TARGET YOUR SPIEL

WITH A DEAL!

     Clients are always asking me about email marketing, and the best ways to approach the copywriting.  Of course, I always tell them to just pay me an extra fee and I’ll take care of it, but with so many do-it-yourselfers around these days, I’ll share the following in the interests of upscaling the quality of the sales email industry. 

     See, and you thought I wasn’t a nice guy!  So, here it is for free: a million dollars worth of commercial writing consulting (assuming it helps you sell a few million what-ever-you-gots!) 

     No matter what your email marketing needs may be, and regardless of what you’re selling, your creative output needs to attack three basic issues that are prompted by three simple questions:

1. What’s the list (your target)?
2. What’s the story (your spiel)?
3. What’s the offer (your deal)?

     In other words, your email must zero in on the right audience with your best answer to the only question each prospect has that really matters: “What’s in it for me?”  Nothing else you say will matter.  You can provide nice little lists of your product or service features, but only benefits will trigger the emotions that will create a sale.

     Now that you know what needs to happen.  So, get ready for the second part of the one-two punch.  Here are three more food-for-thought requirements that need to cornerstone the creative development of the recommended 500-or-fewer-words:

1. The writing must be clear and concise.
2. The writing must feel like someone is talking, not writing. 
3. The writing must ask for the sale early and often, and give prospects as many different ways as possible to buy the product or service.

     Now, these points may sound very authoritative but they are guidelines, not rules.  The 500-or-fewer-words thing, for example, is what many authorities indicate is essential to avoid boring or overkilling your prospect.  Yet some emails of 3000 words or more have been and can be very effective, depending on the circumstances of the list, the story (the nature of the product or service) and the actual offer!          

Halalpiar

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Check out and contribute to the daily growing 7-Word Story started 49 days ago (inside a coffin).  Click on the link to the right, or go to the “BOOKS” tab at the top of this page, then to the top headline link.

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P.S.  SPECIAL THANKS to my writers group members Jean Ryan, Harry Banks, and Viviane Philmon for help with my brand new revised bookjacket synopsis! (Click on Literary Agents tab above)