What not to write - Stop wasting our time!

I have to admit that I was a bit excited when I saw this article on Imedia written by Wendy Roth with the headline "Email Marketing: What to Measure" as I just went through some internal discussions on this same topic. I was vastly dissapointed to read a "filler" article with great lines like

"Remember: Your customers can’t act on your email campaign if they never receive it."

Hey Wendy - Are you sure about that? I never though that email should actually be delivered.

I'll admit that some of her comments were OK but she makes some fundemental mistakes by basing opens on just the subject line and the from line. You mention the preview pane in your article but you don't put two and two together that in a preview pane, you can typically see the content and call to action (if there is one). Depending on the tracking software, this quick glance at the email and may not count as an open. Therefore, if the message is off and/or the offer is bad, the receiver may not open the email. In addition, with Outlook, you can typically see the first few lines of text before opening the email. Don't forget about the content!

Here are some other choice lines that scream out OBVIOUS!!!:

• remove those dead addresses from your list.

If they are dead, I think they've removed themselves

• And when the emails are paid subscriptions, open rates can skyrocket to 70 percent. Notice that even when recipients pay money to get the email messages the open rate doesn’t hit 100 percent.

Oh, yes 70% is not 100% - thanks for pointing that out!

• Unfortunately, not all recipients will respond positively to your campaign.

They don't? But I work so hard on them! ah, maybe that explains why 70% is not 100%

This article was good for those who may be just getting themselves familar with e-marketing but for the most part, I found this a bit too obvious without any new information.

Chad H

Technorati tags: imedia, stating the obvious