Lessons in Marketing from Publishers Clearing House
You know Publisher’s Clearing House right? They’re the ones who can show up at your door with balloons and flowers and a big ‘ol $10,000,000 check (at least that’s what you see on TV).
Remember how they used to send that thick packet of endless paperwork through the mail? You’d have to sift through magazine offers, “official looking” letters stating that you may be a finalist and then spend a half an hour affixing stamps to little boxes that told them whether or not you’d like a lump-sum check or an annuity if you won the grand prize.
They, like most companies have moved online and if you ever wanted a big lesson in marketing, it’s worthwhile to subscribe to their “updates”. They have to the best in the business when it comes to getting you to take action – not only in the subject lines of their emails, but in the way that they word the email itself, all the way through the process of upselling you on dirt-cheap offers once you’ve clicked a link and moved onto their website.
Here are just some of the subject lines that they use:
- (First Name), Review At Once!
- (First Name), next steps…
- (Last Name), Beneficiary Claim Information!
- Failure to open could cost you $1 million this (date)
- Not Opened! (First Name), find out now!
- Issued. (Last Name) Passport to Lifetime Prize Eligibility.
- (Last Name), Winner Selection Range Notice!
- VERIFIED! Winner Selection Authorized!
Notice how none of these subjects actually promise anything but get you curious enough to open the email itself. Which, after all, is the whole point of a good subject line.
Once opened, most of the contents are in HTML so that they can include flashy graphics and the like. Here are some samples of opening text in these same emails:
- Will the Prize Patrol arrive at the (last name) residence?
- (Last Name) Access Pass Issued for $1,000 A Day for Life Prize eligibility!
- (First Name) as the Rightful Owner of a unique SuperPrize Number…
- WARNING! (first name), $1,000,000.000 (date) SuperPrize at Stake!
- Over (number) people from (state) have already won! You could be next!
- Five Thousand Dollars a Week for Life at stake. (FIRST NAME), Review at Once.
- Forthcoming (last name) SuperPrize number eligible to be selected as a winner!
- (first name), $5,000.00 a Week for Life is at stake!
In almost all cases they use your first name, last name or State in which you reside in order to get your attention. They also use phrases like “rightful owner”, “you could be next”, “review at once”, or “at stake”.
Within the content they usually let you know that your going to miss out if you don’t take some kind of action today and while the law prohibits them from requiring you to purchase one of the products they offer you, you’ll still have to go through the entire process of viewing the products they have and then choosing a very large “Next” button at the bottom of the offers in order to move on.
Even if you don’t have any interest at all in the “Prize Patrol” showing up at your door, it’s worthwhile to subscribe to their updates just to see how they’re marketing to you and the process that they take you through in order to do so.
Use Your Auto Responder to Get Personal With Your Subscribers and Improve your Response Rates in the Process
In business, one of the most complimentary things you can do is use somebody’s name either in a discussion with them or, more importantly where internet business is concerned, within an email.
People like to know that they’re not just some anonymous face to you or some random number. And apart from giving them a call up in person and having a discussion with them, the next best thing that we are able to do is use their own name when speaking to them; even if it is just virtually.
Just consider this for a second. Have you ever walked into a store and actually been addressed by your own name? If this is a store you visit frequently, this likely has happened to you and you most likely were impressed by the owner’s capability to remember who you were; it made you feel like a person and not just another customer.
It makes a world of difference in the off-line world. It shows that the store that you frequent actually cares about you enough to remember your name. And it’s likely that this personalization brings this business more clients than they ever believed possible simply because they remembered who you were.
Online however, it isn’t as easy. We don’t get to see people face to face on a continuous basis. Sometimes we can create videos for customers but it’s just a one-way street. They can see us, but we’re not able to see them.
They hear from us when we send them emails, but this is normally never a two-way conversation.
But, this being the case, we can help a little bit by personalizing the emails that we do send to our subscribers.
Many auto-responders today let you personalize your emails with the subscribers name. Aweber is just one of those auto-responder programs.
As a matter of fact, you can add all sorts of customization to your email that contains details related specifically to every subscriber.
This works because once the subscriber signed up to your list, their name was typed into a special field that the auto-responder company knows directly corresponds with their first name, last name, or both.
And you can make use of this information to show your subscribers that you truly care and that you don’t just consider them “another prospect” or just another number on your subscriber list.
Since a person’s name is so important to them, whenever you do send emails to your list, make sure that you add this name to the subject field of the e-mail they get.
Not only will this get that e-mail noticed more than just a normal subject line would, but it also shows that you care enough to make it personal to them.
And all you should do is to insert the customization code that your auto-responder company provides you with and they’ll take it from there by automatically filling in that person’s name wherever you’ve inserted that code.
As a matter of fact, research has shown that including that tiny bit of customization to your mail messages will not only increase your response rate, but that the e-mail will probably be opened more frequently. Furthermore, those who see their names often within an email message are usually more open to the message included inside of that email.
All this customization however, can’t begin unless the form that the subscriber initially used to sign up with contains a field where the person can enter their name. Most auto-responder companies add this by default but if yours does not, you’ll need to be sure it does get added to your form. Otherwise you won’t have the ability to personalize any emails whatsoever.
Overall, using somebody’s name even if it is merely within an email can increase your response rates and even improve how somebody thinks of you and the services or products you provide.
