Mistakes are only failures if you don’t learn from them.

So let’s learn from this one. I have deliberately removed the company name because we’re not about insults, we’re about learning.

Below you will see an image (I’ve scaled it down, click it to see in a full, readable size) that shows what I got in my inbox the other day from a local company.

Here is the text (I made up a company name – the bold is the sender name):

Innovative Company Inc: News From Innovative Company Inc  – Survey Header 2009 – Innovative Company Inc July 2009 Newsletter In The

This email is doomed before it even begins.

The sender is fine – you need to display who it’s from. I personally like names of people if you can segment your list by who their representative is and then send it through their addresses, but it’s not a deal breaker.

But this is where the train goes off the track. This speaks to the axiom that few actually care about your company news. This is really difficult for hard-working PR and marketing people to swallow, but you are not your customer’s number 1 priority. You need to, in your first few words of your subject line, show some value to get folks to click in. There’s not a bevy of people who are going to interrupt their day to see your news. And, depending on the email client, there’s only going to be a few words shown.

A Chance For Redemption

Let’s say, like I do in my email (but not my mobile), you’re lucky there’s a few more words to use. Maybe there’s a chance for redemption in the next lines – but that’s squandered as well. It looks like spam, with bad alt image code showing up as part of the subject line, then some repeated nonesense about it being a newsletter (calling it a newsletter is about the most boring way to engage).

You Deserve Better

You, or your support company you’re paying, is putting a lot of effort into a newsletter when you do them. It does take time, creativity, and resources. Don’t squander that by making the critical mistakes outlined above, and do take the below tips to improve in the future.

• Test your message in all kinds of email clients (Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, Outlook 2007 and 2003, Thunderbird, Mail.app).
• Give it to someone else. Put yourself in the reader’s shoes, and see if it is interesting. It’s very easy (I’ve done it too) where you are in your realm, and think to yourself “Of course this is interesting!” but in reality it’s only interesting to you because you live and breathe it.
• WIIFM – What’s In It For Me. Always ask not only the interest part above, but the value proposition. Why is your prospect going to take five minutes and see your message? They can just as easily delete you or worse, mark you as spam.
• Don’t over saturate - this takes some research, but make sure you’re not being too noisy – or conversely, too quiet prospects forget about you
• Keep the conversation going AFTER you they buy – it really helps retain clients to know that they’re still important. And of course, consider unique content for those who have bought – they’re part of the club now!

Hope these tips help and would love to hear what your experiences are.