 Happy Valentine’s Day! It’s all about love.
Today, fittingly, that’s what we’re going to talk about. But we’re not talking about another person. We’re talking about the heavy lifting of doing creative work. You—or the creative person you task with this—got into this business because they love it. That’s one thing that all creatives have in common. They have an intense relationship with their work. But like any relationship, this one can grow cold. Do your assignments simply feel like, well, assignments? If so, what do you do, on this day of chocolate and flowers, to re-kindle that old flame? Take hope. There are ways to do this. We’re here to help. Find new inspiration in old sources As a creative professional, you’re required to keep up with the latest trends in design, advertising, music, pop culture, all of it. People depend on you to be dialed in. For the purposes of this article, we’ll assume that that’s the case. So take a break from what’s new, and indulge your senses in what’s eternal. We’re talking about nature. We’re talking about looking out the window. Or better yet, simply walking out the door. Take a breather. Take a nature break. Soak in the beauty, the tranquility, and the relaxation. This is more than mere therapy. It’s also hugely inspiring. Study the veins in a leaf, or the shapes of the clouds. We wrote an entire article on grabbing inspiration from nature; check it out. We can dive down even deeper into this same category, with one sub-category of nature which we find extra inspirational: Birds. Yep, we wrote another good one on this topic, too; here it is for your enjoyment. (And here’s one more: On other overlooked sources of creative inspiration.) Update your retreat You can picture an MBA’s office in your head. Not hard. Now picture, in your mind, the office of the ultimate creative director. Pretty neat, huh? Now ask yourself: How does that vision compare with your reality? It doesn’t matter if you have a corner office, a tiny cubicle, or work from home. Your space is your space. And it needs to be your safe, comfy, inspiring spot. So “spa it up.” You can indulge massively, on the cheap. Treat yourself to a new chair cushion. Get yourself a whole collection of fancy coffees or (as in our case) tea. A little aromatherapy goes a long way; there’s everything from candles to simple hand lotion that smells nice. Don’t forget music. Even as we’re writing this, we’ve got some beautiful, relaxing, spa-style music playing, and it’s sure helping. The point is, anything that puts you in a more relaxed state will help unclog those creative juices. It can also be tech: Something as simple as a new keyboard or pen tablet. Here’s one: We found an inexpensive seat heater on Amazon, and installed it on our desk chair. It’s heavenly in winter. Makes us write better. Dive into the details Our last bit of advice is perhaps the simplest. Lots of times, creative work loses its luster simply because there’s so much of it. It’s overwhelming. It feels more like work, and less like fun. The way around this is via a subtle attitude adjustment. For every assignment on your desk, it has scores of details that you must knock out. Remember the days, earlier in your career, when you would enjoy every one of those details? Now’s the time to re-discover that passion. It’s not “I need to knock out this headline layout”; it’s “Let me enjoy the process of kerning these two letters so that they breathe perfectly together.” It’s not: “Let me slog through this video”; it’s “How can I have the most fun with this particular lapped edit?” It's not a change in the work. It’s a change in the way you approach it. If it helps, think of this, too: For every person—like you—who’s toiling, and earning a living, in creative services, there’s likely a hundred others who dream of doing it. Or talk about doing it. Or plan on doing it. But they don’t. You do. That’s quite an accomplishment in itself. So pat yourself on the back. Show yourself—and your work—a little love. Why not? It’s Valentine’s Day. Have a story or tip to share? Contact us. We’d love to hear it.
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 Sending out business-building emails is a tricky business. To you, it’s “outreach.” To the rest of the world, it’s “spam.”
We’ve weighed in on this topic before, but in this article, we’re going to drill down to the proper way to craft a three-touch email marketing sequence, along with some caveats to help you along the way. Let’s start with the caveats. Hidden pitfalls We recently worked on a campaign, for a client of ours, targeting banking executives. The offer, which our client crafted, was compelling: It was a way to avoid fraud, and better comply with anti-fraud and anti-money-laundering compliance regulations. That’s really valuable. What banking exec wouldn’t be interested in at least learning about it? But then we saw the campaign’s open-rates. That is, how many recipients actually opened the email, based on its subject line? The rates were disappointing. They fell to about half of what they’d been for previous, similar campaigns. What was going wrong? We got the answer from the in-house email expert at our client. It wasn’t that the offer wasn’t compelling. It wasn’t that the audience had suddenly changed. It was the ISP. Huh? Yup. Turns out that the email hosting service of many of these banking execs is trained to filter out emails that have words like “fraud” in them. It flags them as spam, and shunts them away from the intended recipients’ email in-boxes. They never even saw ‘em. Hence the low open-rates. This is kind of a head-scratcher to us. Why would you want to “shield” a banking exec from something that helps them prevent fraud—one of their basic duties? Even crazier, if you (the ISP) are trying to stop spam, why would you filter out words like “fraud”? There is not one piece of spam out there that says “This is spam,” verbatim, in it. Similarly, an actual fraudulent email (Nigerian prince scam, anyone?) does not include the word "fraud” anywhere in it. That’s insane. It’s a crazy bit of filtering, a box that was checked by someone who shouldn’t have checked it. You can complain all you want, but that’s the way of the world. Live and learn. Don’t use the word “fraud” in your outbound emails, even if your legitimate offer will help to prevent it! Use phrasing like “boost compliance” or “adhere to government regulations” instead. (Sometimes the rationale behind the spam filtering is easier to grasp. We once wrote copy for men’s slim wallets, touting that they’re easier on your pocket than a fat one. But, oops, can’t use the word “fat” in Facebook ads. Facebook sees that word, in any context, and assumes it’s part of some body-shaming message, which is forbidden on the platform. Again, live and learn.) The three-touch sequence isn’t a sequence With the caveats out of the way, let’s talk about the three-touch email sequence, and the title of this article. Why, indeed, is the third time the charm? A three-touch email marketing campaign is defined as one in which the sender creates, and sends, a sequence of targeted marketing emails to intended recipients over a pre-set interval of time. That’s the case for this example. So let’s say you’re targeting executives. You have what you consider a killer offer. Then the “sequence” goes something like this:
See what’s happening—or rather not happening—here? There is no sequence to the sequence. We’ve said this before, and we’ll say it again: Never flatter yourself into believing that your recipient will remember Email Number 1 when they receive Email Number 2. You can’t pick up, message-wise, where the last one left off. Still, each touch—each mention of your name/your offer in that recipient’s in-box—makes a tiny dent in their perception. Which is why the third time is, so often, the charm. Our clients will get strong open rates on every one of the three-touch emails we create for them. But they’ll get the actual response from a prospect on Email Number 3. It just plays out that way. Call it “softening the beachhead.” Call it “sophisticated reverse psychology.” Call it whatever you like, because it’s a pattern we’ve seen time and again. The bottom line is, well, the bottom line. If you’re crafting email marketing campaigns—and have gotten this far in this specific article—you’re hungry for results that pay. Let us help. Contact us today. |