E-mail Marketing: Herschell Gordon Lewis on E-mail Creative, Part I: Design and Marketing

In a series of workshop sessions during the DMA06 Conference in San Francisco this week, creative and copywriting guru Herschell Gordon Lewis, president of Lewis Enterprises, delivered numerous tips about design and marketing in e-mail messages. Below are some of the most noteworthy pointers.

* Look for a rationale that matches what you’re saying and to whom you’re saying it. Sometimes sticking in graphics when your recipients’ computers won’t accept those graphics is a problem, Gordon Lewis said.

* Test this oddity: Move “click here” up in your text, he suggests. You’ll usually increase response. “That’s due to an ancient rule of salesmanship: When your prospect says yes, quit selling,” he said.

* Text out-pulls HTML when the message is urgency, Gordon Lewis said. HTML out-pulls text when the message is artistry. Urgency is more effective when used on a stark basis. When you want an immediate response, “don’t pretty it up,” he advised.

* Which e-mail offer pulls better? “You Can Save Up To 70%!” or “You can save up to 70%!” Gordon Lewis recommends testing both upper- and lower-case first letters in these kinds of e-mail offers to see which works best for your particular offer. But initial caps are more formal and cut down on any rapport you can have with customers, he noted. He also cautioned marketers to be selective in their use of exclamation points. Generally, an offer such as this one, he said, pulls better with a period at the end of the offer, rather than an exclamation point.

* Avoid all-CAPS headings, he advised. All-CAPS messages don’t pull as well as standard caps and lower case.

* For B-to-B e-mail, always test text against a produced HTML message. “Prospects are more short-tempered and shorter on time,” Gordon Lewis said. “Text is more business-like.”

* Always send yourself a sample message -- but send it in advance, not along with the bulk. Otherwise, you could wind up with such mistakes as symbols in the message, he said.

* Tying your message to actual news events increases e-mail response, Gordon Lewis said. But don’t tie it to news that ages quickly, such as Saturday’s college football scores on a Tuesday.

* If your offer is stated clearly and completely before prospects need to scroll down, he said, response will increase.

* Consider the psychological techniques for reducing the number of opt-outs, he noted. For instance, opt-outs are far fewer in e-mails to catalog customers than to other targeted groups, because catalog customers tend to be readers anyway.