TA #106: 💌 My Valentine Poem to You; How to Measure "Best" in "Best Of"

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Welcome to the 106th issue of Total Annarchy, a fortnightly newsletter by me, Ann Handley, with a focus on writing, marketing, living your best life. I'm glad you're here. If this newsletter was forwarded to you, you need your own: Subscribe here.

Boston, Sunday, February 13, 2022

Hello, Hotshot! Happy Valentine's Day! (Almost.)

I wrote you a poem.

A Valentine for Creative Marketers

Roses are red
Violets are blue
Are you, my dearest,
An artist, too?

Do you love Great Copy
Analytics and Ads?
All the Marketing basics!
None of them fads.

Me, too, my sweets!
And don't forget newsletters!
Which every org needs...
(If they only knew better.)

So hugs to you, my creative friend.
(And your violets of blue.)
I'm glad you're in love...
With hot Marketing, too.

* * *

Pop quiz: Do I have a bright future at Hallmark penning niche B2B greeting cards?

Answer: This isn't a real quiz. Keeping day job.

* * *

My friends at Campaign Monitor asked me a few weeks ago to share my best-performing newsletters for a feature they were planning.

Simple question, right? Let's pull on our hip waders and cast a line into the deep waters of the Analytics Pool for the most successful issues...!

Not so fast, Candy Heart.

I stared for too long at their question. That word: "best."

What's "best" actually mean in a newsletter context?

An obvious answer in Email Land is Opens and Clicks. But Email Land is now pocked with privacy-shaped landmines and tech tripwires that have made it trickier for Marketing to accurately measure these basics.

And anyway... are Opens and Clicks truly the goal?

No. Not always, anyway. Here's what I mean:

The obvious answer to the "Best" newsletters would be the holiday gift guide issues (from 2020 and 2021). They drove the most clicks and opens.

Subscribers love them. But it's not useful data for me because I'm not a catalog or gift company, am I?

So we're axing these on principle, even if they are the most "successful."

Back to "best" then? We need categories.

Welcome to the 2022 Oscars for Email Nominees, the Total Annarchy Special Broadcast!

I'll let you scan the list of nominees from the past year of this newsletter. Then let's look at what any newsletter publisher can learn from them.

⭐ Nominee for Best CTR: TA #100: How to Newsletter

⭐ Nominee for Most Opens (tie): (1) TA #56: Your Hand Sanitizer for Bad Marketing (2) A #65: The Best CTA and Why It Works

⭐ Nominee for Driving Most New Sub Referrals: TA #69: Pumpkin Spice Newsletter

⭐ Nominee for Open to Write Back Rate (OWBR)*: TA #93: How to Build a Daily Writing Habit

* I made up this metric.

⭐ Nominee for My Personal Favorite Because Soooo Many People Sent Me Candy: TA #91: How to Do a Content Launch Right

⭐ Newsletter of the Year: TA #80: TikTok with the Best Writing Advice
Not really a clear winner in any category, but solid overall in all categories. Isn't that often what gets rewarded at Awards Shows? And finally:

⭐ Actress of the Year: Lady Gaga (snubbed for House of Gucci, I'm nominating her now)

* * *

Why does my list of Oscar Noms matter to you?

We can take six clear lessons from the bunch of the "best" and apply them broadly across all email newsletters.

1) You can't let one metric mean success. An email newsletter is a relationship, not a single acronym. Patterns over time in several categories are more useful than any single specific metric.

2) Obvious value. Offer clear value to one person in your subject line. How to... might be sometimes dismissed as too basic. But How to still pulls. Although...

3) The From field ultimately matters more than the Subject Line. It's the relationship a reader has with you that will inspire an Open or an Unsubscribe.

4) Not business as usual. Are you surprising your audience? All the winners were different/surprising ("Pumpkin Spice Newsletter," "TikTok Writing advice"). Curveballs are more fun to hit.

5) Current. All the winners tapped into the current zeitgeist/culture ("Hand sanitizer for bad marketing"). References to our collective reality or pop culture builds affinity.

6) Flip off "best practices." Walk your own path. "Write short," the pundits say? Feh. The "best" here were actually among the longest. All story-driven, too.

So: Read all the best practices and advice and How To industry articles like this one.

But then... make your own choices.

Try this on.
See what works for you.
Trash what doesn't.
Adopt what might.
Adapt as you wish.

And P.S.: Don't use popups.

* * *

FREE VALENTINE'S DAY GIFT*

Give your love How to Newsletter: A free download that has my best advice on writing a newsletter and growing a subscribed audience. (One that will love you fiercely and forever.) It's the ebook that says: I opt in to your love.

* Puppy not included.

QUICKIES

3 SEO Trends Content Needs to Know for 2022 The key things we need to know about Google changes and updates for 2022, in fewer than 1,000 words.

6 Strategies for Writing About Hard Things How do you message to an audience when the fit is about to hit the shan?

How I Grew This Newsletter from 0-42K (And Shortcuts You Can Steal from My Pain). This is the Campaign Monitor piece that inspired the Newsletter Oscars.

SPECIAL REPORT

"Experience" (like "jumbo") needs context to be understood. (A jet can be jumbo. So can a shrimp.) Which is why I really like this new guide that's designed to help Marketing figure out how to use Experience as a differentiator. Great stuff! Download this guide right here. (Reg. required; worth it.)

DEPARTMENT OF SHENANIGANS

Creative copy review, Valentine's Day edition.

LOVE LETTERS

Shouts from around the internet.

💌 To Jon Miller, Justin Levy and team Demandbase for summoning this crack team of superheroes (including my alter-ego) to help you craft meaningful stories.

💌 To Alex Rynne and Carla Johnson and LinkedIn for being the best co-conspirators in this fun show on 2022 marketing trends.

💌 To Cynthia Price and the gang at Litmus for including me in their list of fave emails.

💌 To Loren Baker at Search Engine Journal for this fun LinkedIn Live about marketing without cookies.

💌 To Myles Kleeger and Braze for this LinkedIn Live fireside chat on Crafting Memorable Marketing Experiences.

💌 To Samantha Lyle at Small Business Trends for the love in her piece on how to write bios.

💌 To David Yoho for the Everybody Writes shoutout.

💌 To Carole Alalouf for everything.

* * *

Thanks for reading this far.

Thanks for your kindness and generosity.

Stay warm. Stay healthy. See you again on February 27.

P.S. If you like this newsletter and want to support it, you can:

1) buy a book.
2) Get yourself some $WORD coin. (Read more about creator coins here.)
3) Simply forward this newsletter to a friend with an invitation to subscribe right here: www.annhandley.com/newsletter.

SPECIAL THANKS to AWeber for being the provider of choice for Total Annarchy. If you are looking to up your email game, give them a shout.

Ann Handley is the author of Everybody Writes and other books.
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Ann Handley

9 Bartlett St., #313, Andover, MA 01810

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TA #106: 💌 My Valentine Poem to You; How to Measure "Best" in "Best Of"

Older messages

TA #105: 💥 6 Ways to Make Your Metaphors Memorable; How to Overcome Writer's Block

TA #104: 🐘 Addressing the elephant in the room; Writing + AI

TA #101: 🎁 21+ Ridiculously Useful Holiday Gifts for 2021; When Spotify Goes Wrong

TA #100: 🎊 New Ebook for You: 'How to Newsletter.' Plus: My (Mostly Fun) Writing Process.

TA #99: 🎉 How I Grew This Newsletter: What Worked, What Didn't, Weird Metrics I Use

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