mention the above because as a result of having purchased from him, I’m on Marlon’s mailing list. Every week or so I get an email from him containing marketing tips, promos for his latest products, etc. Until recently, these emails were in plain text. A couple of weeks ago, the email arrived in HTML format.
Being a savvy marketer, Marlon is always trying new things and this latest experiment with HTML email was just that: an experiment. To be frank, the email was very poorly done. Marlon asked for feedback and boy, did he get it! When I skimmed the comments on his blog, they were almost universally negative.
Being a smart marketer, Marlon took the feedback to heart and this week send out another HTML email with a new and different format. To say that it is a major improvement is an understatement! This time, the layout is clean, easy to read, and uses pictures in such a way that they add to the content instead of just looking fancy.
I took several lessons out of this experiment and wanted to share them with you. First, don’t be afraid to try something new. Granted, HTML email isn’t all that new, but if you haven’t used it before, it’s new to you! Plain text is fine up to a point, but if you need to provide a picture to better explain what you’re writing about, HTML is the only way to do it. For that reason, it pays to learn how to use HTML email.
The second lesson is to ask for opinions from your readers and customers. If you don’t ask, most people will never give you their opinion. If they hate what you’re doing, they’ll just move on and you’ll never know why. Even if they love what you’re doing, unless they have an opportunity to say so, they generally won’t. So, if you want to know what your customers are thinking, ask them!
The third lesson is that HTML email has to be done right. Marlon’s first try was poor because he tried to get too cute with it, putting a background image on it and using a font that looked like it was typewritten, among other things. HTML email is a primary example of the KISS principle: Keep It Simple, Stupid! Keep the graphics to a minimum. Use them primarily to enhance the content. If you have any doubt about whether a graphic belongs in the email, leave it out. Keep the font easy on the eyes. Use a font that is large enough and very readable. There’s a reason why Arial and Times Roman are the default fonts!
Finally, Marlon noted that sales of the featured products were higher for the original HTML attempt than previous emails. It will be interesting to see if that trend continues with this week’s effort. It could very well have been a coincidence, so it will take a few more emails in the new format to determine its effect on sales. Who knows? The crappy HTML format may prove to be a sales winner for some unknown reason. I’ll be interested to see how that plays out.
If you’d like to get on Marlon’s mailing list, here’s a free ebook he offers that has a lot of great tips for marketers:
The Best of Marlon Sanders
Marlon’s mailing list is a weekly source of excellent marketing information and well worth the read. He’s got his own unique style that’s fun to read as well as informative.
John The Geek
Free...sorta...
Has anyone else noticed that the definition of the word “free” seems to be undergoing some reshaping lately? I got an email today proudly presenting me “free” software. The software sounded interesting, so being the geek that I am I went to check it out.
I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised that the software is a “free 15-day trial” of an application. Once the 15 days are up, of course, they’re going to make me a heck of a deal to buy the full version. Wow, how lucky can a geek get?!?
At least this one is a single payment after the 15 days are up. I recently received a “free” marketing book from a big-time marketer who shall remain nameless. The “free” book only cost me $7.95 for shipping and handling. What “free” means in this case is that the marketer only made a couple bucks’ profit on each book.
That wasn’t what I found annoying. That particular ploy has been going on for years. “I’ll send you this valuable CD/book/whatever FREE! You just pay a nominal fee to cover shipping and handling!” Okay, we all know that game and we go along with it because, hey, $7.95 for an actual printed book isn’t such a bad deal and we’ll overlook the “free” thing.
I got the book and saw the “BONUS! Money-making software included free!” alert on the cover. “Cool, free software!” thought I. So, I looked in the back of the book to see what the free software was and where to download it.
I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised that the “free software” is actually a 30-day trial of an online service run by said big time marketer that features all kinds of marketing advice and wisdom. That’s apparently the money-making part of the equation. I pay to access all this great content and the marketer makes money.
“So, what happens after the 30 days are up?” I hear you asking.
Good question. If I decide to continue accessing the service, it’s a mere $39.95 per month! And I didn’t think it could get any better than the “free” book!
For the record, I’ve actually used this service during its beta stage and there is software involved. There’s a little application that you download to your machine that puts a streaming bar across the top of your screen. You click on things you see that look interesting and it opens your web browser and takes you to the site where you can access the article or whatever.
Is it worth $39.95 per month? Not to me, but others apparently think so.
My issue is not with the service. However, I find it disingenuous at best to trumpet something as “free” when it’s going to end up costing me 40 bucks a month. Call it what it is: a “free 30-day trial.” Don’t tell me it’s “free software” when it’s clearly not.
Marketers have a bad enough reputation as it is. We don’t need further fuel for that fire. I have no problem with enthusiasm for a product, but let’s not be reinventing the language to suit our own agendas.
John The Geek
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If you’ve been involved with Internet marketing for any length of time, you’ve gotten at least one email that starts out with a glaring error, like:
Hi, {!fristname_fix}!
There are any number of variations on this fundamental error, but the point is we’ve all seen them. I don’t know about you, but my first impression when I see something like that is: “Whoever sent this email is clueless!”
I may be dating myself, but I remember when it was a big deal to find a spelling or grammatical error in a book or newspaper. It was pretty much unheard of. Nowadays, you see them all the time. Either people use the wrong word (spelled correctly, mind you) in the context of the sentence, or commit some egregious grammatical error that won’t get caught by the computer’s spellcheck software. It’s become pretty well accepted that “stuff happens” and as long as the reader gets the meaning of the sentence, it apparently doesn’t matter much any more whether it’s correct or not.
Cultural shifts notwithstanding, such errors are the result of people trying to get too much done in too little time. With writing, no big deal, but with marketing, it’s a very big deal.
Why do people buy from you? Or a better question: why do they buy again and again from you? It’s about trust. People will buy from someone once if they feel it’s worth a shot, but they won’t buy again unless their first impression is borne out and they have a good experience.
Getting that first sale is important because without that first sale, you’re not going to get a second. If I get offers from several different marketers, if it’s a product that I think I can use which marketer am I most likely to buy from? Assuming the price is the same, I’m going to go with the one that I trust the most. If it’s somebody I’ve bought from previously, they’ve got an advantage, but let’s assume this is a new product and I’m hearing from several marketers I’ve never bought from before.
How do I determine which one gets my business? By going with my impression of whether they can deliver the product with a minimum of hassle. If the sales letter or email is loaded with typos and grammatical errors, I’m going to move on to the next one. Why? Because I figure if someone doesn’t take the time to create a professional-looking sales piece, they’re not going to care much if I have a problem downloading their product, or using it after I’ve bought it.
Looking professional is important! If I get an email from johnsmarketing@yahoo.com and another from john@johnthegeek.com, which one am I most likely to buy from? It should be pretty obvious. Here’s a little by-the-way tip for you to make an email address look even more professional: John@JohnTheGeek.com not only stands out better, but looks like I made the effort to make it look good.
Yes, “stuff happens”, but you can prevent most of the “stuff” from making you look like an amateur. I use AWeber for my autoresponder and they have a little link that reads “Test” on every broadcast and followup message I create. The first thing I do after I save a message is click the Test link and send myself a copy of it. You’d be surprised how many little glitches you can catch that way.
You’ll know right away if you mistyped the code to insert the recipient’s first name, for example. If you don’t use the Insert Code function to be safe, chances are pretty good you’re going to get it wrong a certain percentage of the time. Your test email will show you that immediately.
Another thing to test is any links you insert into the message, like those affiliate links that are making you the big bucks. If the potential customer clicks on a link and gets a 404 Error page, they’re moving on to the next marketer’s offer. Click the links in the email! It takes a couple of minutes to test the obvious stuff like that and can save you hundreds or thousands in lost commissions.
Never assume your email is correct as it stands. Having to send out a correction because you fat-fingered a URL just makes you look careless and sloppy. I’ve had to do it twice myself and it’s no fun, not to mention damaging to your reputation. Do what you have to do to test it until you’re *sure* it’s right.
I once saw a sign in a machine shop that read:
“Why is there never enough time to do it right, but there’s always time to do it over?”
The fact is that there *isn’t* time to do it over, but you end up having to spend that time anyway. It’s just bad business to save a couple of minutes only to cost yourself time and/or money later on. We all have a tendency to run out of day before we run out of things we “have” to do. Don’t compound the problem by having to do things over if you can prevent it.
John The Geek
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