How to Design an E-Mail Newsletter to Maximize Your ROI: Part 2

Chris Bjorklund: You’re listening to the AllBusiness podcast. I’m Chris Bjorklund. If you’re getting this through iTunes and RSS feed or an online streaming-media player, you can hear interviews with other experts at AllBusiness.com.

Bjorklund: Joseph Carrabis, the founder of NextStage Evolution, continues talking about his research on email newsletters and what kinds of designs work best for reaching particular audiences. This is part two on how to design a newsletter to get the maximum return on your investment. We’ll pick up at the point that we’re talking about links and giving people choices.

Joseph Carrabis: Right, the link is click here to find out more, click here to download our white paper, click here to have somebody call you, you know--whatever the action item is. So you put that middle action item and this extends, you know, if you happen to have a newsletter that has got a lot of action items, and if your audience is familiar with what are called Likert responses, Likert and biasing responses, that’s something researchers and people who design questionnaires are probably very, very familiar with it. They probably learned it in college, graduate school classes; maybe undergraduate too, I’m not sure these days. But basically, it’s very well understood that when you get somebody a bunch of options on a page in conversation, you can create what’s called a Likert response and you can basically force to do the response you want. That’s why when people do surveys, survey tools--so much energy has to be put into creating a survey that removes biasing and Likert responses and it’s impossible. It’s pretty much my opinion. It’s impossible to do. So one of the ways you get around this is by having odd numbers of responses and that’s nonbiasing. If you want people to do a specific thing and you’re with specific response in your newsletter, put an even number of options because then there’s no middle road. Not two, more than two, you have to have more than two so we’re talking four, six, eight--and never go more than nine because then people just say, “The hell with this! This is too much! I can’t be bothered.” But let’s say, you know, four, six, eight--could if it’s--which of these do you like in it? A horizontal scale, you know, left to right. Put the ones you want them to choose over to the right. If it’s a very scale, top to bottom, put them on the bottom type of thing. So if you want to force a specific result, that’s how you do it with your newsletter. If you want to force them to take a specific action, that’s the way to do it. If your newsletter, one of the things you want to do is get, let’s say, a heartfelt response as opposed to forcing a response, give them odd numbers. Because then they’ll see that, you know, OK, there’s a middle of the road, there’s more than three, so we’re talking five, seven, or nine. There’s more than three so I know there’s a middle road in here somewhere and I can vary a little bit. You know, I can go maybe if you know, if five is the middle number, I can go to six because I’m not really committing myself.

Bjorklund: Well, getting back to measuring the audience response, should you be looking at how many people unsubscribed or consider your newsletter spam?

Carrabis: That goes into--that’s excellent and that goes into how do you get subscribers, you know, permission based and we found that literally sending out an email which is we would like to send you a newsletter and if you say no, I will never ask you again. By the way, here’s where you can subscribe if down the road, you decide you want to. We found that to be so powerful because you know, some systems are very sophisticated in doing this. Click here to subscribe to our newsletter and you go to a page and you fill in the page. And then the bottom is, click here if you really meant to subscribe to our newsletter and you click that link. Now, it echoes back the information you entered. Did you really mean to have us send an email newsletter to this address, you know, this email? And that’s a bit overkill because yes, the people who go through that definitely want your newsletter but at the same time, people’s time is precious and you’re beginning to waste it.

Bjorklund: Yeah, well that affirmation is kind of reassuring from the consumer point of view.

Carrabis: It is reassuring, definitely and here’s the way around it. This is one of the things we did or I did, designing my own email newsletter. I sent out an email which was so Joseph, so to speak, it was obviously written by me. People who have heard me speak, heard a podcast, seen me do a presentation, read my columns or my blogs or you know, articles and anything like that. I have a very specific way of talking. I have a very specific way of doing a presentation, of giving and sharing information and one of the things that’s kind of my personal brand, if you will, is and I use this a lot, is that people say when they read something I have written, they can hear me speaking it to them. It’s like I’m sitting down right in their, you know, office or in their living room talking with them. And I use that. So when I did my solicitation, it was very, very much Joseph. It was Joseph’s tone. It was Joseph’s style. It was Joseph’s type of word. You know, it was the Joseph persona. So when people responded and all they had to do to respond to the newsletter or to get on the subscription list was literally respond. It said, if you want to get on the newsletter list, you have to respond. All you need to do is send this email back to me. If you don’t want it, that’s fine, I won’t trouble you any more but you need to respond.

Bjorklund: OK, so what was the response rate?

Carrabis: We were getting--we did three sends of do you want to subscribe and we got almost 90% for people wanting to get on the newsletter.

Bjorklund: OK.

Carrabis: Now, this is pretty good because I am told a good response rate is about 10%.

Bjorklund: No! Wow! And you think it has to do with just your personality and your personal connection and people knew it was coming from you and they heard you coming through loud and clear.

Carrabis: Yes, and again, it goes back to I knew my audience.

Bjorklund: Yeah, exactly.

Carrabis: I knew my audience. Now, here’s again, here’s money in your listeners’ pockets. I knew what they expected. Now a lot of people that I emailed to, I do like a lot of your listeners, I’m sure I do conferences and conventions and I’m a speaker and I do presentations and all that kind of stuff. So you get these email lists right from you know, you do a talk at World Chamber of Commerce or something and you know, they send you an email list with you know, 5 billion names on it. And a certain number of those are bogus email addresses so you know that going and you toss those out. But the other people that 99% of the time, I’ve never met personally but they have heard me. They have seen me on the stage. Or they read something and you know, they somehow or another gave me part of their time. So I know what they expect. The only thing they know of me is that hour or 45 minutes they had of me on the stage or you know, a 20-minute, 30-minute podcast, whatever. So I know what they expect. They’re not expecting the solutions to life’s great question. That’s going to come later. What they’re expecting is the Joseph experience. Again, it’s a branding. In my case, it’s personal branding. But in the case of a company, in the case of, you know, it can be anything from your neighborhood deli all the way up to, you know, Wal-Mart. Get the experience that they are anticipating, they’re expecting to them as quickly as possible. Once you have given them what they expect, and on as many levels as possible, that’s part 2. number 1, know your audience. Two, give them what they expect on as many levels as possible. Then you satisfy them. You have given them what they wanted. They didn’t want the answers to the world’s problems. They wanted to know that this was still Joseph, this was still Wal-Mart, this was still, you know, whatever. OK.

Bjorklund: OK, yeah, well let’s think about a few scenarios. I would like to pick your brain on a couple of different kinds of small business owner situations and based on your research. I own a restaurant. I want to send out an email newsletter. What three things should I be thinking about for--it’s a small restaurant, it’s not a chain. What should I do?

Carrabis: OK. Well, it’s good that it’s not a chain because you know, if it’s a chain, chances are it’s not got a very upscale clientele, so to speak, OK. And if it’s a small one of or maybe, you know, you have a restaurant here and a restaurant at the north end of town, something like that, then you have an audience which knows you and which is dedicated to you and they’re choosing you over a chain. So again, you have an audience, you know who they are, you know what they like. They’re either coming in for the personality, for the experience that your restaurant, your one or two restaurants, maybe three restaurants gives them and the food, of course. So play to that. We’re experimenting with a new type of dish. We’d love to have you come in. You know, if you can personalize these newsletters, you know, my email address, people who know me, they know my name. Use that in an email so it’s again, it’s a personal email to you. I’m sending an email from Joseph to Chris to try my new Belgian deluxe waffles.

Bjorklund: And there better be a picture of it.

Carrabis: There better be a picture of it and it had better be a picture of a person and here’s a bit of psychology that’s really good. Give me a picture of the food that you are promoting and not close to it but like on the other side of the paragraph, give me a picture of somebody looking at the food that you’re promoting. Now obviously, I don’t want to--well let me rephrase that. I should not say obviously. I don’t want a picture of a person who’s looking at the table seeing the food. That’s a hunger picture because they’re not eating. So you’re kind of sending the message, you’re going to starve if you come in. instead what you want is have the person on the other side of the paragraph that’s describing this new wonderful pastry, have their eyes aimed across the paragraph to whatever the food is that you’re promoting.

Bjorklund: Oh that’s good. That’s good.

Carrabis: So, if you--exactly, if you follow this paragraph, you know, so give me--the reason I say this new Belgian blueberry deluxe waffle--

Bjorklund: You just had one.

Carrabis: You got one. You got, that’s right there, you know, there’s a place up here if your listeners ever come to New Hampshire, have them give me a call, I’ll send them to this incredible place down the road, who makes incredible breakfast and that’s one of the things, you know, we suggested. Not their client, I just walked in, had this food and do this.

Bjorklund: Right. And then you said--what about a carpet cleaning company? I own a carpet cleaning company. Should I be giving out tips on what you can do yourself if you spill some wine?

Carrabis: Yes. You should and if it’s a service like this where, you know, car detailing, carpet cleaning, painting, repairs or any kind, especially if they are seasonal-type repairs. One of the things you want to do is explain how the recipient, the subscriber can do what you do. Believe it or not, you want to teach them how to do what you do, OK? People again, to use myself as an example, I apologize to your listeners for doing it a lot but I happen to know myself pretty well. Come to a presentation. I’ll explain to people how they can do what NextStage does without having to utilize our technology. Here’s how to do it. Good. Now, you have the power--you’re going to go try it and you’ll find out where you can and cannot do it. In the newsletter, this is a critical piece. I’m going to tell you, I’m going to share with you the secret how to do it, how to clean wine off your rug. I’m also going to let you know when you should not do it. How long has that stain been on the rug? What kind of wine is it? Then you know what? You should probably go seek a professional. Not me, I’m not going to tell you to hire me. I’m not telling you to hire a professional. Well, who’s the professional who’s telling you this? I am. Who are you going to hire? Me.

Bjorklund: Exactly. Well, tell me, yeah. Tell me what you know. Don’t tell me what you saw.

Carrabis: Right, exactly. The most valuable thing in today’s world. This is one of those--you’ve seen those people here, they go duh-huh, yeah, of course, why didn’t I recognize that? The most valuable thing in today’s world is information. Everybody wants to share something with you. Everybody wants to tell you how to do something, you know. Everybody, no matter where you live probably 50% of your television time is with these paid infomercial things, right? So, big money in this stuff. But imagine instead a trusted source telling you how to do it because the problem with an information-rich society is that we don’t have built into our psyches very, very well these days, the thing that tells us that information is valuable, that information is crap. I had no clue about this information. You know, anybody, you can do a search on the internet and find anything. How do you determine if it’s valuable, if it will help you, if it will heal you? Well, you have trusted people. If I had asked you to send me your email newsletter, I have already extended my trust relationship to you. So you’re already up in the scale. Now within your newsletter, you give me some simple things I can do which will make me successful in simple tasks, every time I win doing what you suggested, your trust, my trust in you’re your value to me goes up. We’re getting into the social networking concept and it plays a role with email newsletters.

Bjorklund: Could we pause here for a moment? The engineer needed to talk to me and he has to--we have to stop things. I wanted--the two things I want to do before we close, I want to ask you. I’ll start with a question about a financial--Joseph, I get the best newsletter, email newsletter from a financial adviser and I don’t know how I got on the list exactly. He’s not even--it’s not even my financial adviser but I just find the information so useful. In fact, one of the articles said, “Are you paying too much for your CPA?”

Carrabis: Yup.

Bjorklund: And I loved it so, are they on the right track?

Carrabis: Well, financial-style newsletters are real hot topic because everybody’s concerned about money. Everybody’s concerned about money in today’s world. You know, it’s a very, very tricky, scary kind of environment to be playing at. So you know, your statement, are you paying too much for your CPA. Well of course, I’m going to lock in on that because isn’t that the guy that’s supposed to be saving me money? And if he’s not saving me money, there’s a real problem here. I am paying too much for him? So that’s an information piece. An information pieces in finance and in health and in personal wellbeing, pets, pets, beauty. We found information pieces to be so special, so valuable that people would lock into them, pay attention to them. Essentially, engage with them on very deep meaningful levels that down the road, of course, turn into dollars and that’s what it’s all about.

Bjorklund: Exactly, that’s exactly it. So let’s get on to some of the resources before we close. What are some of the resources that people might refer to if they want to improve their newsletters. I mean, a newsletter is pretty easy to change the format so you’re really not stuck if you are making some mistakes.

Carrabis: Yeah, it’s remarkably easy to do. And as a matter of fact, one of the things we suggest is within the concepts I said earlier of a mask, switch things up a little bit. Continue to use the same mask because we know they are successful but you know, put graphics on one side, put graphics on the other side. You know, put text up here, put text down there. Have a link over here. Have a link over there, that type of thing. Put your logo over on this side. Put your logo over on that side. So, that’s--you know, that’s the first thing. Actual resources of MarketingSherpa, they do a lot of work with--and I believe they even have a conference on email newsletters and they’re probably out for training. We, of course, we publish our research in a few places. AllBusiness.com has a few articles of mine on it. People want to purchase our research, it’s online, it’s available. AllBusiness.com itself has other avenues, other information portals about email newsletters. Again, the best thing you want to do if you’re a small business is go out. Go to your customers. Go to your clients. If you’re--like we talked to earlier, if you’re a restaurant, go walk among the patrons as they’re eating. Would you folks be interested in an email newsletter? You would? What would you want to see in it? If this will be good for you? And just take notes, you know. Have your waitress people, waiters and watron, ask them very simple questions and have them get back in the kitchen and write them all down. Financial, the next time you’re visiting your CPA or you know, your adviser and your broker or whatever. What do you look for? What can I do to make you happier? What do you need me to do to make your life an aha! Write the answers down. Put them in your newsletter. You don’t need to do a tremendous amount of research. You need to do the right kind of research. The one thing that I will caution people about is a one-size fits all type of solution. I mentioned earlier, in the process of developing an equation to make life easier for people, and one of the things we are guarding against is “Oh! I’m going to put out a medical newsletter. It’s going to be like this.” No, no. You need to know your audience. It goes back to those basic things. You need to know audience, you need to set expectations, you need to do what we call experience management. A lot of people talk about managing expectations. You know, we don’t actually agree with that. We say, experience management because if you give people the experience they want, they will come back to you because you satisfied them. So finance, health, restaurant, it doesn’t matter. You know, pet care was an incredible field with newsletters in it. And it all comes down to knowing your audience, knowing what they want, giving them--meeting their expectations on as many levels as possible. Are there resources to do it? Yes, there are. You know, stay tuned obviously and the big ones out there, MarketingSherpa, iMedia Connection, AllBusiness.com. Go to people you trust. Recognize that someone is an authority that has made you successful before, go with them again. Don’t give them carte blanche just because they made you successful before. Evaluate what they have to say. You know, the person who was really good driving a car may not know anything about driving a truck so don’t give him a truck. And that’s pretty much it.

Bjorklund: Joseph Carrabis, always a pleasure talking to you.

Carrabis: Thank you so much.

Bjorklund: Thank you. You can find more podcasts with Joseph Carrabis from NextStage Evolution in the podcast library at AllBusiness.com. You can also find his blog on the AllBusiness website as well. I’m Chris Bjorklund, thanks for joining us.