Once you’ve optimized your email, what else can you do?

In the Brave New World of “best practices” email marketing, you eventually hit a wall.

Try as you might, you can’t lift responses much further with the tools and resources at your disposal.

You’re stuck.

And yet a sizeable majority of your subscribers still aren’t opening, clicking, reading, downloading, buying etc.

So what do you do?

One answer is to realize that what we understand by optimization…isn’t. Then you discover hidden facets to your emails that you can improve, together with your bottom line.

All very mysterious, so let’s explore…

Form and function, value and serendipity

Most topics in email marketing focus on what you might call the two pillars of functional optimization. (I love making words like that up).

The first pillar is building an email program that gives your messages the best chance of getting attention. That covers the technology, sign-up form optimization, welcome messages, preheaders, “share this” links, subject lines, design, etc.

The second pillar is delivering value. So when the message gets seen, it gets a response. That covers your offers and content, and includes all the things you do to improve the value you deliver: targeting, segmentation, trigger messages, etc.

Nothing wrong there. These are the right things to focus on.

The idea of delivering value is where we need to add new perspectives.

We know the typical subscriber has to decide whether giving an email some attention is worth his or her time. And the big factor in that decision is the likely value of that email.

So we try and deliver as much value as possible. But…we tend to see this value as purely functional:

• What offer (item, price, discount, coupon) can we send that has the best chance of getting the subscriber to buy the relevant product or service?
• What information (topic, length, perspective, level, etc.) can we send that has the best chance of getting the subscriber to actually read it?

Again, nothing wrong with that. It’s the foundation on which most successful email programs are built.

But success still relies on serendipity.

However targeted you manage to be, you’re still relying on catching the subscriber at the right time, in the right frame of mind, with the right current need. All of which are hard to plan for (especially the last two).

It doesn’t matter how optimized you are, you can’t please everyone every time with this kind of functional value. That’s the brick wall we all eventually face.

What about emotional value?

One solution is to recognize that value isn’t only created through a “functional transaction” (relevant offer or content).

We don’t read novels to do our jobs better. We don’t read emails from friends because they contain relevant offers. We don’t go to the cinema to get information. We don’t view paintings because of the value of the canvas and frame.

Value also comes from entertainment, inspiration, storytelling, humor, creativity, quirkiness, style, emotion, humanity…all things that rarely get considered in the function-dominated best practice literature.

And therein lies your chance.

Quality content, permission, creative design, value, relevancy, timing, personalization, customization etc. are important factors that take your email marketing amplifier all the way up to 10.

But these other, softer, difficult-to-measure elements may take it up to 11.

For example, I read every email that Michael Katz sends out. He has an informational newsletter about using email newsletters to market professional services.

I don’t learn too much from Michael.

Not because he hasn’t anything useful to say (he has), but because I’ve been studying the topic for over ten years and know my way around already.

So why bother to read every email?

Simple…every article is an entertaining read. He has style, humor and personality.

I have many calls for my attention, but I still find myself reading Michael’s articles, because he’s managed to establish a personal, emotional connection that overrides any content issues.

That’s the goal: an email optimized for functional value and performance, but which also has the emotional connection that keeps people engaged even when this functional value misses its mark (as is inevitable in any email program).

So how do you work on optimizing the non-functional aspects of your email’s value? Good question!

Part of the reason we focus on functional value is because it’s easier to measure, calculate and create.

It also fits with our technology-oriented view of the web. Most of the tools we use are there to help us optimize what we offer and what information we give out. They don’t help us decide how to present that offer or information.

Non-functional value is, therefore, harder to create, but here are some quick suggestions…

1: Turn data into people

Creating more value for subscribers becomes easier when you start thinking of them as…subscribers. Not as numbers in a database or an email address.

As J-P De Clerck recently wrote:

“Whatever they are called: ultimately, they are just real people like you and me. 80% water, some flesh and bones, a brain and plenty of desires, issues, problems, challenges and dreams.”

Or as The Prisoner puts it:

“I am not a number, I am a person”

We are seduced by our wonderful campaign reports, spreadsheets, databases and other technologies into ignoring the human element in favor of numbers. Data is good. Data is important. But data is data and people are still people.

It’s hard to build an emotional connection with a number.

Once you keep the human aspect top of mind, you automatically start to plan, write, design and implement in a way that’s better suited to subscriber needs and emotions.

It can be helpful to remind ourselves of the real meaning of popular email marketing metrics. For example, “clicks” are not clicks, they’re people interested in buying/reading/learning more…

2: Add Personality

Suggesting you add personality to emails is a glib thing to say.

Those with a brand personality to project and protect have a head start (and a set of self-defined limits). But the rest of us are left wondering quite what a bit of personality is supposed to look like.

In essence, it’s anything that distinguishes the email from the mediocre. The mediocre is the bland sales or corporate style of writing and designing that everyone gravitates to because it’s safe, and because it’s easy to do by committee.

The lure of mediocrity is particularly strong in informational B2B newsletters: content-based vendor emails all tend to look and sound the same. And, yes, I’ve fallen into that trap, too.

All it takes to steer clear of mediocrity is more of a human voice. It doesn’t mean you have to be a writing master like Michael Katz. It just means recalling that the recipient reads the message as an individual, not as an “audience” or a group of spreadsheet cells.

For a longer discussion of personality in newsletters, there’s a whole book chapter on the topic available free online here.

3: Get creative and innovate

Emotional value is also helped by creativity and innovation. Two more recommendations that are so easy to say, less easy to do.

Again, the key step is recognizing and resisting the pull of mediocrity…developing a mindset or production environment that encourages you to develop unique, memorable, engaging campaigns, irrespective of the actual offers or content those campaigns might contain.

Off the top of my head:

• Breathtaking graphics
• The quirky approach
• Horizontal fun
• A text-only message
• Clever animation

Of course, all these ideas and concepts need testing and need to deliver, results wise. Personality doesn’t work if it’s the wrong personality for your audience.

So I’m curious. Do you agree? And what emails always grab your attention, even when the offer or content isn’t relevant right now?

Find related articles:

• Channel: Email marketing tactics

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