The Whitelist

Always Proofread Before Sending

Recently, we wrote about how typos and spelling errors can kill your email marketing campaign faster than you can say “Oops, I forgot to use spell check!”

But we didn’t talk about the best ways to proofread. After all, spell check doesn’t catch every spelling error, wrong word choice, or grammatical misstep. Unfortunately, some things in email marketing still must be done manually, and proofreading is one of these details. Email marketing best practices demand that your content is not only relevant, engaging, and specific, but also that the vehicle that delivers your content, that is, your language, is impeccable.

Spelling and grammar errors and poor word choice destroys your credibility and professionalism. In addition, typos are widely associated with phishers and spammers. If your subscribers suspect an email may be fraudulent, they’re likely to report those emails as spam, which teaches the ISPs to start blocking those senders’ emails. This could lead to a damaged sender reputation and decreased email deliverability as a result.

So, how can you ensure that your emails are free of errors?

1) Start with your word processor’s spell checker. Just don’t end with it. Spell check programs catch common spelling errors but they don’t catch words used incorrectly (e.g., “your” for “you’re,” “its” for “it’s,” or common grammatical mistakes (e.g., one of the most common: “effect” for “affect”). Oh, and if you’re unsure of which word is correct in which context, or the vagaries of any specific grammar rule, make sure to consult a grammatical reference guide.

2) Use another pair of eyes: There’s a reason there are two different roles in the publishing world: writer and editor. As a writer, I can say that though I’m fairly confident in my spelling, knowledge of grammar rules, vocabulary usage, and well, overall writing ability, I always have an editor review what I’ve written to catch and fix small things like strange punctuation usage, typos I’ve missed, and “flow.” As an email marketer, sometimes you may be spending too much time in your garden of content to see the occasional weed that crops up.

3) Print it out: There is something about how our language processing centers work in our brain that make typos jump out much more visibly in hard copy than on screen. And then you can whip out a red pen and play English teacher to your copy.

Common errors: The little words and contractions often get missed as our eyes sweep over them. They are so common that we barely notice them. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t pay attention to them. Watch out for the following common word pairs that are often mistaken for each other:  “for” and “from”; “its” “it’s” “it” and “is,” and “if”; “you” “your” and “you’re”; and the word choice error that gives every grammar fiend hives: “their” and “there.” Also watch those homonyms (words that sound the same but are spelled differently and mean different things!)

For a humorous homonym example (until you see your ScoreHigh sales plummet):
This week: 50% off sale on ScoreHigh sports gear to help make your team sore!

(You wanted to say “ScoreHigh sports gear will help your team SOAR,” not make them SORE… two very different things)!

Don’t have a “D’Oh!” moment when it’s too late: Re-read, proofread and then do it again before you send!

Why does so much email copywriting sound the same? Why do so many email marketing messages blur together until I can’t tell them apart, especially in B2B email marketing?

There’s something safe, I guess, about using the same words everyone else uses. Maybe that’s why businesses keep using and over-using words like innovative, industry-leading, top quality, expert and experienced. Or maybe there’s simply no other way to say what we really mean? Maybe those words are it?
(more…)

What is it about copywriting, and even email copywriting, that makes people change the way they communicate? Our in-house copywriter is constantly preaching “write like you talk,” but quite often, people don’t.

There’s something about picking up a pen or sitting at a keyboard that brings out another persona, it seems, even in the email marketing world. But in email marketing, we’re not interested in pretty prose or stuffy statements. We want results. Period. And if you’re not careful, your email copywriting can decrease your email marketing results.
(more…)

My brain has defrosted just enough to impart the following observations:

An recurring theme here in Miami is how to best reduce the anxiety and friction caused by asking people for information.  Ask a web visitor for their email address or other details and they get their back up.  So the zillion yen question is, how to build the ideal email and landing page?   (more…)

Another day at the Email Summit and another great certification course led by the dynamic Dr. Flint McGlaughlin. Today was the Email Messaging Optimization Professional Certification and as if I didn’t have enough to do as a result of what we covered in yesterday’s course, I now have more insight into how to optimize the ‘email capture to landing page conversion’ process. (more…)

Content is what gets people to sign up for your email newsletters, it’s what makes them anticipate your e-newsletters, and it’s what keeps them subscribed to your email newsletters.

Offer better content than your competitor and over time you will win the subscribers…and the forwards and viral marketing too, if your email newsletter content is really good.

(more…)

Last week part of the ClickMail Marketing team spent two days conducting workshops for the marketing staff at a large national company. Although this company is a client, their email marketing program is still evolving. And that led to a dialog about targeting and segmenting and emphasized once again why both are necessary.

During the copywriting workshop, we discussed how generic their email marketing copywriting is, how it’s written to one big vague audience rather than being written differently for their many smaller segments. We asked them to imagine writing to just one person and then describe that one person as a way to write more targeted copy.

One of their copywriters was able to describe to a T a military man, husband and father, with a young family, and his issues and concerns as related to this company’s product. Writing an email specifically to that one person’s pains would result in very targeted, compelling email copy that says “Hey, we get you. We know where you’re at in life, what your concerns are, and we can help.” By addressing those pain points specifically, the marketer-and the email-becomes believable.

This company plans to segment in the near future, it’s part of the evolution they’re going through. And when they do, they’ll be copywriting targeted messages that will hit home with their prospects and drive email marketing ROI.

You can too.