Live From DMA06: The Fine Art of E-Mail Creative

When writing e-mail copy, Herschell Gordon Lewis says
don’t make your prospect wait for the offer. Move the invitation to “click here” up high in the letter, rather than waiting for the end.

Why? You never know when the prospect will be ready to say yes, so give them the option as early as possible. “When they say yes, quit selling,” said Lewis. “Once the sale is closed, don’t open it again.”

This was one of the many e-mail creative tips the copywriting guru, Direct magazine columnist and author shared with attendees during a series of pre-conference intensives this weekend at DMA06 in San Francisco.

Lewis noted that he wasn’t a fan of teaser e-mail efforts. “I’ve never understood ‘watch this space’ type of campaigns,” he said.

Likewise, don’t waste your audience’s time telling them what a great company you have — give them an offer. “Tell them what to do,” he said.

As for whether to use text or HTML in e-mails, Lewis said in tests he’d seen text outpull HTML when the message was one of urgency, while HTML was the victor when the message was one of artistry.

In a Mother’s Day campaign for a flower marketer, early on, all messages included pictures of flowers. Closer to the holiday, the e-mails that pulled better were all text. The impression, he said, was that by putting the message in a starker context, the communication seemed more urgent.

As always, testing is essential. Always, always send yourself a sample message to make sure all the coding works properly. You want to avoid situations like your recipient’s name appearing as something silly like $FIRSTNAME$, Lewis stressed.

Test subject lines too, he said. See how an action/deadline subject line performs against a play on words.

If someone opts out from receiving e-mail from you, don’t give up on them completely. Snail mail to opt-outs will pull considerably better than the same mailing to a demographically parallel group, said Lewis. Why? It’s possible they weren’t opting out of hearing from your company entirely, they just didn’t want to hear from you in that medium.

And now here’s where we break one of the rules, saving the offer for the end. Want to learn more from Herschell Gordon Lewis? Visit the DirectBuzz Blog for some of his thoughts on direct mail creative.