Apparently It’s Now Safe (Again) to Use “Free” in a Subject Line

May 14, 2013 – 2:23 pm

In follow-up to the recent 2013 Marketo Summit, the marketing team at ReachForce, a leading provider of B2B data services, sent a message to attendees (including this blogger) crowing about the success of their traffic builder campaign, an email that generated a 42.8% open rate and resulted in ReachForce hosting the most heavily visited booth during the event. The subject line that generated such success?

using free in subject lines“Marketo Summit – Free Beer, Gold for Everyone!”

There are all sorts of conclusions one might draw from these results – most notably, when and how to use humor in business campaigns – but here’s the factor that struck me most: the word “Free”.

No-one uses “free” in subject lines any more, do they? Well, apparently, they do. And though it’s only one data point, I found it somewhat revelatory that the ReachForce campaign generated an open rate well above industry standards, even using a term that by all accounts is supposed to guarantee your campaign ends up being caught in spam filters.

Other experts have seen similar results. In his post “7 Email Subject Line Myths Exploded,” email consultant Tim Watson writes that spam trigger words like “free” aren’t the problem they once were, because whereas in years past email was largely filtered on content, now the biggest variable is reputation. In other words, Watson contends, content will only cause you problems if you’ve received spam complaints in the past (or worse yet, have been blacklisted) and your email reputation is weak as a result. Read More »

By Howard Sewell | Posted in B2B Marketing, Campaign Measurement, Demand Generation, E-mail, email marketing | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments (3)

Branding is Not Demand Generation. Stop Pretending That It Is.

April 30, 2013 – 8:11 am

Hey, I get it. Demand generation is hot. It’s the marketing movement of the moment. It’s why demand generation managers are suddenly as common as, well, marcom directors. It’s why systems consultants are reinventing themselves as “demand generation agencies.” No problem. I understand.

Branding is not Demand GenerationAs a demand generation marketer, however, I have an issue when brand marketers start to muscle in our turf. I’ve confessed previously in this space to being a branding cynic, but if you want to argue that branding (however you define it) and building awareness for that brand are necessary foundations for effective demand gen, that’s OK. (I don’t agree, but we can still be friends.)

Just don’t start pretending that awareness-building and demand generation are the same thing. They’re not, and here’s the simple reason why: Demand generation, by definition, generates measurable demand for your product. It doesn’t simply remind people you exist, or give potential buyers warm, fuzzy feelings about your brand. Well, OK, it might do those things, but that’s not its purpose. In fact, to the extent branding is even a minor goal of your demand gen strategy, you’re likely to fail at both.

Over at TechCrunch, writer Josh Constine recently penned an intriguing article about the potential for social media platforms eating into Google’s near monopoly on search advertising. Josh’s argument is that search engines are no longer the only channels to offer keyword advertising, and that Twitter and Facebook in particular are now enabling advertisers to reach buyers in the act of expressing interest in a particular topic, trend or product. It’s a compelling case, but then Josh goes further:

“A solid model for understanding Web advertising is the purchase intent funnel. At the wide top of the funnel is demand generation – raising awareness about a product and engendering the brand to a customer. Demand generation is more about ad views and changing your perceptions than clicks and driving immediate action.”

Wait, what? He continues:

“At the narrow bottom of the funnel is demand fulfillment – convincing someone ready to make a purchase of what specifically they should buy.”

OK, I confess: “demand fulfillment” is news to me. And as a buzzword, it’s kind of catchy. It’s also complete rubbish. Read More »

By Howard Sewell | Posted in B2B Marketing, Branding, Demand Generation, direct marketing, Lead Nurturing | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

2 Email Campaigns Show How (and How Not) to “Sell” Content

April 23, 2013 – 10:57 am

Two email campaigns that arrived in my inbox recently serve as useful illustrations of how best to promote informational content. One, a white paper offer from sales tax automation company Avalara, is a plodding recitation of facts that does little to grab the reader. The other, from email marketing software provider ExactTarget, drives action by communicating the value of the content in concise, compelling language. Let’s take a closer look:

Avalara Email CampaignTo their credit, Avalara’s email header takes up very little vertical space, so more valuable selling copy doesn’t get pushed down the page. An image of the offer appears in the sidebar, making that offer more “real” and tangible. Unfortunately, the main body copy lets down the side completely.

From top to bottom, the copy reads more like an executive summary or abstract. You’ll need to wade through two-and-a-half paragraphs of facts and figures about sales tax before you even know what the offer is (a white paper) and even then there’s no clear call to action or anything remotely action-oriented. Even when the writer attempts to communicate why the content would be of value, it’s communicated in first person terms (“we will show how your business …”) versus a more effective second person (“you’ll learn how …”) Read More »

By Howard Sewell | Posted in B2B Marketing, Content marketing, Copywriting, Creative, E-mail, email design, email marketing, Graphic Design | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (3)

Why & How to Test Subject Lines on Your Next Email Campaign

April 9, 2013 – 7:09 am

If you took a poll of B2B marketers (see below), my guess would be that only a small percentage test email subject lines with any regularity. The usual excuses given are 1) time and 2) risk – first, that testing subject lines adds one more step to the development of a campaign that’s already behind schedule, and secondly, that testing message to half the list runs the risk of lowering overall response.

email subject line testOf course, the long-term benefits of testing subject lines far outweigh the risks. Yes, it’s one more step in the campaign process, but if you make testing a standard part of the routine, the extra time to develop test copy and set up the appropriate list splits is inconsequential. And yes, a single test message may not outperform the control, but the amount of risk depends on what you’re testing. Small, simple, isolated changes to your control message, especially as part of a systematic testing program deployed over time, render that risk fairly minimal.

The key benefit of a subject line test is not the lesson learned from one campaign. It’s the cumulative learning from systematic testing over time. If you’re testing correctly (see below), the difference in performance between control and test messages for any one campaign will likely be small anyway. But over time, those small differences add up. Over the course of several campaigns, learning how your particular audience responds to different structure, topics, key terms – and then applying those lessons to each successive campaign, can increase email response rates substantially.

Furthermore, NOT testing subject lines is dangerous for one simple reason – you’ll never know what impact your chosen subject line had on the campaign. Let’s say, for example, that your campaign tanks (never happens, I know.) Was it because you chose the wrong message? If you used only one subject line, you’ll never know. But if you test subject lines, you’ll at least have a stronger sense of whether message, or offer, or audience, or list quality was at fault.

So you’re convinced, right? Here then are a few key tips for how to implement an effective subject line test: Read More »

By Howard Sewell | Posted in B2B Marketing, Campaign Measurement, Campaign Planning, Campaign Strategy, E-mail, email design, email marketing, Interactive Design | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

If It’s Wednesday, It Must Be a Webinar Invitation

March 27, 2013 – 9:13 am

A client writes:

I attended a Webinar recently at which one of the speakers prescribed scheduling lead nurturing emails on different days of the week – for example: newsletters on Mondays, product announcements on Tuesdays, Webinar invitations on Wednesdays, etc. He claimed this was an effective way to avoid campaign overlap when you have multiple parties within one organization who can all potentially launch campaigns simultaneously. What do you think? Is this a good idea?

lead nurturing planningMy response:

There are merits to this approach, though it’s far from the only way to implement “traffic control” within your overall lead nurturing program. Most marketing automation systems make it relatively easy to control email frequency and to establish priorities when multiple campaigns get scheduled in too small a window. From a planning perspective, going the day-of-the-week route certainly makes it easy to control your editorial calendar. However, I’d advise caution:

1. Certain days of the week may generate better email response. One recent study claims that Fridays and Wednesdays are the worst days to send email (as measured by click-through rate), Mondays and Tuesdays are better, and weekends (Saturdays and Sundays) are the best. That means if you were to assign, let’s say: Webinar invitations to Wednesdays, you may be dooming those campaigns to a much lower response on average than if you were to schedule them in a more flexible, holistic way. Read More »

By Howard Sewell | Posted in B2B Marketing, Campaign Planning, Campaign Strategy, Database Marketing, Lead Management, Lead Nurturing, Marketing Automation, Webinar Invitations, Webinars | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments (0)