Email Success: Best Practices VS. Fail
The other week, I (finally) got an email from a band that I like these days- The Temper Trap.
The little chart on the left from Marketing Sherpa shows that back in 2001 you could pretty much send a crappy email out and it would work – meaning people would click on your links and buy stuff. That’s the red line. Crap emails are becoming less and less effective and every year the gap widens because sending a good email is still working.
Below is the email The Temper Trap sent out. Now is it me, or does it sound like this was either written by the marketing team, or that the band thinks it should sound like a marketing guy when they write it?
This email doesn’t fall into best practices – it’s not quite spam but to me it’s worse than not following best practices because it is pretending to be a best practice email when all it is doing is pushing the band’s needs over what’s in it for the fans.
Exhibit A – Email Fail:
Hey guys!
Wow what a couple of weeks! Just got back from Japan where we played the Summer Sonic festival. It was truly amazing. Thank you to all those who have been coming down to our shows and festivals this summer. Been one of the best summers of our lives!
So as some of you will have seen we released Conditions in the UK on Monday 10th August. It looks like alot of you have already brought it – thanks! We really appreciate your support. For those of who haven’t it would be really cool if you guys could check it out, then drop by our forum and tell us what you think.
We’re hitting the road in September on a pretty cool headline tour, so looking forward to seeing you all down there! Dates and ticket info is up on our site and our myspace.
Peas TTT
Here is what I think may have been going on in their marketing head(s).
1. Use plain text because if the email has graphics and stuff people will KNOW this didn’t come from the band.
2. We’ll say something cool at the beginning like “hey guys” and “wow.”
3. We’ll use a really passive voice to push the album “it would be really cool if you guys could check it out”
4. Peas ?
Please. Don’t let your band send an email like this and don’t do this to your band if you are their marketing team.
This email totally lacks a convincing voice. Throwing in a few words like wow, cool and totally does not make me feel like this came from the band or came from a band that actually cares about me or their fans.
Here is what I would do to make this email sing:
1. Get Multi-media – or at least give some juicy details in that first paragraph.
Why is there no video to that amazing show in Japan? How bout a link? How about some details? Did the bass player eat sushi for the first time? Did the audience sing along with a Japanese accent? I’m sure it was a cool for the band but saying it was cool doesn’t convince me at all.
Thank you for coming to the shows eh? Why because it is keeping you on the road? Good for you then. I’m working my ass off, you all are having fun on tour. Your life rules, and ours don’t.
But that’s totally not true! Your fans had a BLAST at your shows! I know because I went to one and it was one of the best shows I’ve seen this year at Spaceland in LA.
Here is where your Flickr account comes in handy. Why not invite everyone who had fun at your show to post a photo to your Flickr pool–and then tweet about it? Start the conversation by posting your own photos and put a link to the page/post on your site (your site does have wordpress right?) that has the Flickr gallery widget. That way fans can also leave comments or re-tweet the link.
2. Be honest and just push the album but think about WIIFM (What’s In It For Me, your audience)
“Then – as some of you will have seen”
??? My god band! If that’s not one of the world’s worst attempts at trying to sound like you are not pushing an album when you totally are pushing the album.
It would be so much better to just be honest:
We put our album out in August. We worked so hard on it – spent every penny of our life savings on it and even ate beans for three months. Because as artists that is what we do. We are humbled that people like it. That you signed up to get emails from us. It makes us want to make another album! We made one song free — if you are a fan then spread this link to your friends so they can get the free song too.
If you are a huge fan then buy the record. We have special surprises for the people that are supporting us. The more people that support us, the better the surprises will be as we’ll have more money to do fun things for you for free. Deal?
3. Bring on the community!
They try and sneak in a call to action/link to the forum is another blatant push with no WIIFM.
“then drop by our forum and tell us what you think.”
Why should I post in the forum and spend my time telling you what I think? Is there any one in there? Does posting in your forum just make you feel cool? A place for you to receive worship from us the fans?
Here is how you could have made that invitation exciting:
We opened a forum and it’s just getting started. If you are one of the brave people out there and post first we just might ask to camp out in your house when we come to town. Ok maybe not, but we really do care what you have to say if you want to say anything. The forum is the one place we promise to check all the time and be active in.
The myspace, facebook and twitter are geared up to keep everyone up to date with information, but the forum is sacred, moderated by us and we do talk to whoever wants to talk to us there. I bet you can also find a friend and maybe even a free ride to a show in the forums. We’ll see you there!
4. Now the dead horse is beaten. Push your tour with…WIIFM.
OK – last paragraph. The band is on tour and headlining. Cool? for the band yes. For us? Why is that cool for us? I think the band wants us to check out the tour dates so we can make sure their booking agent doesn’t lose her job when the band headlines in less than full venues.
Temper Trap!! You guys totally rule and I know I’m being overly harsh on your email here.
I am actually stoked to see you’ve made it this far and are going to the headlining spot. Here is my take on that last one:
You beautiful fans! Singing along with you, partying with you and a solid slog by the band has finally paid off! You can now show up a little later and get your disco nap on. We’re going to be headlining this time around- we could not have done it without you, and we promise to rock you even harder as we headline a tour for the first time. No flashpots and Stonehendge flying in from the ceiling (yet) but we promise a few new songs for you to hear and you know we’ll play all the ones we love to sing with you. We’ve also set up info on the tour dates page with venue info – ticket info and stuff to make your night awesome like parking secrets, good places to get your pre-show beer and so on.
When time permits we also TWEET UP and have exclusive SOUND CHECK sessions – you need to follow us on TWITTER to catch one though.
That would be a long email no?
I’ve hammed up my examples to illustrate the point. But adding in even toned down WIIFM would have made a longer email than what was sent. I’d say this email could have been two different emails, or even one email and a few blog posts to the Temper Trap’s site/forum/Facebook and Myspace.
OK? OK!
But honestly even a really long email from the band (or from the marketing team being honest that it is the marketing team writing) would be OK to me because I’m a fan.
What is not OK is an email like this that tries to pretend to care about me but totally does not communicate it. Instead this email is a thinly veiled attempt to push the record and tour dates.
The Temper Trap – you are a great band live and on record. Your marketing could be as good as your music if you took the time to care about your fans the way they care about you.
Sorry to be so blunt but my job is to help bands market better.
