Everyone can follow the clearly marked path to Nirvana

If you point to the place where everyone wants to be, do you think they will go there? At the very least, some folks will check out the path you are directing them towards, some will follow it, and some will just ignore it and find their own way. But one thing is for certain, if you are absolutely sure of the path to Nirvana, and you can show people that path, quite a few will follow you there.

This should be the driving philosophy behind email.  I'm sure you've received plenty of emails in your lifetime from folks who want to sell you something. I know I have. But so many of those emails have so much stuff in them that I start to zone out, feel a headache coming on, and then hit the delete button.

The problem with those emails is that they're crowded, with a hundred different fingers pointing in a hundred different directions.  Some of the big box retail companies send out perfect examples of these. They've got lots of departments that have lots of deals, and they try to put them all in one place. I wonder what would happen if they focused their interest groups into segments, and then sent out more targeted deals?

If you're a small or medium sized business, you likely don't have as much variety of stuff to sell. If you've managed to collect an email address list from your website, then your interest group is already defined. You've got your segment, now you just need to follow up.

That idea about pointing down the path to Nirvana? Well, that still stands. Check out this email from MaggieMudd. There's nothing on there but a giant red button that says "deal" on it. Obviously, it's a call to action and it makes a nice promise. Now, here's the proof: This email, used multiple times for different campaigns, scored a high of 10.03% click-through. The lowest, 5.99%. This is a conservative measure, as the rate is calculated on the number of emails sent, not opened, compared to the number of emails clicked on.

The results speak for themselves. Which really tells us something. Simplicity is good. A realistic promise is nice. And having an email address list of people who are already interested in your business goes a long way towards increasing sales. People don't have time to sort through stuff. As one of my sales colleagues once told me, and I'll never forget it, as a business you've got to "lift your skirt and show your goods."