Transcription
All right. All right. Episode uh, I don't know, of Send Better Emails. It's been a long time, actually. It has been a long time. And we actually missed an episode last week. We, we had hordes of listeners banging at our door complaining that they weren't getting their normal Thursday episode.
Yeah. I mean, I did get some good advice from someone though. Um, and she said, next time that happens, cuz it does happen, that you should just repurpose one of your old episodes and just like label it, "Revisit." And, you know, we just put our first episode back up again. I feel like that is good advice, but I feel like also the podcasts I see doing now are the ones that have like 300 episodes in the bank. Us repurposing an episode, it would be like, this is the one from six weeks ago that... Yeah. I, if we did our first one, that would be like 23 weeks ago or something, I think. Would it? Blame me? Yeah. Yeah. That's crazy, actually. Yeah. Fair.
Um, okay. Yeah. So, sorry if you are one of those loyal listeners, cuz I think we might have a couple. Um, then, then sorry we missed the week. That's right. Uh, I mean, I did survive. I am the loyal listener. Did you survive? I did, just about. Yeah, I made it through. Okay, good. Have you got any colds this week? Any? No, I'm ament three. And you'll notice, Jamie, that I, I did have a cold and haven't suffered from a subsequent cough. So, I think that puts to bed any suggestion that I need to go and see a specialist. Um, I think the last episode we did, Jamie, correct me if I'm wrong, we teased that I'd bought you something for your birthday, and then it was on a bit of a cliffhanger, and then we missed a week an episode, and then we missed a week. So, the people really want to know. That's why they were, that's why the hordes were banging down our doors, cuz they were like, "We need to know what Jamie got."
Um, what was it? Do you remember? I do remember. James bought, this is, it's gonna be really boring for the listener, but James got me a voucher, uh, for a golf lesson with a PGA Pro. Yeah. Which, it probably is quite boring to the listener, but it is indicative of the fact that Jamie and I are going through a big golf phase at the moment. So, uh, yeah, I, I bought you a, a much-needed lesson. I hope you don't mind me saying. No, I mean, for your birthday, I'll, I'll also buy you a much-needed lesson. Fine. Please. Please. Yeah.
Um, yeah, I think we are definitely in that phase of, um, like, none of the gear and no idea when it comes to our skill level with golf. But we're trying. We're hitting the ball, which is actually probably the first step towards being half-decent at golf is actually being able to hit the ball, and we can do that quite consistently. So, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, yeah, maybe we'll start an adjacent podcast that talks about our golf journey. Yeah. I don't know. For those interested, let us know if you'd be interested in that. If we can convert 1% of our Send Better Emails audience onto our golfing journey podcast, then we would have how many listeners on the golfing podcast? About 0.3 or something. Yeah. So, like, just the legs of one person, and those legs would still be better at golf than we are. Yeah. Certainly have more flexibility in the hips than I would, anyway.
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Um, okay, cool. Uh, what do you want to talk about? I know, I know what you want to talk about, but for posterity, I asked the question so that it tells a narrative. Yeah. So, we're going to talk about email brand today, Jamie, which is a term that I think the Inbox Club have coined. Um, I haven't heard it anywhere else, so there's a good chance it exists, but we just don't know about it. But, um, yeah, email brand, which is sort of a, a fluffier way of saying sender reputation. But, as we discussed before this episode, sender reputation can be a technical thing as well. It can, it can, it's associated with deliverability and how email servers interpret your emails as they come in. Um, so to avoid that confusion, what we're talking about here is the brand, the reputation that you have amongst your readers. You know, what, what, how do they interpret your emails? How much do they trust your emails? And how likely are they to open and engage with your emails when they land in the inbox? So, that's what we mean by email brand. Think of, when, when we think about a product's brand, think of exactly the same concept, but apply it to, to a business's emails. Okay. Nice.
I actually have some questions for you on this. Um, quite a few, which is good, because we're recording an episode on it. Um, which I think, the first question that I have is, okay, if you have a good email brand and if you have a bad email brand, what are the, what are the impacts that you might experience from either one? Start, start with good. Yeah. So, a sender that has a good email brand is getting lots of opens regardless of what they're putting in their subject line. They, they have, they have a strong enough reputation that, that people receiving their emails know that they're going to get some value when they, when they open their emails. So, they don't need to worry about clickbait in their subject line. They're going to get opens regardless. And then they're also getting lots of clicks as well. We want to, I suppose the brands that have the best, it's confusing to say brands, businesses that have the best email brands are the ones who, when they say, "Buy tickets for this event," or, "Check out this new white paper that we've published," or, "Here's this new service that we've launched," the people that they're sending to are interested in that and trust that what they're linking to, the CTA, is a good one, is going to be genuinely valuable for them. Um, and so, I would say, yeah, it's, it's, it's those two metrics predominantly: the amount of opens you get without needing to work too hard for them, and the amount of clicks your high-intent CTAs get as well.
Um, okay, nice. And if you have a bad reputation, it's a bad email brand, it's the opposite, really. Um, you, you can, you can try and move the needle with, uh, you know, click-inducing subject lines. You can put your CTAs above the fold and make the button big and bright and, and try and encourage clicks that way. But no matter what you try, it feels like you're pushing a boulder uphill, because ultimately you're fighting against something much bigger than just the sort of psychological tricks to get someone to click or open an email. You're fighting against your own bad email brand, which is a, a much harder thing to move. Okay.
Um, so it sounds like if you've got a good email brand, you almost don't have to try as hard to get a good performance. Yeah, I, I would say so. Yeah, I think the, the email brand is that thing that sits underneath every, every tactic that you're using. You know, Jamie, in this podcast, we're, we're talking about, um, the optimal amount of characters you might include in a subject line, or the importance of your preview text, or why changing your from name can actually move the needle more than changing your subject line. We talk about these tactics because they can move the needle, but something that we always say is, if you're emailing the right people, it doesn't, these things don't matter so much, right? If you want to move the needle by a couple of percent in terms of opens, then sure, like, experiment with some different subject lines. Throw in an emoji one week and leave it out the next and see what happens. But if you want meaningful, seismic change to your open rates, it's all about, um, who you're emailing. And really, what we're talking about there is, okay, we're ordering, we're emailing an audience that want to hear from us versus emailing an audience that don't want to hear from us. So, really, that, that's your, that's your email brand, right? You want to be landing in the inboxes of people who, uh, want to hear from us, who are interested in hearing from us, and who are way more likely to, to click and open your emails. And if you do that, then yeah, you definitely don't need to try as hard. You don't need to pull as many, as of those levers that we might talk about in this podcast. Uh, because your email brand is working for you, not against you. Yeah.
Okay. I think if, if I was to, um, draw a real-life comparison to how we might compare what email brand looks like as this underlying foundation, maybe a fair comparison is the John Lewis Christmas adverts, right? Because they're essentially, they're, they're adverts, but people look forward to them and like, "Oh, did you see them?" And they'll talk about them. And so that has a brand that, that people follow. I think is, is that a fair kind of comparison, like comparing a brand like a business's brand in terms of, um, the content they put out and then how people will, you know, receive that and consume it? It's definitely a fair comparison in that John Lewis know that when they publish their YouTube video, their, you know, when they, when they publish their ad on YouTube, it doesn't really matter what the, the thumbnail looks like or how they title that video, because people are seeking out that ad, right? So, yeah, I think that's a good comparison. People are seeking out that ad because it's gained this, confusing, in my opinion, cult status in the UK. That means people sort of follow what, uh, John Lewis are going to do with their Christmas ad. It's kind of become a bit, a bit of an event, hasn't it? Um, it would be, it would be very, very challenging to, to be that in the inbox. You know, I, I think, even in the best-case scenario, even the strongest email brands, uh, you know, your recipients probably aren't treating the receiving of your email as some sort of cultural event. Uh, but, but in, in that people might look out for it and are way more likely to click on it. Yes, def, definitely a good comparison.
Could you see a world in which we, we can even get a very small part of, of what John Lewis has done with the Christmas where we're like, "Okay, well, when it, when it lands, it's, it's welcome." Uh, when it lands, there might be people that I know that I'll be like, "Oh, did you see this from so-and-so?" Are there brands out there at the moment or businesses out there that send emails? So, it's like someone might say, "I guess I get so-and-so's emails. They're pretty good, aren't they?" Kind of thing. We're talking about a much, uh, a fraction of that kind of cultural, um, phenomenon that is, that is John Lewis. But, um, do you think that, that we can achieve that through email? It's definitely possible. Yeah. And there are senders who manage to do this. And, you know, I think when we're talking about businesses, we're, we're have to factor in their, their overarching brand, right? So, there are some e-commerce stores that have a really strong following. They've got a really strong brand, and it means, um, if they send an email that says, "1-hour flash sale," they're going to get a huge response, and that is sort of associated with their overall brand. Um, I think that your email brand can live as a separate entity to your overall brand. So, the overall brand can certainly help your email brand, and if you have this incredible relationship with your customers, uh, then of course your emails are going to land better with them, and that, that's just natural. So, it definitely helps your email brand. But as you allude to there, Jamie, there are brands who may not have the strongest or most distinct brand in, you know, kind of overarching brand in the conventional way that we talk about brand, but their emails are really, really good, and people sort of know them for their emails a bit. Um, so, yeah, so it's definitely possible to elevate your overall brand through having a really strong email brand. Um, and the, the other side to this coin is that, of course, we're not just talking about businesses here as well. We're talking about email senders in general. So, one email sender that we regularly reference on this podcast is Harry Dry. He sends a newsletter called Marketing Examples. Um, he is only sending his email every so often these days. Um, he is busy with other stuff, so he's only sending his email maybe like once every two months. Whenever it does drop, though, he gets a huge response. And he actually sent a screen, he posted a screen recording on, uh, Twitter last year of him, um, kind of scrolling through his inbox after sending an email. And it was just full of replies saying, "So happy you're back. So happy you're back. This is awesome. Like, so excited that you're back." Cuz he, the email that he'd sent out had said something like, "I'm, you know, I'm back after a break," or whatever. And, um, yeah, so, you know, in that sense, I, I guess Harry Dry is an example of like a, a kind of microcosm of John Lewis advert, um, for the inbox. Nice.
I promise it's the last time we'll say John Lewis during this episode. Um, so if we think about, uh, email reputation, then, not email brand, sorry, and we, we think about what that looks like for our audience, we might have this scale, right? We don't just have good and bad, right? We, we have this scale, and maybe at one end of the scale, we have people that are literally complaining about the email, um, you know, are so annoyed that they might reply, or that they might do kind of spam complaints. I would say you're, that's way off there on, on the scale, and, and you've got a whole different problem, I think, if you're, if you're getting those, and listening to this episode won't fix that. But above that, we have people that will unsubscribe, right? And then maybe above that, we have people that, uh, will stay subscribed, but they don't engage very often. Um, and then above that, we have people that, that engage, um, fairly often. And then we have people that will always engage, you know, your most loyal people. And then beyond that, we have your advocates, people that are evangelizing about how good your, your emails are and will forward them and talk about them to other people. Um, is there anything missing from that scale? No, I think you're right. I think, I think the, the, the reality is that most, I would say 98% of B, that's an incredibly arbitrary percentage that I've just pulled out my ass there, but, you know, 98% of businesses don't have an email brand at all, right? Because, as you point out, Jamie, there's, you know, not very many people listening to this, hopefully, are going to have a bad email brand, i.e., an email, a sender reputation that is so bad that people, um, are reporting them for spam regularly, and, you know, unsubscribing on mass, etc. Um, likewise, very few are going to have a really good email brand, a really strong email brand where people are talking about their emails and excited about them and forwarding them, etc. Um, the majority have no email brand at all. Um, and anyone who knows about, um, branding in a conventional sense will say that it, sometimes it's actually worse to have a non-existent brand than it is to have like a bad brand, because at least people know you're bad brand, right? And, uh, you know, I guess in the same sense, well, like, okay, if people are reporting you for spam and people are unsubscribing on mass, that's really bad and you need to fix that, but people need to open your email in order to, in order to do those things. And maybe there's an argument to be said that it's better to have, um, loads of engagement, even if it's bad engagement, because that is fixable, um, than to just be completely ignored in the inbox, where you know, interesting. Uh, yeah, I, I don't know. I, I, that was very much, um, an unplanned statement to make, and I'd need to think about that a little bit more. But, you know, I think one of the reasons why fixing a, a, a non-existent email brand is so hard is because even if you're sending the best stuff in the world, if people have already made up your, their minds about who you are as an email sender, they're not going to open and they're not going to find out how good those emails actually are. Um, so, yeah, so maybe something provocative that gets unsubscribes and gets spam complaints, whilst that's not good in the short term, actually, like, if people are opening and, and people are opinionated about your emails, at least you have the chance to win them over. Yeah, that's interesting. I'm going to call you out on this, though. I think it's, you said 98%. I think it might be 97%. But no. So, um, okay.
So, why don't we quickly talk about, um, what people can do to impact their email brand, you know? So, we, we've spoken about the benefits of it, what it looks like, and why it's important, etc. Um, we don't want to give away all of our secrets here and so people can just go away and, and we'll be out of a job, but we can certainly give some tips here, like, what, what is a good email, what is someone who has a good email brand doing, or what can someone do to, you know, improve their email brand? Yeah, I think, for what it's worth, I'm very happy to give away all of our secrets, because as many as we possibly can, just because, like, there's a difference between knowing how to do it and actually doing it and, like, being able to do it. And so, yeah, I think, uh, listen, anyone with a good sender brand is, is fundamentally sending something that's valuable. They're thinking about their emails through the p, through the lens of their recipient rather than their own agenda. So, I think that's the, the fundamental rule here is that they're thinking, when they sit down to, to write an email, "What can I give the reader that is, is going to mean it was worth their while to open this email in the first place?" And I think if you start with that, you build a really solid sender, sender, uh, brand, a really solid email brand, just by virtue of always prioritizing the wants and needs of the reader above your own. So, don't think to yourself, "Okay, what can I sell here?" or "What's in this for me?" Think about, "What's in this for the reader?" Start there, and like, you're already winning. You're already better than 97.712 brands. Um, yeah, I think, um, it's also about finding the, your voice and finding the voice that resonates with the audience that you have captured as well. I think, you know, that's, that's, that's fandom, right? And I think it doesn't matter if you're, if you're Greta Thunberg and you have a, I've always mispronounced the name. If you're Greta and you've got a newsletter, uh, and you've got people that are on that newsletter, that's a very kind of, uh, fanatical kind of fandom that they might have there. Or you might be Tommy Robinson and you've got a newsletter and you know that you've got those. I think it's also about finding your, your crowd and finding your voice and speaking to those people, um, in a way that resonates with them, and you're kind of then generating a bit of a brand there. I think the, for me, the most challenging thing will be, will be to take a list that's very eclectic, um, that hasn't worked on its email proposition or who they're talking to, and we've got this whole mix of demographics. That would be, I, I think I would find that challenging to, to say, "Okay, I'm going to create a good email brand here, something that kind of fits what everyone wants." You're looking wistfully in the distance. Do you disagree with that, or do you think there, there is that, there's still a possibility to say, "Okay, well, we can do some work here?" No, I do, I, I do really agree with you, and I think generally most lists are going to have, um, common denominators amongst their recipients that mean it's easy to, it's easy to send them something that's going to be, not necessarily universally applicable, that's quite challenging, but certainly applicable for the vast majority of your recipients. Um, I do think that the examples you've chosen there, which I know were sort of just for, um, illustrations' effect, but, you know, Greta and Tommy Robinson, um, are, I think, you know, if you're a business listening to this and you're thinking, "Well, okay, that's all well and good, but, you know, they are at two ends of the political spectrum where it's quite easy for them to have a very distinct voice." But I work, I'd like, I'd like to meet the person who subscribed to both, by the way. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but, you know, I work in accountancy, and it's harder for me to like be, to, to really stick my neck out when it comes to to distinct voice. I would say there's still opportunity to, to express an opinion. And, and opinion expressing opinions is something that you and I have come back to a few times now, Jamie. We, we talked about kind of what makes a good newsletter. Um, and expressing opinions is a really good way to do that. And that, that's kind of why I feel like, okay, if you are getting unsubscribes, that, that is often interpreted as as a bad thing, but actually, I think, you know, we're never going to be able to please everyone with our emails, and actually being a little bit, not polarizing necessarily, but being brave enough to express an opinion that might not chime with with everyone on your list, I don't think is a bad thing at all for your, for your email brand. So, um, yeah.
Um, I guess you're chiseling, you're chiseling a statue, a piece of rock. Maybe at that point, you know, you're, you're finding your form. You're finding your, your, your people and your crowd. One tactic that you see often on social media, and I'm not going to ask you whether it's a good or bad tactic for social media, because we're, we're not social media people, but one tactic you see is people posting deliberately contentious, um, uh, content in order to get a reaction and then to increase reach. I think this is a related question, because we're talking about email brand and how people perceive you. Is there room for that tactic in email, or do you think that we have, are saying, "Okay, well, we have found our crowd, and we risk alienating them by saying something that's over contentious here, because we've kind of distilled a purer form of audience here?" Yeah, I think it depends on the. Yeah, I think, I think possibly the best cont, the best contentious, um, subject. Definitely. By the way, let me answer your question directly. Contention can definitely work in email marketing. And I think it's interesting, and it, it is, you know, that is posting something contentious in a newsletter is akin to, it's like a more extreme version of, like expressing an opinion, right? So, um, I don't have any problem with it. I do think that there's a question of authenticity if you're just doing it for the sake of being contentious. And I think it, it's very hard to come across as genuine if, unless it is a genuine feeling you have. Like, if you just think to yourself, "I want to write something contentious because I might get more replies." Um, then I, I think it is, it's very, you have to be a very skilled writer for, for that not to be transparent. Um, so I, I would probably put a warning label on being contentious for the sake of being contentious. I think if you happen to hold an opinion that is quite contentious for some of your readers, that shouldn't necessarily put you off from expressing it, as long as, as long as obviously you adhere to the normal rules of human-to-human interaction, i.e., you're respectful, you're not offensive, or anything like that. Yeah.
Um, one interesting, um, idea that you reminded me of, though, Jamie, is this idea of leaving a flank open when you send a newsletter, which is becoming a more popular, uh, tactic amongst email marketers, which is, okay, we're going to give away some value, but we're going to intentionally leave some, some important area of this topic unexplored and unacknowledged, and we're going to provoke replies from people on the list who are saying, "Oh, you forgot to mention this," or, "You should also mention this." And so, leaving a flank open on purpose to sort of invite your audience in to fill that gap is, um, is becoming quite popular. Um, I would say, just from kind of anecdotal experience, so I was writing the fantasy football newsletter earlier today. The contentious comment that I made is one that I know that 95% of my readers are going to agree with, which is, "International football is boring." Right? So, so that is, that is quote unquote contentious, I suppose, if I'm talking to a general football community. But because I'm, I'm talking to fantasy football managers, and there's no fantasy football for international football, at least the international football that was played recently, it means I can say that with relative confidence, and I'm building a bit of an email brand there. You know, I'm sort of cementing the, the tribe and the beliefs of this tribe that we all share. Um, but I'm doing it in a way that doesn't alienate my core audience, which is, uh, kind of how I like to play it. Okay.
Um, is there, is there anything else that you, that has been unsaid that you wanted to cover at this point? Any flanks left open? Um, I just want to say that I think we, we've talked about what makes a good email brand. I think it, it's almost more instructive to talk about what erodes an email brand quickly. And there are two things that I want to highlight here, Jamie. There are more things that can erode an email brand, but I think these two are common sins committed by email marketers or people in charge of sending emails on behalf of a business. The first is, um, trying to use clickbait in subject lines. There's a, there's a big discussion here around being the kind of email sender that keeps to the promises that it makes in a subject line. Uh, and again, you and I have talked about this at length, I'm sure, in previous episodes, but if you're saying something in a subject line that is, um, intended to get clicks, like, let's say you, you write a subject line that says something like, "Our biggest sale ever," um, and then it turns out that it's not your biggest sale ever. It's 10% off one particular product. Um, that is going to erode your sender reputation. What's going to happen is that you're going to get a short-term gain, and you're going to pat yourself on the back because you got loads of opens for that particular email. And then your subsequent emails are going to get, uh, fewer opens because people don't trust you anymore. So, I would say, um, respect the trusting relationship that subscribers have with your email brand and ensure that you fulfill any promises that you make in a subject line. Um, the second thing, my mind's completely gone blank. That's all right. So, that, that first one is like almost like the, the boy who cried wolf situation, or, or the boy who cried, "This is our biggest ever sale." Yes. Yeah. Um, and, you know, the trust that you lose because you don't follow through on that. There are like other examples. It might not be a sale, but clickbaity things like, "Oh, you won't believe this," and it's something really boring, or, you know, those kind of things that usually you find as, as an advert on, when you're reading a Daily Mail article. If you ever read a Daily Mail, it's those ones that it's like, "Doctors hate this guy because I don't know, he's, you know, he's solved whatever it is." Those kind of articles and adverts you see at the bottom of those. Yeah, we want to avoid clickbait, um, in general, and we want to follow through on our promise. Thank you for buying me some time. That was expertly done. Um, the second thing is, um, selling your list. Uh, uh, and I suppose the way to put this, because it's fine, it's fine to monetize your list, and we, we've talked about that at length as well, but monetizing it again for short-term gains, not thinking of the long-term impact it might have on your audience. So, and this can take various, this can take various forms. The most common is just working with advertising partners that don't vibe with your list. Um, and, uh, again, that just creates a bit of a culture of distrust, and like, "Okay, these aren't genuine recommendations that I'm getting from, um, this, this email sender. These are the, that, this is just the sender trying to make a quick buck." And the second one, and this is more common in the B2B space, is when you work with a, it might be like a, a tech partner, for example, or some sort of, um, corporate partner that you might have as a business, and you say, "We'll send an email on your behalf." And so suddenly this list of 10,000 gets an email that's actually penned from a completely different company that says, "Oh, you know, we're, we're, we're popping into your inbox just to let you know about this thing that we're doing." And, uh, it's incredibly jarring. And again, it, it may be that your partner is paying you a substantial amount in order to access your contacts, but aside from sort of a big gray area in terms of GDPR, uh, it's also just, just, just not going to, um, do your email brand any favors. And it's icky as well. You could be me. Yeah. Yeah, it is.
Um, okay, cool. Should we do, have you got a hot take? Do you want to do a hot take? Um, yeah, I suppose my hot take would be, um, I would seriously, I would make a mathematical calculation every time you get offered, um, a paid partnership with your, uh, newsletter. Whether you're a creator or a, um, you know, you work in a B2B space or you're an e-commerce store, whatever it might be, um, there ought to be a mathematical calculation, um, that you need to. I'm not exactly sure what the formula would be, cuz it's, it's highly business-dependent. But effectively, what you need to be thinking is, let's imagine that, um, from now on, after sending this, I'm only going to, I'm going to lose 10% of my opens. What will that do for my revenue? What will that do for my business's reputation? I would say, I would say plan to lose 10% of your opens if you're, if you're, um, partnering with, uh, another business that isn't completely audience relevant. Um, and, uh, yeah, and, and if it's still worth it, then fine. But my, my, my strong guess is that it won't be. Nice. Okay.
Um, I think, uh, I didn't really think about a hot take for me. I'm going to go for, when you're creating, people won't often be sitting there thinking, "Okay, I need to create an email marketing strategy for my business." So, maybe that's going too far. But when we're thinking about the emails that we're writing and sending, I think we need to think about, "Okay, what are my open rate targets here? What are my click rate targets here?" Like, what are the things I want to achieve? I think there's this softer thing underneath. It's like, "Okay, what's this going to do to contribute to my, to my email brand?" Um, you know, how, what am I doing here to positively impact that? Uh, and my email platform won't necessarily report on it, but I know, um, based on, you know, gut feel about who I'm talking to, and I know my stuff, what am I doing to contribute to that? Yeah. Okay. Cool. Not, not our hottest, but, you know. No, I think it's quite a good subject, though. It's not as if we're saying, "Okay, well, what makes a good subject line?" and then we have to come up with a hot take that's like particularly left field. But, um, you know, the whole subject is a, is a hot take. Well, to say the whole episode is a hot take is a stretch, I think. But, okay.
Well, thanks for listening. Um, yeah, that's it. All right. All right. Bye, everyone. Bye.
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