I could use a few tips on email copywriting.

[Spider]

... I agree delete and move on is the only way to [get] over this - it's not worth spending much time worrying about.

I am interested in it from two angles, as I have already expressed. (1) The time I have to waste because of the spam to a value of at least $10,000 per year, and (2) the counter-productive nature of it, from a business POV.

Incidentally, I believe the CAN/SPAM rules (or laws, if they are actually law) rule about unsolicited commercial e-mail. The problem is that CAN/SPAM actually legalizes spam by defining what is acceptable spam and what is unacceptable spam. Which is why we have so much of it now.

I remember when the introduction of CAN/SPAM was being debated. It was generally accepted by everyone I was in discussion with over it, that spam would increase as a result, and that is what has happened.

Sad, really. A perfectly wonderful business tool has been so abused as to be a mere shadow of the benefit it could have brought to business communication.

[Patrysha]

I use a service for my list/newsletter communications, but those are strictly the double opt in you know what you're getting type mails. I only have one list that is not double opt in and that is for those who sign up for my newsletter through my manual forms (face to face, speaking engagements and live networking event type stuff).

They can unsubscribe at any time. Or if they are hesitant to do it the automated way they can hit reply and ask me to unsub them.

Only the sign up, delivery and unsubs are automated...if someone does respond to them (and I have had some great conversations with subscribers that way) by hitting reply it does come back to me (or more recently to one of my VA's) and I respond personally (or mostly personally with a form copy and paste if it's one of those frequently asked type things that I've already got a template for).

Now with former clients I will touch base with them and may use a form letter template to start with that I slightly customize and send from my personal account, but that's separate from my list type email...it's still commercial in nature in that I hope they remember a project they have that I can take on...but not in the same way as list mail.

I'm still working on the system though. It's an ongoing process.

[Patrysha]

I am interested in it from two angles, as I have already expressed. (1) The time I have to waste because of the spam to a value of at least $10,000 per year, and (2) the counter-productive nature of it, from a business POV.

Where does the figure of $10,000 a year in lost productivity come from? I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around that. I find it fairly easy and routine to deal with spam and don't find it bothers me much - unless it' one of those ones where the subject line is very vague and generic and I think I kind of recognize the name...but that doesn't happen often enough for it to be really bothersome. Filtering into folders keeps me on track with email :-)

[Spider]

Where does the figure of $10,000 a year in lost productivity come from? I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around that....

As stated above (or in another thread, if not above) I estimate that I spend an hour per day clearing out my e-mail of spam. If I value my time at $30/hour, that is $10,000 per year. Of course, if I value my time at a different amount, then the 365 hours will amount to a different value for the year - $60/hour will be $20,000's worth of wasted time per year, and so on.

What do you value your time at?

[Patrysha]

I'd have to time the process to be sure but I would say it takes about 15 seconds a day dealing with spam (but I can scan the one folder really quickly...my natural reading speed is really high and at scanning speed it is super duper fast)...

I can waste that sneezing...

So I don't think it would be fair to put a dollar cost on it...

but if I were that's a minute every 4 days or 91.25 minutes a year...

A minute being worth $2.08 (at my highest hourly billable rate mind, not my actual hourly rate) that work out to $189.80 a year.

[vangogh]

If it is UCE, it is spam - unsolicited commercial e-mail. That is the definition of spam and has been for the past 14 years that I have been on the web. If it is unsolicited and it is commercial, it is spam.

Actually that's not the definition of spam. There are other components like mass mailing involved and a lack of an unsubscribe link.

What you seem to be unwilling to acknowledge though is that you are agreeing to get some business email simply because you made a purchase. I completely agree with you that every company should use a double opt in before sending you email. Some don't and you making a purchase is an agreement to receive future email. If you don't want that email unsubscribe.

With the real spam where it's someone who's found your email online or bought an illegal list there isn't much you can do. But again that's not what this thread has been about.

Your Viagra example is likely not coming from the owner of a company that you personally met and did business with.

So as long as I'm the owner of the company I can send you emails trying to get you to buy my product as long as I use Outlook or similar. I do think the comparison is a fair one. The product doesn't have to be Viagra. It could be anything. I just picked that as an example of an email most of us would consider spam.

You also made reference to a box being checked by default. I was clear in an earlier post that I'm very careful about leaving any boxes checked that would do this.

My bad on this. When I said checked by default I also meant those companies that don't give you a choice about getting the email, but let you know they'll be sending it as part of your purchase agreement. No real box to check, but you're getting email by default because you purchased something.

One more time I want to say I think all companies should use a double opt in. Regardless of whether or not you have a legal right to send marketing emails, they clearly aren't going to work on someone like Frederick. So why send him an email since all it will do is make him think negatively of your brand.

[Spider]

Actually that's not the definition of spam. There are other components like mass mailing involved and a lack of an unsubscribe link....

Obviously, we were moving in different circles back then. The people I was discussing this with in the late 1990s agreed that, while bulk mailing was a common feature of spam, it was not a defining condition. The one piece of spam a person receives is no more nor less annoying for the fact that a million other people receive a copy. Unsolicited commercial e-mail can be one or many to be unsolicted and commercial. It was always called UCE, not UBCE.

Even more telling, is the fact that back then, subscribing and unsubscribing were not involved in the discussion. I think, because once one subscribes, the e-mail is no longer unsolicited, and therefore, not spam. But that does require an actual, conscious subscription, not an implied or imposed subscription.

It is interesting to note (I thought it interesting, anyway) that the Monty Python sketch that gave the name to spam was first aired in 1970, a few years before modern e-mail was developed.

..One more time I want to say I think all companies should use a double opt in...

Absolutely! To me, there is no other way.

...Regardless of whether or not you have a legal right to send marketing emails, they clearly aren't going to work on someone like Frederick. So why send him an email since all it will do is make him think negatively of your brand.

And this is the whole point of my ranting. UCE is counterproductive in the long run. I'm not the only one who is opposed to it. If it wasn't so universally abhored, why are there countless anti-spam programs and why do all or most responsible ISPs have some sort of spam filtering in place? I have heard it said that 80% of internet traffic is e-mail and 80% of that is unwanted. What a waste of our computing facilities! This costs all of us money. If spam were to have been eliminated at the beginning, or not even begun, we would be achieving what we are achieving on one fifth of the computing power we are now using. Or, we would be achieving 500% more than we are with the computing power we now have. That's an awful lot of wasted computing power, however you look at it. And we are paying for it.

[Paul McQuillan]

Sorry if I restate something that has already been said. I did not read
all the replies.

The most important component of an email is what? The subject line

People are inundated with dozens of emails everyday. Most do not want to
read them all, more so from a business.

It's hard to believe, but people will ignore email from a friend! So in order
to get our emails read the subject line needs to be compelling.

Even with a compelling subject line most will go unread (for those of
you using an auto-responder such as Aweber, you know this)

When I work with small businesses they usually falsely assume the
customer is excited to get the email. Rarely do they care even a little.

I agree the email should have a personal touch and sound like it's from
a friend, but I don't care how buddy-buddy we are, if they don't open
it we're screwed.

I would put 90% effort into the subject line and just let the rest flow
naturally and to the point.

[dpdumas642]

I would put 90% effort into the subject line and just let the rest flow
naturally and to the point.

Thank you Paul for your advice. I never gave it much thought but you're definitely right about the subject line. Without a good subject line there is little chance that the email will ever get opened regardless of how great the content is.

[BTT]

Here are some tips that have been helpful to me:
1. Make your copy narrow...don't type more than about 60 characters wide. It will be more easily read.
2. If you have a link you'd like for your audience to click, include it 3 times.
3. Use short, conversational paragraphs - usually no more than 2 sentences.
4. If you are sending "Text" emails, use some "text" art - here are some examples: ********** or ============== or ~~~~~~~~~ to go above and below the links. Or just be creative.
5. Your subject line MUST grab attention.

Good Luck,
Jeanne