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!

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?

I hope not, because the over-used words are now nothing more than clichés that mean nothing to the people we’re trying to persuade—the prospects.

And I doubt it, because the English language is rich with words. Dripping and oozing with endless possibilities, unusual yet meaningful words you’ve likely heard before but aren’t top of mind.

How’s your email copywriting? Would you rank it among the email marketing best practices you’re adhering to?

When you find your email copywriting leans towards clichés, ask yourself, “What do we really mean by innovative?” If the answer is, we really mean we want to sound like everyone else, you have serious flaws in your email marketing message! If the answer is something else like, we have developed solutions unlike any others available on the market today, then why don’t you simply say that instead of innovative? And back up your claim, of course.

David Meerman Scott was recently interviewed for a MarketingSherpa article on improving copywriting with help from social media. He presents seven tactics but there are two I want to point out in particular as relevant to email copywriting and email marketing best practices:

Tactic #1: Read what your audience writes
This is first and foremost, I think, because it helps you to learn your customer’s language so you can use their words, not clichés. Scott suggests looking to social media sites, blogs, user-generated review sites, and the like, any place people are talking about your company, product or service. What words to they use?

Tactic #3: Eliminate empty language online
Once you know different words, use them. Scott says to remove the empty words from main entry points like your home page, and also any outbound marketing material.

Remember, you can adhere to every other email marketing best practice, but if your email marketing message is the same as everyone elses, so will your campaign, at least to a degree! The words matter. Get them right, without trying to just “play it safe.” Hey, break away from the crowd and sound different and you’ll at least get noticed! Which is the first step to getting a sale!

Need help with your email copywriting? We’re here!

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.

It’s email. People don’t need to be impressed. They need to be moved to act. Immediately. They’re don’t need big words or long sentences. They’re not going to pull out the dictionary when they don’t know the meaning of “riparian.” They’re going to open (you hope), scan, and either click through or move on to the next email. You want the click through. And your email copywriting helps to make that click through happen.

Write like you talk. It sounds simple, but isn’t. So here’s a trick: Read it out loud. Even if you didn’t write it as the email marketer, your copywriter did. Simply read it out loud. Does it sound natural? Conversational? Like something you’d really say to an email subscriber? If so, go with it.

Does it sound stuffy? Do you stumble over a word or two? Send it back and ask for the email copywriting to be revised.

Your goal is email marketing results, not email marketing resistance. Your email copywriting is key.

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?  

An email or landing page that reduces the (often reasonable) concerns that people have when they give out information over the internet is what is needed.  While there is no magic bullet to solve this problem, there are many things one can do.

As an example,  if your landing page says ‘I won’t sell or share your information’ right next to the area where you’re asking for information, a whopping 66% of your visitors will be more likely to share their contact details.

More on this important topic later.

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. The idea of looking at email marketing as a science is not new but having someone like Dr McGlaughlin and the rest of the MarketingExperiments group provide these types of programs can really open even the most seasoned veteran’s eyes. Throughout the day there were many little tidbits of information, any of which alone could make a big difference in your email marketing ROI.

Today’s course was broken into three areas:

1)      Optimizing Email Capture

2)      Optimizing Open Rate and Clickthrough

3)      Optimizing Landing Pages

And although they are each extremely important (the chain is as strong as the weakest link), the formula presented today states:

Email capture < Open Rate < Click Through < Landing Page

Again, this is skimming the surface and, like yesterday, I strongly urge anyone involved in email marketing to take this course as well: you  won’t regret it.

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.

By posting your e-newsletter content on your Web site in an archive and you’ll win searches too, as potential subscribers who haven’t maybe haven’t even heard of you use Google, et al. to look for information…and find you! And then subscribe to your email newsletter.

Offer the best content, be the resource they rely on the most, and you’ll win trust, subscribers and even searches. And that all adds up to better email marketing ROI.

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.