TA #109: 🎡 9 Ways to Make Email the Happiest Place on Earth; New Metrics for Fun + Profit

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Welcome to the 109th 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, March 27, 2022

Greetings, Cherry Blossom!

If my week last week were a Theme Park, it would have been Email World.

Email was everywhere I looked... I spoke about it. Wrote about it. Sent it.

Strolled the cobbled streets of Email World, wearing shoes made of dollar bills!

Saw new heights from the Ferris Wheel of ROI!

Rode the Roller Coaster of Deliverability!

Pitched balls at the Spam Dunk Tank!

And here I am this morning. Writing an email to you.

It's like the brain-tricking Baader-Meinhof phenomenon (AKA frequency illusion), where a new thing you learn about seems suddenly everywhere all the time.

But not exactly. Because Email is already well known to all of us.

Yet the question is always: How do we do make it a happier place?

Walk with me through the gates of Email World, where the benches are marked and the rocks play music.

9 Truths: How to Make Email World the Happiest Place on Earth

1 > Your From Line matters more than your Subject Line.

There are a ton of tools that help you optimize your Subject Line. There's no shortcut to optimizing a From line... that's all on you and the value you provide.

2 > Short email vs. long email is a false choice, like being given a choice between fries or a salad.

Neither is better than the other: They're just different.

A better question is: What's your purpose?

Want to inspire a click or direct response? Go short (fries). Want to nurture a relationship and create a connection? Go long (salad).

BUT! (You must be *this tall* to ride the next ride...)

3 > Salads work only if they don't FEEL like salad.

Don't make 1,500 words FEEL like 1,500 words. Build momentum.

Short sentences
Short paragraphs
Pattern breaks
White space
A relatable "emcee" for your email
Strong, relatable writing voice
A "scroll magnet" that invites your audience to heck yes I can't wait to see what's at the end of this email! (even if the rest of the email doesn't capture their attention)

4 > Lift up the A in your CTA!

Make your call to action literally actionable.

Use active verbs you can "see" vs. "invisible" verbs that happen inside your head. Active verbs carry more energy and inspire more activity.

Instead of > Try

"Shop now" > "Wave Goodbye to Winter"
"Access the ebook here" > "Grab your copy"
"Register" > "Tune into the Convo"

5 > One more point about CTAs because apparently I have a lot to say.

Use CTAs as a way to underscore or extend your brand personality, tone of voice, quirk, whimsy, love of life itself.

Instead of > Try

"Download the guide here" > "Get your mitts on your own copy."
"More info" > "Peep the details."
"Learn how you can avoid burnout" > "Say Buh-bye Burnout!"

6 > You can use words like "free" or "save dollars."

If you have a strong sender reputation, these words shouldn't affect your deliverability. (If! Should! Could I qualify that any more...? LOL)

7 > The preheader text* is your whispered aside. Everyone strains to hear that whispered aside.

*(A preheader is the little sentence that shows up next to or below the subject line before an email is opened.)

Let's challenge ourselves a bit with you, Preheader!

Above: Home Chef puts the *actual offer* in the preheader (and in the email itself too). It uses the Subject Line to simply tease the offer. Baller.

Above: BarkBox includes the name of the Super Chewer pup himself: Alfred. ("Alfred" means "he of the strong jaws" in Canine Etymology.)*

*(I just made that "Canine Etymology" business up.)

8 > One metric cannot possibly measure your success.

Email is a relationship, not a single acronym. Patterns over time in several metrics are more useful than any single, specific one. That's especially true now that Open Rates are a hot mess.

9 > Roll your own metrics based on your email goals.

Click-through rate, or CTR, is important on direct response emails. But what about longer timelines, when nurturing is the goal and relationships matter most?

Here's what I track:

OSR (Open to Save Rate): Do you customers Save your emails?
OWBR (Open to Write Back Rate): What percentage of people open a dialog with you? Especially on that critical Welcome email.
RR (Resub Rate): When people change jobs, do they resubscribe with their new email?
TUPER (Trust U with my Personal Email Rate): How many subscribers find you so valuable that they invite you into that protected personal inbox? (We all have one.)

Did I make these metrics up? Yes I did.

How do I "track" these? Anecdotally.

How do I do that? I proactively ask in my Welcome email. I watch what people say on social. People write to tell me.

Are you done interviewing yourself? Yes.

Here's the bottom line: "anecdotal" feedback is no less useful than hard-math-metrics.

The root of the word "anecdote" comes from the Greek "things unpublished" and later interpreted in 17th century France as "secret and private stories."

You, too, can have your own secret and private stash of email metrics.

They will call you to a higher place.

An optimized, beautiful Email World.

CARNIVAL PRIZES FOR YOU: Some of these examples come from a Writing for Email Guide I published this week in partnership with SparkPost: Snag a copy for free here. (Reg. required.)

MORE PRIZES: Some of these ideas also came up in a companion Two-Truths-and-a-Lie game/webinar SparkPost's April Mullen and I played/hosted last week: Writing for Email (now On-Demand).

See what I mean? It really was an Email Theme Park of a week.

QUICKIES

4 Steps to a Smarter Go-To-Market Approach My friends at DemandBase released a fun comic book all about smarter Go-To-Market approaches.

They summoned Superhero Ann from the underworld (that's her with me above)... asking her: "What first steps should sales and marketing leaders take to get started on smarter GTM?" Here's what she said. Or I said. Or whatever.

How to Write About Hard Stuff How to write, message about hard stuff with empathy and humanity.

SURVEY: LAST CHANCE!

2nd Annual Survey of Content Entrepreneurs Dear Content Creators of all kinds (AKA bloggers, podcasters, online educators, writers, YouTubers, TikTok creators & more): Will you please share your experiences and perspective in this quick 5-min survey? Thank you. Love, Ann. P.S. Here's the survey link >>> Stroll and click merrily along.

TOOLS

A content tool I used or discovered this week

Empathy Interview Guide. A one-page checklist from Stanford d.School* on how to make your interviews, case studies, stories more human-sized and compelling.

*The Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford University

DEPARTMENT OF SHENANIGANS

Most metaphors help explain a concept. Others... not so much.

FEATURED EVENTS

April 6-7: MarketingProfs B2B Forum Online. The goodbye event! No, the B2B Forum isn't going away... but April's event will be all-virtual for the very last time! We are back IN PERSON in October! Don't miss this virtual swan song. There will be actual swans.* Sweet deal: Use code ANNTICS for $100 off.

May 2-4: CEX -Creator Economy Expo. This brand new conference helps content creators grow audience, drive revenue, sharpen operations, and more (like learn about Web3). I'll be there along with Dan Pink, Joe Pulizzi, and others. Sweet deal: Get $150 off the ticket price. (Or use code HANDLEY.)

* * *

Thanks for reading this far.

Thanks for your kindness and generosity.

Stay sane. Stay healthy. See you again on April 10.

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. The team there is both generous and incredible: 11/10 recommend.

Ann Handley is the author of Everybody Writes and other books.
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TA #109: 🎡 9 Ways to Make Email the Happiest Place on Earth; New Metrics for Fun + Profit

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TA #108: 📫 Reader Q&A; finding focus; a new fun tool to play with

TA #107: 🌭 How to Avoid Writing by Committee: A 7-Step Guide + Therapy Session; Brilliant Creative on a Tiny Budget

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

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

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