Proving Myself Wrong with an Email Campaign

I don’t think it’s right to just talk about success stories in a blog.  I think there’s just as much, if not more, to be learned with our failures.

Top of Mind Networks’ Surefire System features a component we call our “One to One” email solution.  This solution features three email “Themes”, each with quarterly frequency:

Theme #1:  Quarterly Mortgage Checkup (gives the borrower a snapshot of how their current loan compares with current rates/programs.

Theme #2:  Neighborhood Home Sales Report (gives the borrower a report of which homes sold within a predefined radius within the past 90 days)

Theme #3:  Identity Theft Protection Alert(s) (educates the borrower on the benefits of placing a “Temporary Fraud Alert” with the credit repositories as a way of preventing identity theft.

We executed on Theme #3 last week and found the following:

1)  The subject matter was too long and complex for the reader to digest – The ID Protection theme needed to be explained in detail for the reader’s benefit.  The bad news is that long copy is intimidating for the reader – never a good thing.

2)  For some reason, we saw a much higher unsubscribe rate on the ID Protection theme than anything we’ve ever done.  I think this happened because of #1 above.  If your copy is too long, people are just going to delete or unsubscribe.

3)  Maybe a saving grace here is that we received quite a bit of positive feedback from those who took the time to digest the content and take action.  But I’m never happy when #1 and #2 happpen above.

So it’s back to the drawing board to replace the ID Protection Theme in our campaigns.  Here’s what I’ve re-learned though.

1)  Keep the creative short and simple – preferably the entire content of the email should appear above the fold.

2)  Stay away from highly sensitive topics if possible - ID Theft is an important topic but with all the “phishing” going on out there, you’re better off keeping any messaging on this subject extremely generic. 

3)  Trust your instincts -  If you read an email you’ve written and it takes more than 10 seconds to get the main idea, rewrite it and scale it back.

If you’d like to see a sample of the actual creative I’m discussing above, please visit our website and contact me through our web form or give our main office a call at (866) TOP-MIND.

Mark Green, Top of Mind Networks