I sent out an email Monday night and peeved a large group of my email list. However, to another portion of the list my email did absolutely nothing (based on responses), as it also persuaded another large portion. What in blazes did I do?
I sent out an email that was a recommendation to get a free $100 card from my favorite Mexican Food Restaurant. The copy was very hokie and written in an awe shucks style. It sent the clicker to a website that put the visitor thru a series of hoops in order to get a discount card.
Continues...
Almost immediately I was scorned by long time readers of my "letter". That was Monday night. Tuesday morning I wrote a second message and reported the incident. I also apologized for having sent them the original email. Amazingly, I had the highest click thru rates and "actions" (actual people who signed up), than I ever have had. (Granted this was far from my usual tightly relevant marketing messages). I also had the highest response of people scorning me. Actually the only "scorn" I have ever received from an emailing.
Yet, despite the scorn, my unsubcribes were at about the normal rate when I make some sort of offer.
Well, if I left it at that I think it would be quite interesting. You cannot make all people happy all the time. And if I had sent out a substantial offer with substantial referral money, it would have been a nice pay day. (Instead I made about enough to barely buy a Big Mac and Fries).
Anyway, as I checked my numbers later in the day I found that my unsubscribes had gone to the highest rate ever. (perhaps my second email was taken as a dare?) and yet my rate of return doubled!
I actually had people whose first letter never arrive beg me to resend them the original letter.
Lessons learned:
- email more than once, email does bounce and you always have a shot at ramping up your message/offer
- track response
- a hokie style can work
- what you tell someone to do they just might do, like unsubcribe
- send the right offer
- its ok for people to unsubscribe
- make sure you lace your offers in between great content
- curiosity is a huge human persuader
- you can always report your marketing blunders/successes as a reason to blog! Which in this case I started out with this post in mind.
This phenomenon is what I call Sideways Marketing which I will demonstrate in my next post.
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