The worst opening line for an email.

September 19, 2024

Filed under: Writing Tips, The Power of Persuasion, Effective Communication — @ 2:32 pm

A side view of a black and brown dachshund dog looking sideways at the viewer. The text reads "Do you REALLY hope I'm well," which is the worst opening line for an email.

Let’s cut right to the chase: “I hope you are well” is by far the worst opening line for an email. Or a letter. Or a LinkedIn message. Or any really any kind of communication, but especially when you’re trying to get the reader’s attention for something important to you…a sale, a deadline, a call to action, and so on.

Here’s why, and here’s what to use instead.

WHY IT’S BAD

It is – by a landslide – the most commonly used opening line in communications. That means people see it so often, they’re desensitized to it. It’s become a trite, meaningless phrase.

And worse than that, because it’s so overused, it feels disingenuous to the reader. Like…does the sales rep hawking event space or the colleague asking for your input on a report REALLY hope you are well? In truth, it’s likely they haven’t given much thought your well-being. Rather, they have something they need to tell you or get from you. You know it. They know it. Hence, disingenuous.

Here’s why this is a problem: humans have tiny attention spans. We are distracted, we multitask, and (thanks to technology) we get bombarded with way more communication than we can handle.

What gets our attention? When something is DIFFERENT.

So if you want someone to pay attention to the message you’re sending – engage with it, feel something, do something, or even just read the damn thing – why start the communication with a boring sentence that’s predisposed to make their eyes glaze over?

This is especially true for folks who work in marketing, sales, public relations, and journalism. You should never bait your hook with a forgettable line like “I hope you are well.”

WHY WE USE IT SO OFTEN

It’s like a way for writers to warm up before writing. You sit down to your computer and you don’t quite know how to start your message, so you type out that nice, generic opening line to get your brain started. Then you can segue into writing the REAL part of the message.

It’s akin to warm-ups for athletes before a competition or singers before a show.

The thing is…warm-ups are boring to watch. Just like they’re boring to read. They should be done behind the scenes and be invisible to the audience.

But writers, just like readers, are distracted, multitask, and have tiny human attention spans. So when we sit down to write something, we just want to GET IT DONE. Sitting there, staring at the screen trying to think what to write? That feels like wasting time. We get antsy. We get impatient.

So we fire off some version of “I hope you are well” and it gives our brain that dopamine hit that says, “I’m not wasting time, I’m actually writing something.”

Rinse and repeat this pattern often enough and soon it becomes a mindless habit. And voila: the worst opening line for an email becomes your comfortable go-to.

WHAT TO USE INSTEAD

Oh… you wanted a one-size-fits-all answer? Alas, effective writing doesn’t come from a cookie cutter.

You can still have your warm-up. Just make it “thinking time” instead of an empty phrase irrelevant to your purpose. Indeed, the best result will come when you craft an opening line tailored to the relevance of your message. Some examples that have crossed my inbox:

From a job seeker: When I read your job posting, it stopped me in my tracks and made me instantly want to apply.
From an industry colleague: Your website sent me down a rabbit hole of joyfulness.
From a realtor: NYC real estate is a blood sport.

Yes, it takes a little longer to come up with an opening line that stands out from the sea of sameness. But isn’t it worth it if it grabs your reader’s attention? If they engage with your opening line, they’ll be more likely to keep reading. And if the opening line is related to your core message, you’re wisely priming the pump.

Still not convinced? I’ve got two words for you: PREVIEW PANE. In email, LinkedIn messaging, and most forms of electronic communication, the recipient’s inbox is often set up so they can see a preview of the message before opening it. DO YOU REALLY WANT THAT PREVIEW TO BE “I HOPE YOU ARE WELL?” Ugh, it’s a waste of coveted, influential space that tortures my little marketing heart.

Listen, if you are in a massive hurry and absolutely have to “show” your warm up to your audience, at least make it different than the overused “I hope you are well.” You can try either of these:

Happy (day of the week)! You could also use the month instead, if it’s the start of a new month.
Hello from (location)! This is useful if your recipient is far away (“Hello from NYC” to someone in Georgia) or even in a different part of your building (“Hello from the 4^th Floor!”).

But if you want to break the habit of using the worst opening line for an email, these additional resources will help:

Here’s how to stop being an impatient writer.

The power of 15 minutes in writing.

Five opening lines that sabotage your email’s success.

Just remember…you may indeed care about your recipient and hope they are well. Just do it at the closing. 😉

PS: don’t even get me started on email subject lines.

Using AI in tourism marketing requires secrecy.

January 17, 2024

Filed under: AI in Marketing, Digital Marketing, Writing Tips, Effective Communication — @ 12:34 pm

The successful use of artificial intelligence (AI) in tourism marketing rests on one key factor: secrecy. Not secrecy from your colleagues or organization…secrecy from your audience. You need your use of AI to be invisible to them for two main reasons:

Blatantly apparent AI-generated copy is generic and robotic-sounding. And even if it were written by a human, that kind of soulless, impersonal copy doesn’t engage the audience and wastes your time and budget. The rest of your marketing will have to work that much harder to spark a sale, let alone close one.
If they sense you’re using AI to influence their decisions – and done incorrectly, they will – you’ll lose their trust. People are increasingly sniffing out AI-generated copy and then doubting its credibility. Humanity just hasn’t yet reached the point where we’re comfortable being persuaded to do something by a robot.

Let me be crystal clear. Using AI in tourism marketing is smart. Tools like ChatGPT and Google’s Bard can be useful in many ways. But YOU have to be smart in how you use them. Until you become proficient in prompting and re-prompting to produce successful output, you are at risk for – essentially – sending out a stoic, unfeeling salesperson to promote your offerings.

And that won’t end well for you.

As a tourism marketer, you’re trying to sell potential guests an experience that makes (hopefully) everlasting memories and creates (hopefully) a lifetime relationship with them. Robotic-sounding, generic marketing copy is incapable of igniting the spark required for that love affair. And when used incorrectly, that’s EXACTLY how AI-generated copy sounds…like a robot wrote it.

To guard against this, you need to be aware of six telltale signs that content was written by AI.

Jodie Cook wrote a fantastic piece for Forbes on the subject, calling out these six dead giveaways:

Lengthy introductions (aka “throat clearing”)
Inclusion of ethical considerations
Generic thoughts and advice
Lack of personal stories
Specific go-to phrases
Signature structure

You can read the piece for more information on all six, but the three most prevalent ones in tourism marketing are lengthy introductions, generic thoughts/advice, and lack of personal stories. Let’s take a look.

Lengthy Introductions

I call this the “blah blah blah” introduction and AI is famous for churning it out. A rudimentary AI-generated piece, like that of many unskilled human writers, puts a bunch of fluff at the start and takes a bit of time to get to the meat of the content. Often it includes clichés (“Once you arrive, you’ll never want to leave!”), or broad-sweeping statements that mean nothing in particular (“Come experience the magic of the outdoors!”). It’s usually filled with a lot of long sentences and densely packed with a quantity of adjectives that would make a thesaurus blush. This is the written version of speakers who begin their presentation with excessive throat-clearing…it’s buying them time to get into the rhythm of their speech.

Generic Thoughts & Advice

OMG, if I see one more tourism organization proclaim “We have something for everyone!”… I’m going to scream. Even if you truly DO have something for everyone to enjoy, that sort of vanilla claim has zero chance of actually luring a potential visitor. Without specific prompting and sculpting on your part, AI programs like ChatGPT are likely to generate generic content like “breathe the fresh air as you wander through our beautiful forests,” and “hop on a boat to get out and feel the ocean mist on your face as you watch an orange-hued sunset,” and “sip and taste your way through our vibrant dining scene,” and – my personal favorite – “come away with memories that will last a lifetime.” None of that is specific and unique to YOU, so why should it compel anyone to choose YOU? It’s just…uninspiring.

Lack of Personal Stories

First cousin to “generic thoughts & advice,” a lack of personal stories isn’t meant so literally as in “a person telling a story about their experience with you.” That’s part of it, for sure. But on a broader level, it’s about your BRAND making a personal connection with the audience. Doesn’t matter if you’re a destination, hotel, cruise line, attraction, or even just a travel service…whatever. Sharing your quirks, your variety of unique Instagram-worthy experiences, and other stories that inspire them to feel a personal connection to you… THAT’S essential in successful tourism marketing. And it’s something you won’t get from AI-generated content without training it to write that way. It lacks the ability to do that on its own because by default, its process delivers one-size-fits-all content that’s impersonal.

And that right there is the problem. In the world of tourism, people are choosing where to spend their precious time and money, and this is VERY personal to them. Tourism is a passionate and deeply engaging purchase decision that goes way beyond transactional. They may not care if a robot wrote their appliance user’s manual (which is simply delivering information), but they sure as hell want – say – their honeymoon suggestions (which requires the dance of persuasion and has a lot riding on the outcome) to come from a credible source.

Which brings us to the best news of all, and a hilarious silver lining for tourism marketers. A brand is now no longer the LEAST credible source for promoting its own offerings. The “credible believability” pecking order currently stands like this, from most believable to least believable:

Someone I trust.
Someone I know casually.
A stranger unaffiliated with the product/service, which could be a media outlet or a random person on social media.
The organization itself.
A robot.

Y’all, we’ve moved up a notch. So don’t squander that gift by making it obvious you’re using AI in tourism marketing. Make that your little secret.

Not sure how to get started doing this properly? Check out these ChatGPT tips for tourism marketers.

Feel like you suck at writing and so you can’t properly judge AI’s output? These two quick reads will help you:

How to stop being an impatient writer.

Write better copy with patience and a thesaurus.

How “trigger phrases” sabotage effective communication.

December 11, 2023

Filed under: Effective Communication — @ 10:54 am

You may not even realize that you’re using trigger phrases that sabotage effective communication…but I’ll bet you realize when you’re on the receiving end of them.

For example, when you ask someone’s opinion on something and they begin their response with “If I’m being honest…” doesn’t that immediately ruffle your feathers?

Here’s why. The phrase “if I’m being honest” brings several negative implications with it:

It has a reputation of preceding bad news. It’s as if the person needs some kind of justification for delivering disappointing news, so they claim “honesty” as their reason.
It implies that the speaker isn’t always honest, but THIS time (because the situation is so bad) they’ll speak the truth.

So it makes sense that this phrase would put the recipient on high alert. People rarely (if ever) say stuff like “if I’m being honest, you look fabulous” or “if I’m being honest, that was the greatest presentation you’ve ever delivered.” When they are sharing what they think is good news, there’s no reason for them to invoke the honesty clause as an introduction. They don’t reach for justification to soften the blow.

The problem with using trigger phrases in our communication is that we intend for them to soften blows and/or get the recipient to embrace what we say. However, in reality, they do the opposite: they make people instantly defensive and usually causes them to resist what we say.

There are several reasons contributing to this reaction:

Trigger phrases are often insincere and the recipient knows it…probably because they themselves have used such phrases when THEY are trying to soften blows.
Often, trigger phrases signal that some type of disagreement is coming, or some other bit of negativity that challenges the position of the original speaker. These phrases have earned this reputation over time, so the pattern is easily sensed.
The overuse of trigger phrases has diluted their power and made them trite. So even when we really do mean them sincerely, they fall flat.

Here are a few other common trigger phrases that sabotage effective communication:

- With All Due Respect: The moment you say this, everyone knows you’re about to disagree with them. So why use this trigger phrase and get their back up? You can use your tone and word choice to disagree without being disrespectful. If you don’t feel comfortable just stating your differing opinion with no preamble, you can use a phrase like, “perhaps I can offer a different point of view here.”

- I’m Sorry: Ugh, talk about an overused phrase that’s become trite. The words “I’m sorry” are used to apologize for everything from spousal cheating to asking someone to repeat a sentence you didn’t hear. Some folks even habitually start random sentences with it for no reason (lookin’ at you, Canadians). It’s made the phrase fairly meaningless, so even when you’re being sincere, it doesn’t have the impact you intended. In fact, so many people sense this about the phrase that “how to apologize without saying I’m sorry” is one of Google’s most popular search queries. See how we learned that the hard way here and here are the tips we wrote for rephrasing to avoid those two words.

- I May Be Wrong, But: Besides the addition of that pesky word “but” (more on that below), starting a sentence with “I may be wrong” is like a first cousin to “if I’m being honest.” It shares that similar vibe of “I disagree with you and I need something to soften the blow, so I’ll throw you a bone that maybe I’m wrong and you’re right…but really we both know you’re wrong.” How you rephrase to avoid using it will depend on the situation, but “perhaps I can offer a different point of view” could work very well here also.

- You Need to Calm Down: When someone is agitated, telling them to calm down is more likely to trigger further agitation than make them calm. “You need to calm down” tries to appeal to their rational thinking. But agitation, anger, and frustration are emotions, and rational thinking is usually overshadowed by intense emotions. Try this instead. Ask “how can I help you calm down” or even just “how can I help you?” It shows you’re willing to help/listen, and it forces them to override their emotions and think about solutions.

- I Hear You: Chalk another one up to misuse. Somewhere in history, therapists and communication coaches suggested (and frankly, still suggest) that saying “I hear you” when someone is speaking signals that you’re listening. But – because we’re human and we can’t have nice things – this phrase has been so misused and overused that it’s actually devolved into a phrase that pretty much means someone is NOT listening, or at the very least is being dismissive of what we’re saying. It’s often a way for people to make a show of listening when really they don’t want to engage in whatever it is you’re saying. So, instead of saying “I hear you,” SHOW IT. Engage in the conversation with more than just pretense.

And finally, let’s talk about the peskiest word in the world of communication… BUT.

No word in the English language (and probably all other languages) triggers defensiveness faster than the word “but.”

“But” is a signal that negativity is about to follow:

Your presentation was great, but…
I was going to invite you to be on this team, but…
I loved your proposal, but…
That style looks pretty on you, but…

It’s possible to avoid using the word “but” in many circumstances. In some cases, just stop talking after the first phrase. You may WANT to add the negative phrase, but do you really NEED to add it? Are you really the person responsible for sharing that bit of negativity? And is that negative point fact or just your own opinion? Sometimes we offer opinions because WE want to, not because they need to be heard.

Another way to avoid using the word “but” is to choose your timing. You may very well have feedback to give on that presentation, and you might indeed be the appropriate person to deliver it. But does it REALLY need to be delivered in the same sentence as when you say the presentation was great?

My friend is a master at timing, particularly when it comes to her appropriate and selective use of the word “but.” Instead of saying stuff to her husband like “Those meatballs were great but next time use more cheese,” she says, “those meatballs were great” and then later, even days later, she says “I’ve been thinking about those delicious meatballs you made. Next time, can we try them with a little more cheese in the recipe and see what that does?”

It’s pretty brilliant. It shows her husband that she’s savoring them even days later, and that she loves his cooking enough to make requests and get him to experiment with recipes. She’s happy, he’s happy. No buts.

In some cases, the simple trick of replacing “but” with “and” is effective. Like, “your presentation was great and if you practice making more eye contact with the audience it will be even better!” See a few more of these “simply replace or drop the triggering word” tips here.

Overall, trigger phrases that sabotage effective communication are extremely common and frequently used. They’re phrases you hear – and likely use – all the time. But just because they’re used, it doesn’t mean they work. So, be aware of situations when you need to communicate effectively and try to avoid these phrases if you can. You’ll get a better result.

ChatGPT tips for tourism marketers.

February 13, 2023

Filed under: AI in Marketing, Public Relations, Digital Marketing, Website Strategies, Customer Service, Crisis Communications, Effective Presentations, Writing Tips, Marketing Strategies, This is Cool, Social Media, Effective Communication — @ 11:24 am

Here’s why tourism marketers need tips for using ChatGPT, an online program that engages in human-like dialogue based on a prompt: because we’re all too damn busy to waste time. And messing around with a new tool we’re not sure we’d even use feels a lot like wasting time. Is it worth it? Should you invest the time to get familiar with ChatGPT because that investment of time will pay off?

Short answer: yes. You need to know what this tool can REALLY do before you decide to embrace or reject it. It has some uses that may surprise you.

So let’s jumpstart your learning curve with some practical tips for how tourism marketers can explore the benefits of using ChatGPT.

First, let’s get one thing straight. ChatGPT is just a resource and a tool. You’ve got a lot of tools to help you do your job. Google is a tool. Adobe Illustrator is a tool. Semrush is a tool. But the relentless media frenzy around ChatGPT has given it near-mystical properties that make it seem more potent than that. Chill out, y’all. It’s just a tool. It’s one more resource in your toolbox to potentially help you do your job better, smarter, and faster.

And like all tools [she says sheepishly, aware that she barely knows how to use 5% of the available apps on her iPhone], its usefulness is only as powerful as your knowledge of how to harness it. I’ll never forget years ago when an accounting mentor said to me, “If you’re doing any manual calculations whatsoever or taking a long time to manipulate data in an Excel spreadsheet, then there’s a shortcut, command, or function you just don’t know about. Excel is designed to make life easier. If it’s making it harder, go learn more about Excel.”

ChatGPT is the same. When you first try it out, you won’t be savvy at knowing how to coax the most effective results from it. So you’ll plug in a few basic things and the outcomes will be unimpressive. And then, because you’re super busy and there’s no mandate that says you need to use ChatGPT, you’ll dismiss it as unhelpful and go back to the familiar tools in your toolbox.

But what if I told you that…

You could paste a particularly legalese-sounding section of a vendor contract into ChatGPT and say “explain this to me like I’m an 8^th grader”…and it does?

It could produce a style guide for all your team members to follow, after you feed it several samples of a brand’s voice to analyze?

It could take your 400-word bio and make it fit that directory listing’s 100-word requirement in just one click?

It could give you a substantive list of story ideas for your content calendar…and then organize them into a seasonal schedule…and then create first drafts of each piece of content, in different formats for social channels, blog posts, email newsletters…and even website copy that’s optimized for the keywords you require?

It can indeed do all those things and more…if you know how to prompt it effectively.

Janette Roush is Executive Vice President, Marketing and Digital, for NYC & Company, which is the official DMO/CVB for New York City. And she’s one of ChatGPT’s early adopters and passionate champions who is learning to master the “art of the prompt.”

“If you want to get ChatGPT to give you useful answers, the key is in how you formulate your prompt,” Roush told me. “I was once advised to think of it like an omniscient three-year-old. It knows everything under the sun, but it doesn’t know who YOU are, WHY you need to know, and WHO you’re trying to talk to. You need to prompt it with details like that for it to return a result that’s written in the context you need. Otherwise the result will be very generic and way less useful to your purpose.”

Roush has honed her prompting skills through persistent trial and error. In fact, she even documents her journey with ChatGPT on LinkedIn, making regular posts about prompts she’s tried for a wide variety of uses and the results they’ve produced. (Pro tip: Connect with or follow her there. You won’t regret it.)

Inspired by Roush, I took ChatGPT for a three-hour test drive one morning, just giving it prompts for various tourism-marketing-related things. One thing I quickly learned is that a generic prompt yields a generic answer and specific prompt yields a specific answer. Case in point: Look at how it adjusted its responses for social media captions based upon my specificity:

And it did the same thing as I sought its help to generate story ideas for Northern California:

Are those story ideas all perfect with no need for tweaking? Perhaps not. But did it give me threads to follow where before I had none? Absolutely. And some good ones too.

So, in addition to writing copy, one use of ChatGPT is to think of it like you would a sounding board. Or a brainstorming partner. It can’t ideate on its own (it’s not designed to innovate) but it can work with the prompts you give it to hit you back with starter threads.

Roush shared some spectacular direction on how to prompt ChatGPT as a sounding board in one of her recent LinkedIn posts:

You may be thinking “well, why can’t I just Google stuff like that instead of using ChatGPT?” And you can. But Google (“regular” Google, not the emerging Google Bard version that’s trying to infuse AI into its experience but not quite succeeding as of this writing) will give you a slew of different links for you to go explore and assimilate all the information on your own. And ChatGPT will just…answer you. Not with “here are ten sources you can read to find story ideas” or “here are ten sources to see how other destinations are making themselves an attractive esports destination.” It delivers YOUR story ideas, and tells you how YOUR destination can achieve an attractive esports destination profile.

And then – mind blown – you can direct it to actually WRITE that story about ice skating in Northern California or OUTLINE that strategic plan to develop esports tourism in NYC.

Again…will they be final drafts that need no tweaking? Absolutely not. They will be FIRST drafts, but if you’ve prompted with care, they’ll be pretty damn good first drafts.

And THAT saves you time, which is the whole point of using ChatGPT for marketing assistance.

But wait, you say. When I use Google as a resource tool, I can handpick from among sources on the results pages that I feel are legitimate and credible. Without such references, how do I know the information I’m getting from ChatGPT is accurate?

Folks, I remind you again that ChatGPT is not supposed to be a mystical tool that sees all and knows all. You’ll need to check your facts, just like you would using any other source. Do you really think that something is accurate just because you got it from a source on Google that you consider “credible?” News outlets get details wrong, websites have outdated information, and inaccurate stuff has a way of floating around and perpetuating online. So, ChatGPT is no more nor less credible than any other source you use. And you should do your due diligence on its output when necessary.

And while we’re at it, I should also remind you that most of the output you get from ChatGPT will need tweaking and polish. Even with the absolute best of prompting, there will still be nuances and phrasing you’ll need to infuse. So it can’t hurt to brush up on your writing skills, and these tips will help.

If you want to explore how ChatGPT can potentially help you with your tourism marketing needs but you’re not sure how to begin, Roush offers these four tips to get started:

Commit to a finite time period for practice. You won’t learn how to use any new tool unless you devote time to using it. Roush recommends setting a challenge to yourself, with some kind of accountability built into the period. Take two weeks or a month or whatever, during which you commit to prompting ChatGPT on at least one topic every day. “I challenged myself to post a new ChatGPT insight on LinkedIn every day for a month, and it forced me to think of that tool daily,” she says. “It didn’t come naturally to me at first, but after a while, as various needs arose throughout the day at work, I’d automatically say to myself ‘let me see how ChatGPT would handle that.’ And then I’d dive into prompting.”
Don’t think of it just for help with writing. With accurate prompting, ChatGPT is an excellent resource for organization, explanations, curation, and more. Roush says it’s helped her structure her lesson approach for her work as an Assistant Professor at Hunter College, and it’s helped flesh out her vacation itinerary in Montreal by finding cool things to do nearby to her already-planned stops. “I’ve also used it to help it explain things I don’t fully understand,” she says, “like when I understand 80% of a technical proposal and I want to understand 100% of it. I can ask ChatGPT to explain it to me in layman’s terms.”
Learn to become specific in how you prompt. You won’t be good at this right out of the gate. It takes time and practice to master the art of prompting. When Roush first dabbled in using ChatGPT, she – like most folks – prompted it with “silly things,” just trying out generic questions and commands, and receiving lackluster responses. “It wasn’t until I stumbled upon how to start being more specific that I began to see the possible uses of ChatGPT,” she says. “I had asked it to create an itinerary for my vacation in Montreal and it was pretty vanilla, just hitting all the major tourist sites. But when I fed it my existing itinerary and asked it to suggest enhancement additions using the right prompts for specificity, it really impressed me.”
Let ChatGPT create a style guide for you, so it learns to deliver responses in your own voice. Roush fed it around 40 of her previous LinkedIn posts and asked it to create a writing style guide for her… which it did shockingly well. Now she can instruct ChatGPT to use that guide when asking it to write stuff on her behalf. “It was surprising how well the style guide captured my voice,” she said. “If I had tried to analyze my own work and write up my own style guide, it would have taken forever and probably been less accurate.”

The bottom line is that the more you use it, the more uses you’ll discover for it. And with practice at the art of prompting, you can make ChatGPT something akin to a full-service virtual assistant who brainstorms, writes, organizes, and educates.

Or… not. You may end up hating it, but until you REALLY take it for a lengthy and diverse test drive, how will you ever know?

Related reading: Issac Asimov’s I, Robot. It was written in 1950 and well…here we are, folks.

Your belly button is an email marketing tool.

November 9, 2022

Filed under: Digital Marketing, The Power of Persuasion, Effective Communication — @ 4:01 pm

Wait… IS your belly button an email marketing tool? Damn right it is. Here’s why.

Consumers kinda suck, don’t they? They need to be rewarded for everything we want them to do…liking things, sharing things, buying things, answering things. It’s maddening.

Well marketers, we have no one to blame but ourselves. We’ve conditioned people to chase carrots and respond to hoopla…which means we’ve ALSO conditioned them to ignore stuff that’s boring, predictable, trite, and unrewarding. If you add in clutter from other sources, their willingness to focus on your boring stuff drops even lower.

Where does this leave email subject lines? At the top of your “spend brainpower here” list.

Think about it…all the time and energy you spend creating the perfect email content is 100% useless if people don’t open the email. And when sifting through their barrage of daily incoming emails, consumers use three main criteria to determine which ones will get their attention:

How much they care about you vs. how much they care about the rest of the senders sitting in their inbox.
How much time they have available when your email arrives.
Is the content going to be worth their time?

And #3 is why subject lines should get your brainpower. You have little or no control over #1 and #2.

If your email marketing subject lines are things like “August Newsletter” or “News from…” or even something a little more specific like “Winter Packages at…”… you are relying on the first two criteria (which – again – are beyond your control) to supply the magic “open sesame” of consumer response.

But if your subject line is something like…

Procrastination is fine. (From Pacifica Hotels)

I hate purple. (From Chilewich)

Stick Season – Have You Ever Experienced It? (From West Hill House B&B)

The ecosystem of your belly button. (From American Museum of Natural History)

Hydrangea Heaven at Chatham Bars Inn. (From Chatham Bars Inn)

Because our first shoe had to be perfect. (From Everlane)

Caution: Do not lick this email. (From Seamless)

…you’re using the subject line as a lure to snap desensitized recipients to attention. It’s likely that 80% or more of the emails they receive each day have boring subject lines. Make yours interesting and you’re one notch closer to seducing them into seeing your email content.

Here’s the best part. If you pay heed to #3 (teasing interesting content)…and then you actually ensure that the content IS interesting…over time, it’s going to positively impact #1 and #2. Remember: marketers train consumers. And the more you train them that your emails are interesting, the more that #1- they will care about you and your messages, and #2- no matter when your email arrives, they will make the time to read it.

It’s a delicious cycle of persuasive marketing goodness. And soon you will find that consumers – those picky, aloof, what’s-in-it-for-me monsters we marketers have created – will suck just a little bit less.

Tourism folks may not easily be able to use a belly button as an email marketing tool – although for years, we worked for Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Times Square and no body parts were off limits for marketing there – but the concept is the same. At the end of the day, it’s all about making your marketing more persuasive. And therefore, making all that precious time you spend creating content…worth it.

Four character traits that foster good timing in marketing.

September 20, 2022

Filed under: Public Relations, Digital Marketing, Crisis Communications, Marketing Strategies, Observations From the Field, Effective Communication — @ 12:58 pm

One of marketing’s most critical tentpoles is timing, and there are four character traits people (and businesses) should possess that can help foster good timing in marketing. You should know which of the four are your strengths and weaknesses, and then understand how each is impacting your marketing success.

Why? Because in marketing, you should play to your strengths. And if you want to execute the kind of marketing campaigns that aren’t a good match for your weaknesses, you’re going to waste time and money…guaranteed.

Do a little soul searching about yourself and your company’s traits and behaviors to see where you stand on these four essential character traits:

1. The Decisiveness to Act Quickly

For some marketing concepts, especially those tied to a trend or current events, you need to act NOW. The power of social media only heightens this urgency. Your window for success may only be 24 hours, and even launching something just two days later will fall flat and yield you zero ROI.

A fabulous recent example of this comes from startup coffee company Cometeer. When investment bank Goldman Sachs announced it was ending the free cold brew perk previously offered in its NYC HQ, Cometeer had a free coffee table set up right outside of the bank’s building just 16 hours after the announcement was made. Here’s how they made it happen. Had they done it even just a week later, the news value would have been too low to make it worthy of notice. It HAD to be linked in time to the announcement that the cold brew perk was being discontinued.

Tip: What if this is your weakness? Steer clear of marketing concepts and campaigns that will be a complete failure without tight, precision timing. You may want to do them oh-so-badly, but you’ll just be frustrated that they didn’t work as well for you as they did for other companies you envy. Years ago, on the day American Airlines announced it would now charge a $25 fee for checked baggage (an industry first at the time), we put our client Loews Hotels in the media spotlight by announcing ON THE SAME DAY that Loews would give a $25 credit to all incoming guests who flew American and checked a bag. That Loews Baggage Buy Back Program was in the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and more the moment we pitched it. Media wanted to share it in conjunction with news about the American Airlines fee. Had we pitched it a week later, the airline fee story would have been old news, and no one would have cared.

At the time, we had another hotel brand client who saw what we did for Loews and said, “we want an idea like that for us!” And it’s just not that simple. That was a client who took four weeks just to approve a simple weekend package press release. They would never be able to turn around such operational decisions across dozens of hotels (and approve the pitch copy) quickly enough to catch the news wave. So we’d be doing them a huge disservice and wasting their money if we forced them to try. A business that can’t make decisions quickly has more success with marketing concepts that have a nice long runway and lots of wiggle room for timing bottlenecks.

2. The Willpower to Wait

OK so maybe you’re awesome at making decisions and acting quickly, but sometimes good timing requires that you have the willpower to wait. Jumping the gun – before the facts are in, before the campaign is REALLY ready, before details are agreed – can not only tank your marketing ROI, but it can also cause you real harm. A few examples we’ve seen in our time as marketing and PR counselors:

A government official at a destination wouldn’t wait for talking points following a violent hate crime against a tourist. Instead, he insisted on speaking with the press immediately and gave his opinion on the situation without knowing the facts. Turns out, the facts belied his opinion in a BIG way, and the destination suffered immeasurably for it…not to mention the fact that they had to pay us a fortune in crisis management fees for damage control.
I can’t even count the number of times a hotel has pushed us (against our advice, I promise) to launch a package – through PR or an email blast or social post – BEFORE they’ve got all the details finalized on the website and BEFORE they’ve shared it with their reservation and front desk agents. They want to “get it out there and start selling,” but they don’t seem to get how much this harms them. When consumers want more information (or to book) and can’t make it happen, they get frustrated. So not only does the hotel NOT get the sale, now they’ve pissed people off.
I also recall a colleague being traumatized by the fact that she was “forced” to announce a huge brand partnership in the media and on social channels before the contract was finalized. The owners were trying to secure more hotel management deals and felt it would be a huge feather in their cap to have that cool partnership announced as they were engaging in other negotiations. When the partnership fell through before the deal even got signed, the harm to their image – and their business – was excessive under the circumstances. They earned an unwelcome gold medal in backpedaling, for sure.

Tip: What if this is your weakness? This one’s tough, because it’s psychological and personality driven. You need to be aware that it’s in your nature and admit to yourself that your impulsiveness can do your marketing great harm. In this case, you need to surround yourself with cool-headed sounding boards who can objectively rein you in when you’re about to go rogue. And then – sorry if this is super blunt, but I say it for your own good – you need the humility to listen to them.

3. The Resistance to Complicate Things

Lack of this resistance is definitely the most common weakness we see (when it comes to marketing), and often goes hand in hand with not being able to act decisively or quickly.

The more complicated you make something – too many goals for a single campaign, too many decision makers, too many layers in a concept – the harder it will be to nail successful timing. For some reason, it’s an incredibly common human trait to overcomplicate things. Part of it is time and resource poverty. Our resources are so precious that we try to force them to serve many masters at once.

But a HUGE part of it in the business world is the (often misguided) need to get multiple people involved in various projects and decisions. If I had a nickel for every time we were ready to launch a campaign for a client, and at the eleventh hour someone said “hey, let’s get Jeff’s opinion on this before we flip the switch.” Inevitably, Jeff has something to add that derails the timeline and – I’m sorry to say – is most often not helpful. But we made Jeff happy by looping him in so… Politics 1; Marketing Success 0.

There’s a principle called Brooks’ Law that was originally created to address communication challenges among software project teams. But it really applies to ANY type of team working and making decisions together, like a marketing team and its extended family (executives, operations, etc.). Visually, it shows lines of communication necessary for various team sizes, like this:

One of the four character traits that foster good timing in marketing, this diagram of Brooks' Law shows how larger teams require exponential lines of communication.

In associations, governments, and large companies, it’s not unusual to find a committee of 10 or more involved in projects and decisions. Do you see how complicated those visuals are? That’s an accurate reflection of the logistics required to get consensus. So it shouldn’t be a surprise that these types of organizations find it hard to achieve perfect timing…it’s just too darned complicated.

Tip: What if this is your weakness? There’s no easy fix for this one, other than to say steer clear of marketing concepts that require tight timing or “drop dead precision launch dates.” You may not be able to capitalize on current events or hot news topics, but you CAN give yourself a lengthy runway to get ducks in a row long before an important event will take place. See how we did this for the four provinces of Atlantic Canada, making a social media splash the moment the Canadian border opened during the pandemic.

4. The Discipline to Stay Abreast of the News

Marketing needs to sit well within the context of what’s going on in the world. Being oblivious to current events can have unfortunate timing consequences, from ill-timed insensitivities to launching a product/service you claim is “a first”…when it’s been done before.

A recent, cringeworthy example of this is when the television show Canada’s Drag Race tweeted “This crown is up for grabs” on the day Queen Elizabeth II died. Obviously, they meant the drag race crown, but ugh… the tweet was pummeled with criticism and had to be deleted. This is a helpful lesson that pre-scheduling social posts can be a useful tool, but unless you stay abreast of the news, it could backfire.

Redpoint nearly fell prey to this once with our popular tourism marketing newsletter Tickled Red. For the March 1, 2022 issue, the subject line was supposed to be “Bubblegum and Tombstones in Tourism.” Tombstones referred to the brilliant concept of Ben & Jerry’s Flavor Graveyard… but the issue’s timing was just after the war in Ukraine started and casualties were piling up. The newsletter draft was written before the war started, but we pulled that story (and the subject line) the day before it was scheduled to send. It was not the right time to be celebrating tombstones of any kind.

Tip: What if this is your weakness? If you’re not someone who immerses themselves in news every day, and you don’t have a marketing agency at your disposal to help stay abreast of news, here’s a quick fix for one-off marketing plans. Just before you’re about to launch something, hop on a social channel like Twitter or LinkedIn and see what news is trending. Also, do a search online for keywords related to your campaign or concept. A quick Google search will likely reveal anything glaring that may conflict with your plans. And then either make your changes accordingly…or have the willpower to wait (see #2 above).

If you’re scheduling social posts in advance, however, then it’s super risky for you to NOT stay abreast of the news. So if it’s not in your nature to keep up with current events, it’s best to just change your habits: either stop scheduling posts or start checking the news often.

Folks, the bottom line is…no one is perfect. You and/or your company may claim some of these character traits as weaknesses and there’s no shame in that. But you’ll have more success and achieve a greater ROI in marketing if you choose concepts that play to your strengths instead. It will make timing your friend and not your enemy. Reflect on these four character traits to see how well (or not) you foster good timing in marketing.

Want more tips on how to get the most out of marketing? Check out these 20 tips we assembled from our 20 years of experience as tourism marketing counselors.

Six cool examples of marketing.

September 19, 2022

Filed under: Marketing Strategies, Observations From the Field, This is Cool, Branding Strategies, Effective Communication — @ 12:16 pm

At Redpoint, we geek out over marketing success and recently, we’ve discovered these six cool examples of marketing worthy of applause.

Utterly Unexpected Trade Show Booth

When we were kids, those claw machines at arcades and amusement parks were irresistible. But as adults? Imagine BEING the claw, and swooping into a giant tank to grab as many prizes as you can. Hats off to Squishmallows for this standout trade show booth at VidCon, where fans waited in line for four hours just for their 20-second turn in the Human Claw Machine.

One of six cool examples in marketing, this image shows a trade show booth filled with Squishmallow stuffed animal toys and a person hanging above them ready to grab as many as possible.

Seriously Clever Video Ads

It’s quite reasonable to assume that not EVERYONE will be interested in watching The History Channel’s documentary series about the Roman Colosseum. But their marketing folks have produced a series of video ads that give it wider appeal and the best possible chance of luring in non-history buffs. Meet Gaius Falco, head groundskeeper of the Colosseum (by way of New Jersey?), in these two ads.

Brilliant Branding Concept

OK, we can’t even breathe because this concept is so absurdly PERFECT. Follow me on this: Heavy metal band Metallica has a famous song called All Within My Hands. In 2017, the band created a nonprofit organization called All Within My Hands Foundation. And one of its signature programs is the Metallica Scholars Initiative. This initiative partners with the American Association of Community Colleges to support scholarships and fund programs for students to learn trades working with their hands, such as welding, electrical engineering, HVAC, construction, and more. The program supports 32 community colleges across 27 states. We’re talking millions of dollars in funding here. BRAVO, both for the initiative and the sheer branding brilliance.

One of six cool examples in marketing, this logo for the Metallica All Within My Hands Foundation shows a light blue hand with a keyhole and guitar neck.

Most Relatable Billboard (possibly of all time)

Score one for “good old fashioned” Timex, who managed – with just ten simple words and a photo – to instantly communicate how their product provides a solution to one of the most popular, gut-wrenching problems on the planet.

One of six cool examples in marketing, this Timex billboard shows a picture of a watch and the caption "check the time without seeing you have 1,269 unanswered emails."

Smart…but Creepy?…Product Launch

This product came out a few years ago, but we just stumbled across it recently. The Shelves of Life product is a bookshelf that can be repurposed into a coffin, so you can be buried in it when you die. Wait…what? Indeed, this is true and it can be purchased, and it comes with visual instructions and diagrams for making the shelf-to-coffin transformation. More about it here, and more about the designer, William Warren, here.

One of six cool marketing examples, this set of bookshelves can be transformed into a coffin when the owner dies.

Video Storytelling That Steals Your Heart

Bravissima, Barilla! This video tells a story about Izyan Ahmad (“Zizou”), a young tennis player who had a dream of playing against Roger Federer when he was 11 years old. Watch what happened five years later.

And in addition to these six cool examples of marketing, here’s one of our throwback faves. When the baker hired Simone, it started a seriously cool chain reaction.

Save time with the proper use of the email cc.

June 20, 2022

Filed under: Writing Tips, Effective Communication — @ 1:36 pm

A meme poking fun at excessive "reply all" responses, as a lesson in how to save time with the proper use of the email cc.

Proper use of the email cc can save you tons of time and aggravation. It’s a useful tool, but its power has been diluted by misuse in the workplace. Here’s how to redefine your relationship with the email cc and give your productivity a boost. The tips below will help.

First of all, why should you care about this? An email cc seems like such an insignificant thing in the wide landscape of productivity and time management techniques. And yet, proper use can:

Reduce unnecessary inbox clutter.
Reduce concentration distractions.
Free up mental bandwidth for other things.

It may seem like taming cc habits will only save you a few minutes a day, but in reality it’s more than that. If you cc or get cc’d a lot – and I’m affectionately looking at you, tourism organizations, with your 74+ “necessary” stakeholders who regularly share information – you could face unnecessary distractions of 30-60 minutes a day. You need to get that time back. Just think about how many times someone has “replied all” just to say “OK!” or “Thanks!”…and you stopped what you were doing to read it.

Most of us have lost our way on the original intent of the cc: it’s simply an efficient, passive way to inform people who are tangentially involved in the subject, without having to take an extra step. (Note for all you young folk: “cc” stands for “carbon copy,” which originates from the pre-computer days. We had to type things on a typewriter and could put a piece of carbon between two sheets of paper to make a second copy simultaneously as we typed. Ah, the Dark Ages.)

However, the email cc isn’t always used solely for its simple, original intent. Today, it can be a ridiculously complex concept fraught with psychological nuances, like being weaponized to prove a point, annoy, intimidate, or – yikes – tattle on others.

Tame the aggravation tail whip caused by email cc’s with these five practical tips:

If you require a response from someone, they go in the “to” field. This is super important. Don’t put these folks in the cc field because it creates ambiguity and dilutes the accountability of who should respond.
Anyone you don’t require a response from, they go in the “cc” field.
If you’re cc’ing a bunch of people and you want to prevent unnecessary responses from them (because perhaps THEY don’t realize that when you cc someone, they’re not required to respond), lead with some version of “Those cc’d here, this is just an FYI. No need to respond.”
If you’re often cc’d on emails that are unnecessary, respond only to the sender and say some version of “thanks for keeping me in the loop but I don’t need to be cc’d because (this).” “This” being the reason why… like you don’t need the play-by-play as it unfolds, you just need the punchline. Or that topic isn’t really a focus on your radar.
Sometimes, a more effective way to share your information with those tangentially involved is to send the original email without a cc, and then forward it with a message to the tangential folks. Psychologically, it can take the burden off them of feeling like they need to respond “because everyone’s watching.”

These tips will definitely help you save time and regain the proper use of the email cc. But you can’t control how others tend to approach being a cc sender or recipient in their own lives. So giving clear direction on whether or not they should respond to you – and when you personally should/shouldn’t be cc’d – will significantly streamline communications and cut down on YOUR email waste.

Yes, these seem like small things, but they actually add up to have an impact on your time.

It’s funny… we rarely think about how or why we use such long-standing digital communication tools like the email cc. We often just use them out of habit, without deliberate purpose. And so things become unwieldy and messy and we just keep allowing it to happen. For other tips on digital communication bloopers that may be sabotaging your effectiveness, productivity, or success, check out this excellent book Digital Etiquette: The Future of Good Manners.

And – cc’ing aside – to improve the quality of your emails overall, check out these five opening lines that sabotage your email’s success. Number one? “I hope you are well.”

How an understaffed tourism operation can avoid disappointing guests.

May 23, 2022

Filed under: Customer Service, Effective Communication — @ 9:18 am

A picture that shows the legs of people waiting in a long line, which is something understaffed tourism operations need to avoid to prevent disappointing guests.

Is this going to be the line at your check-in desk this summer?

How can an understaffed tourism operation avoid disappointing its guests? This is the challenge facing the tourism industry right now, especially with the busy summer season approaching. Hotels, airlines, attractions, tour companies, destinations, restaurants and more… all are bracing for a hot mess of substandard guest service this summer.

This timing is unfortunate, though. It’s a cruel joke by the travel gods to plague the industry with unprecedented staffing issues just when travelers are coming back in droves. They’re eager to shed the restrictive chains that have bound them for the past two years. They want MORE – freedom, choices, amenities, pampering – while you’re trying to figure out how to even deliver your bare minimum experience with LESS.

Sadly, this is a recipe for disappointment. And negative reviews. And social media complaints that need to be managed.

There’s no magic bullet to solve this. Sure you can offer pay that’s double (or more) what everyone else is paying. But that will obliterate your bottom line (and set a risky precedent), so it’s not a reasonable solution.

But you can’t just pull the covers over your head and let chaos take its course. Be proactive with these three tips that will help an understaffed tourism operation avoid disappointing its guests:

Training & Communication

I was in line at the pharmacy recently and the line behind me was growing at an alarming rate while the sole staff person worked with a customer on a tangled issue. She never looked at the line and never said a word to us. I could feel the fuming and resentment building behind me and hear the muttered complaints and huffy breaths. After 20 minutes, it felt like there was going to be a mutiny.

All she had to do was look up and smile every once in a while and say “Folks, I’m so sorry for the wait but I’m the only one here today and I need to give each one of you the attention you deserve when it’s your turn. Thanks for your patience.” That would have diffused 90% of the frustration.

The moral here is… train your people to diffuse frustration. Don’t leave them unprepared to handle difficult guests or situations. Your team should be fully aware of how challenging this summer is likely to be, and you can’t send them into this battle unarmed. They need clear and practical training for handling complaints, lack of service/amenity availability, slow service, supply chain issues, and more. Help them to not fear it and not ignore it. Give them the communication tools they need to address these situations before they become irreversible nightmares for you. And reward them when they deliver.

Sweeten Pain Points

Ski resorts plagued with unavoidably long lift times on peak days often provide entertainment, hot cocoa, and other fun distractions to make the wait more bearable for skiers. This is precisely the concept you need to deploy this summer.

Based on your staffing shortages, you’re likely able to predict where the trouble spots will be and when they’ll occur. Have a plan ready. True, in some cases (like the ski resort example) you might need to devote a staffer (from the already depleted team) to implement the plan, but focusing that precious resource to the challenge is a smart strategy. Stunting frustration before it can build will enable guests to be forgiving in other areas where you have less control. Otherwise frustrations just keep mounting until diffusing them is impossible.

So whether it’s surprising guests with a refreshment cart during long lines, giving a discount or complimentary item for slow room or table service, or providing entertainment where none was expected, be proactive. Have solutions and plans ready to go. And empower your staff – with training and guidelines – to address such problems on the spot.

Choose Where to Make an Impression

I vividly remember the time (pre-COVID) when I was at the Wequassett Resort & Golf Club on Cape Cod two weeks after Labor Day. Knowing that such resorts often employ high school and college kids during the summer – and now they were back at school – I was prepared for moderate service levels. Imagine my surprise when a staffer made the rounds at the pool to polish guests’ sunglasses! That was completely unexpected and impressed the hell out of me.

This season, hospitality operations need to apply a critical lens to the services and amenities they usually offer and say, “What guest touchpoints make the biggest impression and how can we protect them at all costs? Or at the very least, modify them so they STILL make an impression without fumbling?” If you can’t do everything, don’t bother trying or you’ll just do everything poorly. Better to choose some things that get your full attention and do them flawlessly.

This means your entire staff needs to understand where the priorities are, so everyone knows where corners can’t be cut. So once again, clear and direct communication with your staff is essential.

The bottom line is that there’s no simple way to solve this problem. It’s not easy for understaffed tourism operations to avoid disappointing guests. But proactively addressing the situation with a plan and training your staff to be prepared will help mitigate the damage. It might even win you some loyal guest ambassadors.

And by the way, the solutions don’t always have to cost money or require a full staff. These 10 Unexpected (and Fabulous) Tourism Guest Service Stories will give you some inspiration.

What’s the best way to reengage email subscribers?

April 4, 2022

Filed under: Digital Marketing, Effective Communication, Uncategorized — @ 10:01 am

If a segment of your subscribers isn’t EVER opening your emails, it’s time to get them to reengage or…what? You’ll kick them off the list? A strong ultimatum (see below) can indeed be one of the best ways to inspire reengagement among email subscribers.

But lordy, that sounds harsh. And on the surface, it also seems like it would hurt YOU more than it would hurt them. They clearly won’t miss you, but your list size decreases. Shouldn’t your goal always be to make your list as big as possible?

No, actually. It shouldn’t. Your goal should be to have a healthy list with as many engaged subscribers as possible. Subscribers who never open your email – for whatever reason – are hurting your overall email program’s success.

That’s not just my opinion…it’s a fact. If you’re skeptical of that fact, then before proceeding down to the real purpose of this article, pop over and read this article from HubSpot. They do a brilliant job of explaining why you should prune your email list regularly and the steps to make that happen.

But that’s not why we’re here. We already KNOW that you should prune your list. The question is…what’s the best way to reengage email subscribers before you take the drastic step of booting them from your list?

When faced with that challenge, you have one laser-focused goal at hand: getting folks who always ignore your emails to open just ONE of them. This will determine their fate. If they open it (or them, if you’re doing a reengagement series), they stay. If they don’t, they go.

If your emails are not being opened because they’re going to spam and subscribers just never see them, ultimately those subscribers should be removed from your list. Any reengagement email you send will also go to their spam, so no matter how provocative or seductive your bait, they won’t bite. Cut them loose.

But the rest of the never-openers? THAT’S the high-potential pond where your bait matters. These folks signed up for your email at some point, but they’ve become apathetic toward you: not disenchanted enough to unsubscribe, but not interested enough to open anything you send. They’re in “engagement limbo.” And if you can jolt them into opening just one email, you instantly increase your list’s health AND inspire them to care about you again.

So here’s the million dollar question: how can you successfully deliver that jolt?

Grabbing the attention of these apathetic recipients relies exclusively on the email’s subject line. It’s the only tool you have to influence their behavior in these circumstances. If the subject line doesn’t grab them enough to open it, the email’s content doesn’t matter.

Reengagement subject lines (and their corresponding body content) generally fall into one of three categories: gentle nudge, rewarding lure, or strong ultimatum. Which one/s you should use (or whether you should combine them as a series) depends on your brand’s personality, the transactional nature of your business relationships, and how determined you are to stringently prune your list.

Gentle Nudge

This is some version of “we miss you, where have you been?” It’s a subtle tactic with no hard bite, but it could work with subscribers who are only mildly apathetic. You could give this tactic a better chance by personalizing the subject line: “Joan, we miss you…where have you been?” The content in the email body may or may not contain additional lures/rewards to inspire clicks (a special discount, time-sensitive offer, etc.). But the overall vibe of this approach is soft and subtle, gently reminding them that they once pursued an email relationship with you and why they should stay in that relationship. It’s often used as the first volley in series of reengagement tactics. If they respond to this, there’s no need to pursue them with further measures.

Rewarding Lure

This is some version of “bribing” subscribers to reengage. That sounds severe (and desperate, if we’re being honest), but engaged email subscribers are precious marketing assets. It’s perfectly reasonable for you to trade something in exchange for wooing them back to caring. Plus, if you give them a special offer (discount, value-add, etc.) that inspires a purchase, that’s revenue you wouldn’t have had anyway because they were previously ignoring you.

This lure has to be meaningful enough to matter, or the subject line won’t grab them. So if you send 20% off specials to your general list all the time, this one-time offer to spark their reengagement must be significantly more appealing than that. Again, personalization matters here to help cut through their desensitization. “Victor, here’s 50% off just for you until (deadline).” Don’t get hung up on the use of 50% in that example. The point is to make the offer exclusive and ultra-special, beyond the types of offers you usually share. Free stuff, exclusive access to something, special perks and more…all can inspire that holy grail behavior you’re seeking here: open that email.

Strong Ultimatum

This one’s not for the faint-hearted marketer, but it can be incredibly effective. Here, you essentially threaten to remove them from the list by giving them one last chance to show you they want to stay. You want to deliver a shocking jolt? Human nature compels people to want what they can’t have. So telling them they’re being removed from the list unless they deliberately request to stay is bound to grab their attention. This tactic is the most direct and yields the most definitive action.

But be prepared, because this tactic comes with risk. If not done with situationally-appropriate grace, you risk sparking a negative reaction/perception of your brand…whether or not they choose to stay on your list. No one loves being threatened, so while you may get the initial result you want (they stay), you may have some branding repair work to do there. Their affection for you may have taken a hit.

Ironically, a helpful “real life” example of this comes from HubSpot, the same folks referenced above for their brilliant explanation of how/when/why to prune email lists. The irony is that the tactic worked, but it left a bad taste in my mouth.

I’ve been on HubSpot’s daily email list for ages and hadn’t opened one in a while. One day, I got an email from them with this subject line:

“We’re signing off. Here’s why…”

Of course I opened that immediately because I thought they were closing up shop (as I’m sure they intended). Turns out, when I opened it… they were threatening to break up with ME because I haven’t been opening their emails:

a copy of an email that shows the best way to reengage email subscribers

Now, I’m a marketer and this was a marketing newsletter from a marketing company. So I get why they did this and don’t begrudge them the tactic. They got their “open” from me, and that was the primary goal.

But I have to admit…despite that allowance for marketing kumbaya, the email’s execution just rubbed me the wrong way. Telling me that “my subscription habits are bigger than my capacity for reading everything” is rather obnoxious. It seems to be accusing me of poor time management skills. Like it’s my fault for not being able to keep up with reading their emails…not their fault for sending emails whose subject lines don’t pique my interest enough to open them.

The rest of the approach in the email body is on point. There are plenty of lures in there to catch my attention, and a nice big button that says “Re-Subscribe,” which is another emotional tactic designed to move me to action. It’s as if I’ve already been booted from the list, and now I need to proactively do something to get back on it. (Hilariously, this wasn’t true because I didn’t click on anything and still kept getting their emails. Yet another thing that annoyed me – the empty threat.)

The point is…be careful how you approach the strong ultimatum tactic. This is especially true if you’re in the hospitality business. Threatening to kick someone off an email list because they haven’t engaged with you in a while can come across as VERY inhospitable, no matter how gracefully you word it.

Overall bottom line: quality over quantity is always the best pursuit with email subscribers…and indeed with most marketing efforts. For another highly illustrative example of this, check out the time we had to break up with Google because it was sending TOO MUCH traffic to our website.