Five ways to repeat yourself effectively

We've all had emails that worked particularly well, drawing an unusually high response. Pity, then, we can't use that same email again and again.

Except we can...sort of. Here five ideas: let me know what you think.

Tactic 1: Wait and send again later

Your list is growing and new subscribers have never seen your previous emails. Which is a challenge and an opportunity (isn't everything?).

A challenge, because it means you have to prove yourself to each newcomer before they become loyal subscribers eager for the next email.

An opportunity, because you can treat them differently.

Consider sending newcomers a unique stream of emails just for them, and adding them later to your standard list database. You can reuse winning emails from the past as part of this welcome stream.

Tactic 2: Refer back in the next email

With a little care and intelligence, you can find ways to highlight the last email in your current one without compromising the main message, particularly in headers and footers or at appropriate points in the text/copy.

Example: My August 11th newsletter included a link that proved unusually popular with readers...to a blog post listing HTML email design resources.

So I followed up in the next newsletter with a companion post for plain text email design, with this teaser:

"Last issue's popular list of top HTML email design resources gets a sibling. See this post for a list of online articles, tools and templates to help with the design of your plain text emails."

The reason this works is because the mention is inoffensive to anyone who saw the previous issue. And it's new for the many people who are reading the current issue but missed the last one.

"Many" people? Yes: check your statistics.

The average open rate over the last four issues of the newsletter is 35%. But the percentage of the list who "opened" at least one of those issues is around 60%.

The implication is that there's an ebb and flow: people don't catch every email, they miss out on some.

The result of the subtle second mention?

21% more newsletter clicks to the HTML email design article. (Some of whom will also be people who did see the last issue but for whatever reason didn't click the link first time around: no time, browsed past it, etc.)

Tactic 3: Resend the email to non-responders

There's a school of thought that says you can take exactly the same email and send it again to those people who didn't see it the first time, as indicated by a lack of a registered open.

I've seen case studies citing strong incremental revenues as a result of this technique. But there are problems which are often overlooked in all the excitement of new sales.

These problems arise because a lack of an open does not imply the recipient missed the first email. Thanks to image blocking and the way opens are measured, many will have seen it...but chosen not to read or respond.

So at least some recipients will see the email twice, which will raise eyebrows. And some of those didn't "open" the first because they didn't want it or weren't interested.

Getting a second copy could drive them to hit that "report spam" button. This double send problem is one of the hidden costs of lazy email marketing.

A subtler alternative is to use a modified version of the email to resend to "non-responders". One that avoids some of the problems with sending duplicate emails.

Fresh subject line, different creative, acknowledgment of the previous send: "Final chance to take advantage of..." etc. It's a better approach, but needs careful application. Anybody able to cite their own experiences?

Yet another alternative is to redefine "non-responders." For example, what about sending a follow-up campaign to those who click but don't buy / download / register?

Tactic 4: Learn and apply

This is the obvious, but forgotten one.

The task flow "send - track - measure" is missing two further components: "analyze" and "apply". Emails that pull an unusually high response offer clues to effective tactics and topics for the future. So you repeat the model, not the email.

Normally it's hard to pinpoint one element that is clearly responsible for an email's success (unless you do rigorous tests). But draw out the most likely candidates and experiment with them in future emails. Is it your offer? The link positions? The color of the "more info" button? The subject line approach?

Don't forget to look for explanations outside of the actual email itself, too. Maybe it wasn't something you did after all.

Tactic 5: Adapt to other channels

We too often think of email as its own isolated marketing channel with no relevance to other sales and promotional efforts.

But winning emails can find use outside of email. Eh?

An offer thats works in email can be considered for a direct mail piece or store promotion. A subject line that works might prove effective as a headline for your PPC search ads. A winning button color might have value on the website, etc.

And it works in reverse, too. Winning PPC headlines used as subject lines. Successful website offers sent out via email etc.

Of course, be aware that different channels reach different audiences with different responses.

And there's a whole other debate about whether such things as offers should be coordinated across channels anyway. The alleged synergy of the multichannel approach (a topic for another day!)

Any other suggestions on reusing successful emails?

Tags: email resends, email marketing, open rates

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