Jay Jennings is an internet marketing guy who sells a lot of products to folks who do internet
marketing. I like him because he’s an ‘alt’ kind of a guy who doesn’t quite look what you’d expect an internet (or any other type of) marketing guy to look like – beginning with the mohawk…
Anyway, I’ve never really bought anything from him but I like his approach and, who knows, maybe someday. Recently, however, I got an email from him that I think provides some valuable lessons learned for all of us who choose to use the internet to market our stuff. It falls under the lemons to lemonade heading in our product marketing file cabinet.
I opened it because of the subject line: “Why I Decided To Quit Internet Marketing”. Having followed Jay’s communications for years of course I had to open his email.
Lesson 1: Create compelling subject lines! This was pretty compelling. And his sparse copy pulled me in. I even like the PS that said don’t worry about the sales lettery part below the video.
Well I read the message and I was hooked. I had to view the video that his message invited me to view. And here’s the lemons–>lemonade part. He produced the video because basically he failed to test a message he’d sent out previously. Since it wasn’t tested, he didn’t realize that his shopping cart link had been hijacked and, as a result, he got no orders from a 4,500 piece e-mailing. Not realizing that it wasn’t the offer that was bad but the link, he assumed the worst. That unlike Sally Fields, you didn’t like him, and what the hell, he didn’t need this abuse and he’d just go back to being a janitor. Honest work, in other words.
Lesson 2: Test. I always test everything and I tell my clients to do the same. I’m not talking about A/B testing here. Yeah, you need to do that to but I’m talking about testing the technology. Does the email you’ve constructed on your desktop, when sent, look the same on Sam AOL’s desktop, Henry Hotmail’s desktop and Oscar Outlook’s desktop? Do your links work? Does your cart work? If you’re driving subscribers to a landing page does that page render the same in Internet Explorer 7 as in IE 6 or Firefox? Do your embedded video’s play correctly, etc. So yeah, test the subject line, offer, price, etc. but make sure that your audience gets the chance to react to your subject line, offer & price by testing the technology as well!
Well Jay, almost inadvertently, discovered that his message – and any potential sales – had gone astray. So what did he do? He started squeezing those lemons and, in the process, made a tasty pitcher of internet marketer’s lemonade. Um mm. Tastes good and so filling … for his wallet. So what’s the final lesson?
Lesson 3: Persist. Like the saying goes, “If at first you don’t succeed; try, try again.” So Jay’s initial effort to market this particular product blew up. Out of its ashes he created an even better marketing campaign. Why was it better? Because now it had a story and a better hook to hang it on.
So I’ll end with Lesson 4: Tell a Story. A couple of my clients are well known motivational speakers. The key to their ability to command tens of thousands of dollars for an hours worth of work? Their mastery of story. Stories define us. Stories bring us together. Stories motivate us to take action. Jay, like any good marketer, transformed a, most likely, unremarkable initial effort into a compelling story. Tell us another one, Jay!
I’ve now seen 2 email marketing authorities in the last 2 days cite 2 case studies saying that the best time to send your email marketing missives is on Tuesday. 
best advantage:
