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Are you missing these six critical questions in your e-mail campaign?

As copywriters, we are often called upon to create a series of autoresponders for an e-mail campaign.  The first thing you want to do in starting to work on your next campaign is to think about the general topics you'd like to cover.  You’ll want to have an overall theme that can be broken down into specific parts.

Beyond your theme, though, you’ll need to have a tightly focused email. If you don’t, no one is going to read it or jump to the call to action that you have within that e-mail.

And when the next message shows up in the series?  Right!  It'll be deleted immediately.

So what can you do to make sure that you're e-mail is well focused?  I learned the following technique from my friend Michael Rasmussen who has a great course entitled to E-mail Promos Exposed.

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THE SUPER SIX QUESTIONS

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These next questions are what you need to ask yourself every single time you prepare an e-mail campaign for client … or for your own business.

Question #1: Ask yourself what your intent is in writing the e-mail.  Are you giving someone knowledge though more information?  Or perhaps you are working on a campaign that will presell a product or service?  Having this clear in your mind before you start writing will keep you from losing track right off the bat.

Question #2: Who are you? This may sound like a very simplistic question but if you don't take the chance to remind the reader who you are every time you write an e-mail, you’re losing an opportunity to keep building that relationship. All you have to say is something like, “Hi, Victoria from The 3 Chix here."

Question #3: What do (the writer) you want?  The answer to this will be the heart and soul of your e-mail.  If you’re offering an answer to your reader’s problem, then this is where you will want to express that.  The most important thing we can do as marketers is to remember that when people go on the Internet for information they also want someone to help them fix a problem.  Solutions are key.

Question #4: Why should I (the reader) care?  This is where you can do a little more explanation of how your program, product or service will help make the reader's life even better.  I also use this section of an e-mail to tell a story because that helps me find some common ground with my audience.

Question #5: What's in it for me (WIIFM)?  How many times have we heard this in our copywriting courses and seminars?  It's all about the reader, not about the writer.  Make sure your audience knows you can help solve a problem.

Question #6: What  do I (the reader) do now?  You would be amazed at how many times writers fail to put a simple call to action in an e-mail campaign.  For example, if you just want the reader to keep reading the series, you need to say that plainly.  Make sure that at the end of the e-mail you gives them a hint of what is to come in the following week or in the following installment. If you want the reader to click a link and sign up for a free report, say so. Don’t beat around the bush. This is no time to be shy or coy.

One other trick in I've learned about e-mail campaigns used to always use subheads that are set out between rows of asterisks.  And capitalize those subheads because it will make it a whole lot easier for the reader to skim down through your e-mail and find what's important to him or her.

Yeah, this is the one time you are going to want to capitalize every word.

I don't know about you but when I was in elementary school I did horribly in math.  I was part of that generation in the sixties that had to experience "new math".  My biggest problem has always been that I'm a visual person and need to see the pie chart in order to get to what the math teacher was talking about.

Surprisingly, one of my worst times in math was with word problems.  And I write words for a living!  Word problems just messed me up no end.

Well, I found some Web based software that's really helpful with visualization.  And it works beautifully with the super six e-mail questions that we just went over.

What is it?  It's Mindomo.

Mindomo - http://www.mindomo.com -- is a free web-based mind mapping site that allows you to set up a visual map for any project you choose.  It’s similar to Mindjet Manager … without the price tag.

I recently wrote a six part e-mail campaign for a new client’s web site.  Mindomo helped me set out the super six questions so that each autoresponder I wrote was laser targeted without any fluff.

I hope you enjoyed this month’s installment of Chix Trax and that the super six e-mail questions and online mind mapping web site information will help you for many years to come.

We'll see you next month!

The 3 Chix

Victoria (with Beth and Donna)