 Here’s a creative challenge we were recently handed: We needed to develop a community-outreach campaign for a good-sized regional business. This business does a lot of great work in the neighborhoods it serves.
The campaign was envisioned for lots of media: Social. Local TV. Outdoor. Web. Print. Radio. You name it. So it was to be highly visible—by design—and needed to get the people in the community to recognize, and to remember, this great business and all they do. It also needed to convey some broader overtones, so it would be warmly received by "upstream constituencies” such as big corporate and individual donors and even the state and local government, who had a say in regulating this business. But there was only one wrinkle. The pandemic. A way around If you’ve read any of these articles from Copel Communications, you’ll know that we’re fond of the adage: “Crisis equals opportunity.” So here, we were unable to do basic things such as schedule still or video shoots. There were some serious constraints in terms of social distancing and health protocols—moreso than you might imagine. Did we mention that this business is in the healthcare business? ‘Nuff said. So. How do you create—and then execute on—a multimedia pride campaign, designed to tug on the heartstrings of all who see and hear it, when you can’t even produce anything professionally? How can you fake it, and make it look professional? Answer: You don’t. You embrace your constraints and make them work for you, not against you. A simple premise As we’d noted above, this business is in the healthcare business. So it really serves the community, not in any figurative sense, but hands-on and genuine. Incidentally, the workers at this business had been especially battered by the pandemic: Not just the safety protocols and risk of infection, but the extra hours, the stress, the feeling that they weren’t being recognized for all of their sacrifices. So they needed some pride, too. At least, that’s what we perceived. Do you see where all of this is going? Per our agreement with the client, we provided several different campaign creative concepts for them to choose from. We had a hunch they’d opt for the one we’re about to describe, and they did. This business serves the community using some of the most cutting-edge high-tech paraphernalia you can imagine. We’re talking millions of dollars’ worth of stuff. They have one gadget, for example (and we’re purposely being cagey here, since we need to maintain confidentiality), that’s one of only a few in the whole world. They’re proud of that. They should be. But—and here’s where we came in—the technology isn’t the focus of the pride campaign. If you saw a picture of that million-dollar gadget going by on the side of a bus, you wouldn’t be exactly moved. But what about the people who operate it? What about the people who take your call, to book your opportunity to avail yourself to this technology? What about the people who are keeping the lights on in the facility? Who scrub the floors? Who serve the lunches? Who hold the door for you? Aha. There’s the pride. That’s what you, as the audience, can feel proud about. And guess what? If these people are the stars of the campaign, then they can recapture a little bit of lost pride, too. Great! Book the photo shoot! Bring in the video crew! Oh. Wait. We can’t do that. What to do? When less is way, way more As we’d teased in the headline of this article, we used this apparent disadvantage to our advantage. And we can tell you how we cracked this problem with one simple, modern word: Selfie. That was the plan. Everyone has a mobile device. So we created prompts/checklists for these people to shoot selfie pics and vids, in which they would talk about their role in the company, and how they serve the community, and just how hard they work and how much they care. Then they’d simply email the results to our production team. And get this: The end product is more convincing, more immediate, more visceral, than any studio shoot. Slick productions look too slick, too cheated, too rehearsed, too fake. The selfie pics and vids, by contrast, look real. Because they are. Now, we did do a little to dress them up properly. We certainly edited them for clarity and brevity. We added nice graphics, music, and effects. We touched up the stray hair or blemish, and blurred the occasional non-licensed logo that might’ve shown up on someone’s shirt or in the background. But that’s about it. Forget about professional actors. Forget about professional photo and video crews. For this assignment, in this context, the self-shot selfies—replete with blurs, noises, and shaky handheld camerawork—were infinitely more powerful. Creativity is universal A degree of constraint is often, counterintuitively, liberating. This story is a classic example. Lacking a budget or resources forces you to find creative alternatives. And they’re often better. Have a creative challenge you need help solving? Contact us. We work on these all the time.
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 Some people positively blink when they ask us this question. “You get paid to write emails?”
We sure as heck do. And our clients love us for it. They keep coming back for more. Which begs the question: “Why?” We’ll answer that one, and the other, in this article. But more importantly, we’ll share some good business-building email tips that you can put to use. No it’s not dead We can’t count the number of articles and stories and pundits who all predicted the utter downfall of email, for years now. But it never went away. Kinda like the telephone. So love it or hate it, email is here to stay. Your job (and ours): make it pay. Fact is, for B2B marketing, email is still really strong. Businesspeople read, write, and send emails. Sure, there’s a lot of spam out there, but if you have a message that promises the exact kind of value your recipient is seeking, then there are benefits to be realized for both parties. And that, in case you haven’t figured it out already, is the crux of it: The value that your email offers. Different situations, different iterations We’ve ghost-written tons of emails on behalf of business owners and consultancies and other professional-services firms, addressing specific executives. It might be an informal proposal. Or a more formal one. Or the cover-note to a report. Something that needs to set the tone, to lubricate the gears. In that case, it’s a balancing act of polite finesse with some subtle storytelling, all with an eye toward the closing. Yep. Even an email to a CEO should end with a CTA, or call-to-action. Otherwise it’s just a postcard. The other types of emails we get tasked with—more times than we can count—are direct-response campaigns. This is when our client will have a big list of possible prospects, and something to offer them. Our job: Get those prospects interested enough to take action. (As in, “call-to-action.” See a theme here?) Done right, these things work. We’re seeing open-rates of 30 percent. We’re seeing responses and, more importantly, sales meetings coming from these emails. So you’re darn tootin’ that clients pay us to write these. It’s some of the biggest ROI we offer here at Copel Communications. Direct. And responsive. Those direct-response emails typically employ a three-email campaign: Original emailing, plus two follow-ups. “Original” and “follow-up” are terms only used by the knob-turners running the actual email programs for us. In other words, there’s no way that you, nor the recipient, would ever know that any of the three emails was the “original” or one of the “two follow-ups.” In other words, each one is, and should be, a standalone statement. In other-other words, never flatter yourself into thinking that your recipient remembered the first email when they read the second one. There’s a good chance that that first one was never read. Harsh dose of cold water: When you send these, they’re “direct response” or “outreach.” When the recipient gets them, they’re “junk mail” or “spam.” It’s not until you can get them to actually open the thing and hook them on your valuable offer, that they become “not spam.” And that’s a big ask. The three-legged stool Any direct marketer will tell you that there are three components to any email campaign:
None of these stand alone. We’ll have to assume, for the purposes of this article, that you’ve nailed 1) and 2). Which is far easier said than done. (By the way, “quality of the list” is right up there with “quantity of the list.” Face it: If you only have ten people to email, you won’t get many responses. If you have ten-thousand, that’s another story.) So. You’ve got a great list, and a great offer. Then you’re into the basics, the weeds, of email-writing. Here are a few pointers: Work, and rework, the subject line. This is an exercise in brevity. You can, and should, sacrifice grammar, even spelling, to make your point quickly. Don’t worry: Everyone expects this. That subject line is automatically truncated by your email app. So a long one simply won’t go through. Example: [Subject:] Exciting must-watch video about a new way to slash logistics costs Ouch. Too long. Try this instead: [Subject:] VIDEO: Logistics cost-cutter Leverage the preheader. Some mail-sending apps, such as Constant Contact and MailChimp, allow you to include this. The preheader is the little bit of text you’ll see in your “in-box” list before you actually click on the email itself. Without a preheader, it’s simply the first few words of the body of the email itself. But the preheader lets you quickly tease what’s inside, such as “Breakthrough app that’s saving millions.” Tell a story. As the adage goes, “No one wants to be sold to. But everyone wants to hear a story.” So you can grab with a story intro, and use it to frame your offer. There’s always a story to be told, because in a direct-response email like this, there’s always 1) the initial problem, and 2) the exciting solution. There’s your two-act structure, right there. Be conversational. Sure, it’s fine to open with a jarring statistic such as (and we’re making this up): “Did you know that 84 percent of recently-surveyed logistics execs cite ‘increasing automation’ as their biggest challenge for the year ahead?” But then you can shift to the more-familiar: “We understand what you’re going through.” So there’s that assumption of familiarity. Sure, the email is introducing a company, and an offer, but it’s being written—and sent—by a person. Another adage: “People don’t buy from companies. They buy from people.” That applies here. Wrap with the CTA. Whatever you want the recipient to do—whether it’s downloading a case study, watching a video, booking a demo, or writing back to learn more—that should be the last thing they read. If you say anything after it, you’re muddying your message—and diminishing your response. This isn’t easy Getting back to our original question: “You get paid to write emails?” Yes we do. And it’s not just because there’s a lot of money at stake, in terms of sales-to-be-made. It’s because not only is the writing of these things time-consuming (time which our clients don’t have), but it’s also challenging. When we were brought in to do these for one of our clients who had previously been attempting it in-house, the response rates shot up. The “two other legs of the three-legged stool” had never changed. So it was obvious to everyone what had improved. Need help with business-building emails? Contact us. We’d be happy to lend a hand. |