Man, my computer screen is dirty.
And thus, with those immortal words, my Monkeys with Handguns career begins.
I send a lot of email. I’ve been responsible for tens of millions of messages being sent to anyone and everyone about a variety of topics, mostly soliciting money or soliciting someone to buy something in my career. To my credit, I have never sent a message promoting Rolex watches, Nigerian princes, Vi4Gra, or any product that focuses on enhancing anyone’s male members. But who knows? That day may come. Someone is opening this shit, otherwise they wouldn’t keep sending it.
Side Conversation #1: You know, most of the “spam” you receive is your fault one way or another. Somewhere along the line, you’ve done something for someone to get your email address, either signing up for that whitepaper or the time you got lonely and ventured into the nether regions of the Internet or you illegally downloaded Dancing Queen from that Russian site. Or you say “They crawled my site to get my address.” You put your email on that site so that people would email you. That isn’t spam, my friend, NO! That there is a conversion. You shouldn’t be mad- you should thrilled. Mission Accomplished! Drinks for everyone! Put that in your Ad Words goal conversions, Google!
Side Conversation #1b: Nothing is free, even if you feel like you deserve it. Remember that the next time you’re going to hit the “This is Spam” button like a vindictive prick. You think those Nigerian princes just randomly typed your email into their To line? Absolutely not- they are reaching out to you because they think you can help them spend their millions and they found your address. This is America- take some responsibility for yourself.
(None of this includes phishing or spoofing domain names. That is wrong and those people doing it are the opposite of those poor Nigerian princes. Those princes don’t even have a family to share their fortune with)
I digress.
The real topic of this post is falling email metrics, which is blamed on spam. The government blames spam (We have CAN-SPAM- the most horrible acronym ever for a piece of legislation, by the way. EVER. That probably cost us, the taxpayers, millions of dollars to come up with that gem). Bloggers blame spam. ISPs and ESPs blame spam. Readers blame spam. Spam, spam, spam. I’m sick of it.
I blame the content creators- Create something that people want to read, something they want to open. Just because no one opened your damn email DOES NOT mean that it went to the spam filter- maybe, just maybe, your content was that boring.
“GASP! But it couldn’t be that… I have a degree in (insert Marketing/Public Relations/English or combinations here) and (# of years) exprience. I know my audience. It must be something- anything- else,” you say. “You, sir, have offended me.”
One should not present a problem without presenting a solution, and, good reader, I will not do so. My solution to the falling metrics and to spam is the following: a picture of a turd. That’s right- human feces. It is immature and it is juvenile, but stay with me (I’ve been doing email for a long time- I’m a professional. I know what “Deliverability” means and the difference between a 400 and 500 bounce error. I even know how opens are tracked. These facts alone put me ahead of 90% of the email marketers currently employed. Don’t even get me started on how I can actually code my own emails to work in both Gmail AND Outlook).
You want opens? Take your next corporate email and in the preheader text (if you’re feeling ballsy, put it as the subject line), type the following:
“Download the pictures to see a TURD.”
And then put a picture of a turd right beside the company logo and go on with your crappy and boring content. No one expects it. The reader will be so surprised they’ll click on the link just on principle, raising your clickthrough rate. That email will have so many opens and forwards you won’t know what to do. You have to think big- these people get a ton of email. Make yours stand out with a turd.
Your boss will be happy, the company will be impressed, you can even use the words Viral Marketing and Conversions in meetings. Hell- throw in ROI and Value-Added while you’re at it. Put it in a powerpoint- if you’re really on your game, put the results in a Google Docs spreadsheet and send that around- this is so Web 2.0! Maybe even 2.5! You’ll be hella popular. We all know how buzz word happy the Internet Marketing industry is (which is why I will bold any buzz word used in my posts- I want people to notice how with it I am and the synergy I bring to all situations). Any schmuck can get a job- have you read most of the blogs? I even have one. Remember: turds = opens.
Addendum: No sooner do I post this piece, my landmark treatise on turds in email, when I get an email about the Direct Marketing Association about the Creative Direct Marketing Strategies Seminar. I am a shoo-in for Keynote Speaker.
