https://damonremitchell.com Damon Re Mitchell | email copysolutionist Wed, 08 Feb 2023 18:25:10 +0000 https://damonremitchell.com en https://damonremitchell.com/Side-redirect-message Wed, 08 Feb 2023 18:25:10 +0000 Damon Re Mitchell | email copysolutionist https://damonremitchell.com/Side-redirect-message Hi, it’s Damon. Sorry to report, but I’ve turned in my copywriting pen to become a coach. You’re about to be redirected to my coaching site. If you want to talk to me anyway, you can reach me through that portal or my LinkedIn profile. Thanks for checking in on me! -Damon<img width="3334" height="1972" width_o="3334" height_o="1972" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/da0f8242bb6d327ce614d4d46300a0844123b871cdc50d52ffecc22a4f5267ed/Damon-Almighty-Screenshot.png" data-mid="167756895" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/da0f8242bb6d327ce614d4d46300a0844123b871cdc50d52ffecc22a4f5267ed/Damon-Almighty-Screenshot.png" /> https://damonremitchell.com/Blog Tue, 18 Jan 2022 20:04:49 +0000 Damon Re Mitchell | email copysolutionist https://damonremitchell.com/Blog <img width="600" height="600" width_o="600" height_o="600" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/6be7d76a727114f3c0dacec4bde10e54be4ee3250ec3439a167b6c37fe29bb8b/IMG_5604.jpeg" data-mid="130653220" border="0" data-scale="100" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/600/i/6be7d76a727114f3c0dacec4bde10e54be4ee3250ec3439a167b6c37fe29bb8b/IMG_5604.jpeg" /> Ooh! You’ve found my secret cache of email marketing hacks for intellectual elites. Fine. It’s... My Blog.This is where I perform detailed teardowns of email sequences sent to me by various brands, and where I scribe super engaging blogs on email nerdiness. $(document).trigger("loadSearch"); Most pieces include audio versions for safer driving. Please enjoy in moderation. -Damon <img width="1436" height="1436" width_o="1436" height_o="1436" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/a218662960e2920fcce58c95dd3eeac0b1e02355010ca0474b6f5ebcbbb10d57/5F90DD6D-96E3-4BAB-9AC9-3760B85CF0E8.jpg" data-mid="130653221" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/a218662960e2920fcce58c95dd3eeac0b1e02355010ca0474b6f5ebcbbb10d57/5F90DD6D-96E3-4BAB-9AC9-3760B85CF0E8.jpg" /> https://damonremitchell.com/Black-Friday-Emails-Must-We Tue, 18 Jan 2022 20:04:50 +0000 Damon Re Mitchell | email copysolutionist https://damonremitchell.com/Black-Friday-Emails-Must-We Black Friday Emails: Must We? Do we need to send black Friday emails? The short answer, as you probably suspect is... Nope. As with most strategic questions regarding email marketing, it's difficult to make sweeping statements about what absolutely will and will not work. So to help you out; Three questions that you should ask right away before considering if you should go forward. 1) Do I have anything prepared assets, like images or discounts that you've been thinking about? 2) Do I have the motivation to pull this off? 3) Do I believe that it will be worth it? Now, if you've answered those three questions and you're still not sure let's dig a little bit deeper. Ultimately, you're going to want to offer something actually special. You'll want to offer it to only those who are interested in hearing about it. And you'll want to plan time to stand out. I don't want to jump too far ahead, but I'm talking about the subject line. Let's start with the first one, offer something truly special. Offer Something Special If I see another Black Friday special, that is no different than the run of the mill, everyday specials that I see all year, I may puke up all my Halloween candy. You can set some guardrails on your promotions. You can limit the available product, and you can limit the number of offers you make available by limiting the amount of coupon codes that can be used. You can even offer some consolation prizes for those who don't get to the Black Friday specials. Right away, but you shouldn't hope that a good 10% deal is really going to win the hearts and minds of your customers. They'll probably just be insulted that you bothered to cloud their inbox. Only the Interested Offer your black Friday cyber Monday special only to those who are interested. There's a foolproof way to you've accomplished this. You want to grab a pen and paper and write this down. Here's how, you know, if somebody wants to receive your Black Friday and Cyber Monday specials... You ask them. I don't mean you like pick up the phone and call them. I mean, you organize an email, like a really simple email, no images, maybe a header with your logo on it and a text message. Make it personal. Start with Dear Damon or something, more creative and keep the body really short: We're going to be sending out some emails as black Friday, cyber Monday approaches. We want to know if you're interested in receiving them, here's your chance to opt out. And then you drop a link in that chance to opt out. I guess you could use a button, but I would keep it a link inside the text. You can even acknowledge that 2020 has been a difficult year. You might not want to see emails like this. However you want to word the copy, but that you give them a chance to opt out. And then depending on your ESP, that link should either drop a tag in their user information, or it should drop them into a segmented list that you'll then exclude from your emails. It's going to vary from ESP to ESP, but some version of data capture will ultimately allow you to keep them from your sends. Plan to spend time on your subject line. Now, I know somebody is going to be pulling out their hair saying the subject lines are not the most important thing in an inbox. And I agree the most important thing is going to be your existing reputation. Who an email is from carries so much weight. Putting that aside, because that's either in place or it's not in place, the number of subject lines that allude to having some sort of Black Friday special or Black Friday Cyber Monday special that look, sound and feel exactly the same is nauseating. It's ignorable. If you really want to grab somebody's attention, you'll find a different way to talk about it in the subject line. Maybe the thing to do is push the wording of black Friday into the preview text and talk about what your offer is? I'm not saying you can't absolutely can't or shouldn't use the words black, Friday, cyber or Monday in your subject line. I'm just saying you should take a look at what's already out there. Here's a simple way to do it. Open up your email. Take a look at last November. What were the subject lines of all the emails that you received around black Friday? Cyber Monday? You can anticipate that about 70% of them are going to be some version of the exact same subject line. Now this isn't to say that your subject line or preview text should be dishonest in any way. It should absolutely indicate what your email is going to be about. And in fact, a lot of times I feel like it should even talk about the offer specifically, especially if it's a really good offer. That can do a lot to get somebody to open the email and engage with it. The bottom line is, be clear in your subject line and preview text, and try to be just a little bit different if you can. If you send a bunch of emails around Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and they're ignored, one could argue that you're wasting the time and energy of your recipients — you’re certainly wasting your own time and energy — but you could in worst case scenario, be hurting your sender reputation. A good way to distill this down is to think about it in these terms. If this is your first Black Friday, Cyber Monday, keep it simple. This'll be your benchmark that next year that you'll try to beat.&nbsp; If you want to talk about this, if you have questions that you'd like to dig a little deeper, send me a message. I'll do my best to answer them, but I'd love to connect. Best, <img width="324" height="108" width_o="324" height_o="108" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/082a51b8b0d24fe8fc8651258849cc2753a47854dfe2dab9f3e964231f7a1539/Damon-Signature.png" data-mid="130653222" border="0" data-scale="20" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/324/i/082a51b8b0d24fe8fc8651258849cc2753a47854dfe2dab9f3e964231f7a1539/Damon-Signature.png" />Damon https://damonremitchell.com/Good-Email-Copy-More-Than-Words Tue, 18 Jan 2022 20:04:50 +0000 Damon Re Mitchell | email copysolutionist https://damonremitchell.com/Good-Email-Copy-More-Than-Words Good Email Copy; More Than Words [Transcipt] Good copy is about more than just the words that you use. A hot topic amongst marketers, and coming to an SMS and social media marketer near you is something we call: accessibility. Copy, moreover the design elements of that copy, can matter more than the words themselves. If you don't pay attention to anything having to do with the design. I like to think of it a little bit like nutrition and exercise when it comes to keeping a healthy body. We all know that both contribute to good health. There's a saying. One cannot outrun a bad diet. Well, this is true. Diet has such an impact on your overall health that while it might be 50 or 70 percent of the equation, if you're not paying any attention to your nutrition, it's actually closer to 100 percent of what could be causing you to struggle against your goals. That is that's like the design elements of copy. If you're not paying attention to them, then they're causing you a lot more pain than you realize. Another way to think of it would be like having the perfect apology scripted for your significant other. I have no idea what you did, but let's say you've worked out exactly what you need to say as an apology. But. You're trapped in a soundproof room. You could be writing Shakespeare, but if you're using poorly contrasted colors or illegible font choices or styles, if the orientation of text on the page is wonky, then all of your efforts to communicate could be derailed by those choices. Let's talk about how these elements relate to accessibility, and let’s define accessibility. You can think of accessibility as an expansion of the ideas introduced in the Americans with Disabilities Act the ADA, but without the regulation necessarily. A lot of the choices that you would make with email marketing to make it more accessible or not dictated by laws on the books, but by your own selfish motivations for success, whether that's to make money or communicate an idea, aligned perfectly with creating emails that are accessible to as many people as possible. And this stuff isn't that hard.Contrast Let's talk about contrast. Even for the visually normative person, the contrast of a font against its background matters. Add to that, any level of visual impairment and any font that doesn't - I hate to use this word - pop off the page can suddenly start to be more difficult to read. And the less that contrast, the more difficult that is. So who might we be talking about? I mean, it could be any type of visual impairment, like just run of the mill corrective lenses where perhaps somebody's prescription needs an update, or they just don't like to wear their corrective lenses. They don't have them on for some reason. It's early in the morning or they're in a social situation where they don't want to wear them. That person is immediately going to have a challenge. If the font isn't clear against the background, but what if someone has partial blindness or colorblindness. It can get messy pretty quickly. So maybe you think, Really Damon, how big of a deal is this? I mean, how many people have visual impairments? According to the CDC, we’re talking about 3,220,000 people. Visual impairment ranks in the top 10 list of disabilities. Size and Style Let's talk size and style. Compounding matters for the people that we're talking about - and frankly, that's everybody, but especially for people with visual impairments - is the size and the style of your font. Some fonts that are more like calligraphy or handwriting, which can be popular, have a couple of problems. For one, they might not render as you wish them to in some email clients. So right away the time you'd put into getting them just right, would be wasted. But in some cases, even, when they do render correctly, they're simply difficult to read; more difficult than a more simple type of font. Traditionally, we might be talking about Arial or Times, but I wouldn't even use those two. I would go with for Verdana or Georgia. And if you want something fancy use Trebuchet. I'm just going to come out with this: Size matters. When I create an email, I generally use a 14 (pixel) size font. If you're using fonts that are smaller than 12, you're going to have challenges for anyone trying to read that email, especially since most people are going to be looking at that in a mobile device. So go with a 12 size font. Ultimately, test to see the way it looks. Maybe 14 is not big enough for you. Maybe you want something 16 or 18, but definitely don't go with a small font. Orientation Let's talk about orientation. This is where designers and copywriters often butt heads from a copywriter's perspective, your mostly concerned with the way those words make the reader feel; in what ways they manipulate the emotions of the person that's reading them. While a designer shares that sentiment, they're thinking about it more from the perspective of how the total design of the email looks and the way those words fit on the page. The big culprit here is center aligned text. It's really popular. I see it a lot in a lot of emails and I use it too. But what I'm thinking about with texts that center aligned is, is it a headline? Is it a couple of lines of text? Once I break past two or even three lines of texts - I stick more to two because what happens is -, as you cram that text into a mobile view, two lines becomes four, and now they start to look like little paragraphs with that center aligned text. What you're asking me to do as the recipient is you're asking me to burn calories on finding the starting point of each subsequent line of text. It might not seem like a big deal, but it actually creates friction. One of the things that is an email marketer and a lot of marketers are trying to do is reduce friction. You're trying to make the experience of engaging - whether it's an ad or social media or a SMS - you're trying to reduce the amount of friction that the user experiences. Huge chunks of center line, text, create friction. It doesn't take a genius to start to see that the needs of your recipients completely married with the needs of your business. For the time that you spent crafting an email you want as many people as possible to be able to read, enjoy, engage with that email as easily as possible without friction. If you start to think about it in that way, you realize that as smart marketers, we don't need regulators to tell us what makes sense to do. Our needs are completely aligned with our recipients. We want the same things they do. If they're going to receive an email, then they want to receive it from someone they want to hear from, and they want to be able to understand it. We want that too. Especially after the time you put into creating those emails, it only makes sense. Right? We only have to know how we would want to be treated if it was our inbox. Now, if, if you think a totally off base. Or if you have questions about anything that I've mentioned, then let's connect. I'd love to talk to you. Message me. <img width="324" height="108" width_o="324" height_o="108" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/082a51b8b0d24fe8fc8651258849cc2753a47854dfe2dab9f3e964231f7a1539/Damon-Signature.png" data-mid="130653225" border="0" data-scale="20" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/324/i/082a51b8b0d24fe8fc8651258849cc2753a47854dfe2dab9f3e964231f7a1539/Damon-Signature.png" /> Damon https://damonremitchell.com/Stop-Worrying-About-the-Future-of-Fitness Tue, 18 Jan 2022 20:04:51 +0000 Damon Re Mitchell | email copysolutionist https://damonremitchell.com/Stop-Worrying-About-the-Future-of-Fitness Stop Worrying About the Future of Fitness Please... I want us all to stop worrying about fitness. As a marketer, as a former fitness industry cog, and as a lifetime fitness fanatic... this is something that I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about. If you're a fitness fanatic yourself, you think about this all the time, too. You've been thinking about this, especially this year: what is to come of fitness? Are we all just waiting for a vaccine? And then, everything's gonna go back to normal? Has everything changed? Have the foundations of fitness been shaken to the extent that it's never going to be good again? Is it all over??? I think these are all legitimate concerns to have, and I share them. (But) Barring some kind of apocalypse zombie or otherwise the future fitness will be something like it is now only better. It will be more accessible. It will be more personal. It will be simply more. The wave of fitness has been building for decades. It would take a lot more than a pandemic to disrupt that. It would take a bubonic plague. And even then... I'm skeptical. Here's a quick litmus test: How much have your own workouts changed, really? I mean, once we got past March... which was like five months long... are you working out less than you were before the pandemic hit? Some of us never slowed down. (ahem) Tough reality: I think things are going to get harder before they're going to get better. Winter is coming, like literally... not in the Game of Thrones sense, but there's literally... It's snowing in the Midwest this week. I hope my prediction is wrong. I really do. I take no pleasure in saying that I fear that this winter will be the nail in the coffin for many businesses that have been struggling this year, and maybe some that even haven't been struggling. And, I think brick and mortar gyms are absolutely on that list. That's the bad news. The good news is that many new businesses will fling open their doors. Maybe not right away, but... well, to be fair, many are now. If you haven't been paying attention, connected fitness is exploding. I can't keep track of the number of new at-home workout systems that I've been introduced to. I think there's like half a dozen of these mirror systems where it's a vertical monitor and then some equipment that you use to train; something like a Peloton system. It's really exciting. If you are paying attention. And if you have your surfboard out, you are hoping to catch a wave pretty soon. That's what I'm doing, and that's what I recommend you start doing. Start thinking about the ways in which you might do that. Accessibility Let's talk about some of the ways that we can anticipate fitness to change. I already mentioned this, as far as accessibility goes, everybody has already seen fitness come knocking through channels like YouTube and Vimeo, but now we're starting to see a bunch of fitness-based streaming platforms develop strictly for fitness. I think this is the tip of the iceberg of what's to come. The more interesting question about these at-home training systems and the new software as a service platforms is, what's going to survive say the next five years? What will we still be talking about in the late 2020s? Or maybe the early 2030s? Rest assured we are about to reach beyond the normal limitations of market share that traditional brick and mortar models have have kept us from reaching. We're not fixing assess accessibility by making gyms more accessible to people that we want to draw into them. We're now bringing the gyms to them. We'll still have brick and mortar. I've not lost my mind. There's going to be a place for brick and mortar. We're quickly going to be at a place where if your brick and mortar isn't offering some sort of a digital version or at home or connected fitness, then your business is way out in the sticks, and there's no competition. And even then? It's only a matter of time before you're gonna be on this bandwagon. There, ain't no putting this genie back in the bottle. More Personal We're also looking at a more personal fitness experience. I mean, it stands to reason if fitness is going to people, if the mountain is going to the exerciser, of course it's going to be more personal insomuch as it's in one's home or one's backyard or in their garage... but, in other ways. Because once the whole fitness scene is digitized, we're going to see more of the sort of things that, as a marketer, I talk about and deal with; paying attention to behavior usage, to bring a more personalized experience. It's hard to kind of talk about how it's going to be more personalized in a soundbite because, frankly it's hard for me to imagine the myriad of ways that it's going to manifest, but that it will. Our equipment is going to start to be intelligent and know us. It'll know the times of day we tend to train the types of workouts we do on certain days, we're going to start seeing equipment that will, will motivate us in many of the same ways that a workout buddy might. That's a kind of personalization that the fitness industry just hasn't seen. Frankly, it's the kind of personalization that as a marketer is, is tough to recreate. And I think that's really exciting for the future of fitness. In 10 years, we're gonna wonder how people used to work out without these elements in much the same way that my memories of my life from the early nineties, I often graft a cell phone into those memories before I realize, wait a minute, we didn't have those. How the heck did I text somebody in 1992? Simply More This really puts the cherry on top for me. And that's this idea of simply more. We're talking options beyond... I mean, you could see as, even as I try to articulate this, I struggle to capture this in a way that sounds intelligent because I'm up against the limitations of my own imagination. When we have all of these great minds thinking about how to make fitness, more accessible, how to make it more personal. You can imagine a world where we can forget about boredom. when it comes to fitness. And that's great; that's great for users, and as we see that market grow, that's great for you as a purveyor, as a seller of fitness. While you might, right now be stuck in your limited piece of the fitness pie, what you can't imagine, the things that I'm struggling to imagine, are the things that you'll be dedicating all of your time and energy to in short order. So it's more for the user and it's more opportunity for you. We can start to think in terms of: Your gyms closing? No big deal. As soon as you accept the realities of that, the past is behind you. Then you can start to imagine the unimaginable future that it's in front of you. This is no time to panic. Continue to work on what's important to you; what you believe about fitness. Hone your beliefs and be ready for anything. In short order, the only people that'll be complaining about how things have changed are the people that right now are hoping everything stays the same. Same? That ship has sailed. Now, if you think I'm crazy, if you think I'm off my rocker? Then shoot me a message, and let's talk. I'd love to talk. Cheers, <img width="324" height="108" width_o="324" height_o="108" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/082a51b8b0d24fe8fc8651258849cc2753a47854dfe2dab9f3e964231f7a1539/Damon-Signature.png" data-mid="130653228" border="0" data-scale="23" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/324/i/082a51b8b0d24fe8fc8651258849cc2753a47854dfe2dab9f3e964231f7a1539/Damon-Signature.png" /> Damon https://damonremitchell.com/Rationale-Own-Your-Own-V1-Marketing-Copy Tue, 18 Jan 2022 20:04:51 +0000 Damon Re Mitchell | email copysolutionist https://damonremitchell.com/Rationale-Own-Your-Own-V1-Marketing-Copy Rationale: Own Your Own V1 Marketing Copy Let’s talk about a rationale for you owning your first round of marketing copy; what the kids call V1 or version one. We’re talking about that initial round of copy for any marketing that you would create should come from you, even if it never leaves your old beat up high school spiral bound notebook that you found in the back of the closet to write on. That's okay. To answer the age old question: Should I DIY or should I contract? I say, do both. But, first do it yourself. Then, contract. You may mentally decide that writing is so far out of your core competencies that, in order to sit down and take the time to try would be a colossal waste of your time. That's fine. I still say, try to do it with the help of somebody else, like a spouse or a partner, or even a team member who's good with a pen or a typewriter or computer. Have that person listen to you talk about the business, and take it as dictation. Even if you just get a bunch of scribbled notes on a page, it's something start withIf that's not an option, then you're in the contract camp. No shame in it, but I can tell you as a contractor for strategy and copywriting... I can tell you it's wildly more productive when a brand has made a go of it themselves for that first round. at least. Your business: Your voice Starting from zero is not really my gig. You don't want it to be my gig for good reason. As the owner, as the founder of your business, most likely it is your voice that people who would use your service or buy your product... It's your voice that they want to hear. Therefore, you should establish the voice and tone. Even if you ultimately decide that your first instincts on how to talk about your business need to evolve, you've at least identified that first version you've laid down the foundation. You know what changes you're willing to make. And, if you decide that it strays too far, from what matters to you, you'll always have that first version to go back to as a reference point. There's also a value to developing your regard. What I mean by that is the process of talking about what matters to you comes easy to some people. For others, not so much. Now, taking what you believe and feel, and putting those ideas down on paper? Well, that's a whole ‘nother bowl of noodles. The value of trying to do it yourself is not necessarily to come up with a concrete resolution of, this is what the brand is going to sound like, but there's a huge value in developing your regard for the process.&nbsp;As you work through that, you come to understand how difficult that process of writing can be. This discovery will make you a better partner to anybody that you would contract. The thing is, any writing is ultimately a process. While this might seem to be a task for you, [as in] Gosh, we need to... we need to get some texts on, on paper for our social media campaigns, or we need to create some email campaigns... being sensitive to and understanding how difficult that process can be insomuch as those first versions can ultimately be awful (so can second versions) it can take a few versions before you arrive at something you like. Whether it's just you or you're working with a contractor, by trying to do it yourself, you'll be more understanding of that process. And you'll be a better contributor to the end product. You'll have a better end product. Ultimately, think of it like knowing a little bit about construction. Say you've swung a hammer a few times. You know how to drive a nail into a board. Maybe you've done some sawing and some drilling. Now you're not about to take (you might), but you're probably not about to take on building your own home, but when you contract somebody to build your home, You have an idea of expectations you could stay in and watch their work and not feel completely befuddled over what they're doing if they start doing something strange. You can at least start asking the right questions to set your mind at ease about what's going on. It doesn't feel like a magic show to you. It's not magic. It's just good science and process. By walking that proverbial mile in the shoes of your prospective future contractor, you'll be a better sounding board for that developing voice and tone as it evolves. Hopefully, the way it should work, is it should evolve into a voice and tone that sounds better than you would have made it sound yourself. If you're at a place where you haven't even cracked the book yet, and you want some advice about how to get started, hit me up. I can help you get down that path and get started on your V1s. Let's talk about your plan, and then when, and if, the time comes that you want some help on V2s, I'd be happy to help you out. Cheers, Damon https://damonremitchell.com/The-3-Cs-of-Text-based-Marketing Tue, 18 Jan 2022 20:04:52 +0000 Damon Re Mitchell | email copysolutionist https://damonremitchell.com/The-3-Cs-of-Text-based-Marketing The 3 Cs of Text-based Marketing Let's talk about the three steps CS of text-based marketing messaging. If you prefer to make it easier to answer the question of, should I post. Text or email this message, boiled it down to three C words. And it's not the one you're thinking of you, sick, sick person. If the ultimate goal is to sell and retain more business over time, then somewhere in that strategy we should include something about not annoying the hell out of your recipients. In this case, we're talking about your clients. And possibly your prospects. The last thing you want them doing is closing off any channels. You'll accomplish this strategic goal by not abusing the rules of engagement. Write these down on posted notes and stick them around your computer like it's 1998. Social --&gt; confirmationEmail --&gt;&nbsp; community SMS/text --&gt; Convenience. That's the three Cs. Obvious question: Are there exceptions? I answer your question with another question. Can one do bicep curls in the squat rack? How about another question? Can one do squats in the preacher curl rack? The correct answer is. No. If you stick to this strategy, say 90% of the time, then fine make calls from the pitch, like a baller. And if you don't know what a pitch is, that's what cool people call a football field. And by football, I mean soccer. Social Media So let's start with social media now, not to confuse matters. We're talking about your organic social media efforts here. So none of your paid ads. But the content that you put here is not designed for your existing clients. It's not designed to engage them. I mean, they will engage that content, but that's not the purpose. The purpose is to, to represent what your brand is about and put that out there for the lurkers, the people that aren't yet your clients. When someone clues into your brand, either through organic or paid search, maybe a promoted ad on social media or just a good old fashioned referral, you want them to find content on your social media account that tells them about your brand. Something that gets them excited. Something that doesn't suck. You'll also want to include happy that informs them on how your thinking about your business and how it relates to their pain points. This will sound counterintuitive, but this platform, social media is not where you'll build a sense of community. Email Email is the place where you're going to build your sense of community. It's weird. I know, to be honest, I don't have a great answer for why it works this way, but you can draw from your own personal experiences. There is of course a social aspect of social media, but it's not quite as intimate as the inbox. I think that's what it's about. When you reach into somebody's inbox, you're reaching into a very intimate space. But I like to think of it as sacred. I know that sounds a little bit dramatic, but if you start thinking of that space in that way, you start treating it that way and you realize that it really does resonate in that way for recipients, maybe it's because you can personalize an email experience in a way that you can't quite personalize with social media.&nbsp;Iknow you can personalize social media to a certain extent, but it's not the same. You don't... you don't have the control of personalization with social media, the way that you have it with, with email, email messages can land deeper, uh, far from the, the anxiety associated with social media. One can sit intimately with them, message an email and read it like a private note or, or a private message. If your emails aren't doing this, then, then you're missing an opportunity. SMS/Texting Let's talk about SMS or texting as you might like to call it. I want you to brace yourself a little bit because I'm going to say some things that you might not want to hear, you might not want to accept, they don't tend to match your bias perception of what's going on For the record, I think texting is great. Good brands engage their audiences with SMS in very effective ways. We want to connect with brands that we like on SMS, but it's because we liked them. And so there's absolutely a place for SMS. Many modern operators are asking SMS to do the heavy lifting that would normally be done by email because frankly email is a little bit harder to set up and it takes just a little bit more effort in the long run. It's also easier to text. It's more convenient. It's faster. It's easy to see why one would gravitate towards that as an alternative to email. It's a mistake to run your marketing this way, even if you think it's fine. You know it's not. You know that when a business blows up your SMS with attempts to close you, how that feelsYou'll tell yourself that people can simply reply with the word, “stop” to get those texts to stop coming through. The problem is that by the time they get to that point where they're willing to take the time to tell you to stop the damage to your brand has already been done. The bridge has been burned. You can't go back on, on what's happened in that case. Maybe you've got an endless market of prospects, but depending on where you were with that relationship, it can be hard to unwind at that point. Keep using SMS when you've been granted permission by the recipient to send short messages; quick messages. Use it too augment your email marketing program by reminding people periodically to open an important email that you've sent. This works great: Hey, did you get that last email we send out about... yada yada, yada?&nbsp; Boom. Your open rates go up. Your email engagement goes up. It's beautiful. But, please don't ask SMS to do the heavy lifting of email marketing, of what would normally be done with email marketing? Thanks for reading. Cheers, Damon https://damonremitchell.com/A-Worthy-Newsletter-is-Your-Gateway-Email-to-Loyalty-Growth Tue, 18 Jan 2022 20:04:52 +0000 Damon Re Mitchell | email copysolutionist https://damonremitchell.com/A-Worthy-Newsletter-is-Your-Gateway-Email-to-Loyalty-Growth A worthy Newsletter is Your Gateway Email to Loyalty &amp; Growth &nbsp; The simplest way to break the seal on your email marketing strategy is to curate a weekly newsletter. That's whether you own a gym, run a successful coaching business or sell a fitness product service. The most exciting part about that strategy is that word: Curate. Hold that thought. I promise I'll come back to it. Building a strong fitness business is basically building a strong ideological community of people. Big brands will call that their culture. Small brands we'll call it experience, but let's call it what it really is. It's a cult. Not the bad kind. It does start to feel that way, though. You know, it’s like if somebody's not wearing your brand on a their shirt or doesn't have it tattooed on themselves someplace... You sorta feel like you're not really winning. (You are, BTW.) So... cult. ;-) Much of this experience, this sort of almost cult-like experience — if you'll permit me to continue to use that word — it comes from the in-vivo experience of training with a group of people or a small group of people. If it's one-on-one, it comes from the experience of training with you. A newsletter email, or an email newsletter permeates deeper into the lives of your audience. It goes beyond just your existing clients and also can reach your prospects. A really good newsletter resonates so well, the recipients will share it with other people. You can see where I'm starting to go with this... Not only does shipping a weekly newsletter empower your audience and reinforce their feelings of loyalty, it also provides a direct pathway to the top of your funnel. That's goal achievement plus bonus points. But, who has the time to curate a newsletter? Well, the truth is nobody... Nobody who doesn't plan the time to curate it. Or,&nbsp;everybody who plans the time has the time for it. There's that word again: Curate. I promise I'm getting there. If you see value in reinforcing the loyalty of your existing clients and increased creating on auto-magic pathway for those who you've not even met yet, then can you really afford not to make the time? Here's how simple it is in three steps: 1) Put time on your calendar right now to plot out the structure of your newsletters. Consistency will be valuable in all the ways that it's valuable to your business. So try to get a form for that newsletter and don't, don't get too hung up on design. Keep it super simple to start. You can complicated later, but the simplest newsletters that connect with people matter way more than the most complicated ones that don't connect with anybody. 2)&nbsp; Schedule time each week to put that newsletter together. You'll find that like a new workout at first it goes slow, but you get more efficient over time. You'll also find that you sort of absentmindedly start to curate content for that newsletter leading up to the actual date that you organize the newsletter. So it'll get easier and faster every time. Now it's also okay for you to repeat relevant information, like an approaching event that you might start almost like a countdown for, and then update with new information as you approach it.&nbsp;3)&nbsp; Just ship it. Ship the dang thing. Like just do it wrong the first time.Just assume that with every subsequent newsletter you'll get better. It's more about getting the habit in place. Just like working out and over time you improve now. If you're not sure at all, what to put in your newsletter, a good place to start is to take a look at what's out there. Take a look at businesses that you respect either in similar spaces or is it no matter, take a look at what newsletters are out there, see what they're doing, and then try to emulate that to the best of your ability. If you don't like that or if you find that nobody out there is doing anything that you respect, then great. Here's your chance to demonstrate leadership. You're going to be the one teaching them how this is done. Here are a few ideas (from a short list and off the top of my head as I recorded) that you could use for curating sections of your newsletter. That would be pretty simple to do. Member Focus I would start with your members or your clients if you prefer. So start by featuring one, who's made some type of achievement.&nbsp;Coaches Corner If you work with other coaches, if you say, for example, run a business, like you run a gym, then have a coaches corner or coaches two-cents corner. Founder’s Insight A third idea is you should have your thoughts on what matters right now. And this is probably the part that would take you the most time is to just do a little, this is what I see happening in the world, and here's how we're responding to it. Or this is what's on my mind right now. Local fitness events and news You could also include local fitness events and news.Internal events and news You could have a section that's internal events and news. Fitness Tech What about of section that's a technology that your recipients might consider like some type of a wearable device or just anything that might help them with sleep or overall health and wellness. Social Media You could have a section that's. Just social media screen grabs, as in these are things we're sharing on Instagram. These are the things that we're sharing on Facebook. Offers You could also even include discount offers, maybe, Hey, this week, we want to make sure that if you have any friends that are interested, use this coupon and they can get involved in, in this way. Tip of the iceberg, obviously there's no end to it, but you can start to come up with these ideas and you'll see that come out of you. If you just sit down and think about like, What would matter to my recipients if I just sent them a weekly newsletter? Most of these wouldn't take that much time to actually&nbsp; organize and get into a nice, simple, easy to read newsletter. Again, you can complicate this more in time, start with something simple and just let it build. Note that most of what I just said talked about is communication. It's curation of other information from other sources, put into a single place to help build your community, getting regular community involvement with email. The plus-plus to your goal achievement is that you're teaching your members that email is a way that you communicate. So that when you desperately need email as a means to communicate with them, it doesn't seem like a foreign channel. You're also teaching Google or Outlook, as the case may be, or Yahoo... teaching them that I send people emails and they open them because it has content on in it that they love. That really matters to your email marketing deliverability. So once you're doing this, congratulations. You're officially reinforcing loyalty with your existing clients. And you're creating that automagic pathway to the top of your funnel. After you have that in place for some time, you might decide, Now I want to take on some type of lead nurturing or some type of welcome series. A newsletter is a really good place to get started with this and something that you'll just want to keep in place once you have it going... if it's good, if it's valuable, if you're delivering value. If you have questions about that, if you want to talk about that in any way, please shoot me a message. I love to talk about email marketing. I love to talk about fitness. I love to talk about how email marketing helps your fitness business grow. Let's talk. <img width="324" height="108" width_o="324" height_o="108" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/082a51b8b0d24fe8fc8651258849cc2753a47854dfe2dab9f3e964231f7a1539/Damon-Signature.png" data-mid="130653234" border="0" data-scale="24" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/324/i/082a51b8b0d24fe8fc8651258849cc2753a47854dfe2dab9f3e964231f7a1539/Damon-Signature.png" /> Damon https://damonremitchell.com/Email-Doesn-t-Replace-SMS-vice-versa Tue, 18 Jan 2022 20:04:53 +0000 Damon Re Mitchell | email copysolutionist https://damonremitchell.com/Email-Doesn-t-Replace-SMS-vice-versa Email doesn’t replace SMS (&amp; Vice Versa) Email does not replace SMS, otherwise known as texting. It's easy to understand how these two could be confused. They're both language platforms. If language wasn't my core competency, then I would simply pick the easier of the two for me to use. For a lot of gym owners, that's SMS. It’s... FastEasy&nbsp;And doesn't take a ton of effort The truth is that email marketing also doesn't take a ton of effort. Let me in on a little secret about email marketing, it's not rocket science. Making claims to the contrary is a little bit like saying I don't do squats because I do tons of running. The two are not mutually exclusive. There's a benefit to both marathoners on doing squats, and to Olympic-level squatters doing a little bit of running once in a while. You know this. You understand this. Isn’t Email Dead?Statement's like email is dying? They don't stand up against the data. Email has absolutely changed, but it is not dead. It's not any more dead than texting is... or will be. All you have to do is consider your own usage, professional or personal. How many times a day do you check your email? How often are you in your inbox? And it's the same goes for SMS. These are just two aspects of modern living. We check our texts, we check our inboxes. There are ways in which SMS absolutely dominates as a communication tool. And there are ways in which email marketing does a much better job. The two work together beautifully. Let's talk about that. Let's start with SMS. What's rad about SMSWhat's rad about SMS? Well, it's quick and easy. It saves time for both parties. And open rates are like 98% compared to email, which is like, what maybe 30, something like that. I can't argue with the first two points, but about those open rates... They include people who open those texts open simply to see who sent it, and delet it or send a “STOP” command. The truth is about open rates, whether we're talking about SMS or email, is that they’re a bit of a vanity metric. Nobody. Is getting their bills paid on open rates. Imagine... Marketing: We had a hundred percent open rates with our emails last month. Boss: Great! How much money did that program generate? Marketing: Zero (silence)It’s a vanity metric that tells us something, but. It doesn't pay the bills. Don't hear what I'm not saying. You should absolutely continue to use SMS and texting as a means of communication with your existing clients or your prospects. Where SMS Struggles A few ways that SMS struggles... It can do these things, but email does it better: Connect act with recipients in a deep and personal way&nbsp;Value building when trying to sell to existing clients or prospectsDeep diving into educational informationPresenting promotions or eventsBuilding a community Like I said, it's not that SMS can't do these things. There's somebody reading this right now screaming, “I've done all of these things with SMS!” Of course there are exceptions. But, email could just do thse things better. Consider for a moment that if SMS is your chosen route through this path, then of course you're getting everything you can out of it. You are going deep, you are getting personal. What you're not seeing is the opportunities that are being missed. For a lot of people, this writer included, SMS from a business is a kind of a cold splash of water on my face. I don't react well to them. Now I'm just one person. You may find that a lot of people that you contact or connect with on SMS are warm and receptive to that. But what about those that are not? Now, all the ways that SMS is great?&nbsp; Email struggles. Where Email Fails If you're stuck on an email track, and all you want to do is connect with people via email, you will be challenged to move efficiently, to send messages quickly. It would be really terrible to message somebody, something that needs to be communicated right now via email. They probably won't get it unless they're really on top of their inbox. I don't know anybody who's actually that on top of their inboxBut, there are some ways that email can fill in the gaps where SMS just doesn't do the job. A couple off the top that are obvious are clients who don't want you to text them or even call them. Some people simply don't like to be communicated with in that way. With people like that, sending them an email is ultimately going to be better. The other side of that is there are people who are actually engaged with email. They probably are the same people as the first ones that I mentioned that don't want to receive texts. But if you have people that are engaging or emails, then those are the people that you want to be emailing. I know it seems obvious, but if you're not trying, then you don't know what you're missing out on. There are some other ways in which email marketing simply does a better job Lead nurturing. Now you can nurture a lead with SMS, but not in the way that you can do it with email where it's automated, and it runs in the background without you really having to do much to manage it. Welcome sequencing, which also was done through email marketing beautifully. It's done across many industries and it just runs no oversight. Win back strategies for ghosters, people who were working out avidly and suddenly disappeared in not picking up their phone and are not responding to their texts. You have an email sequence that sends automatically to those people. It's beautiful. The last thing that email does well, that SMS simply can't do — not in any kind of automated and genuine way — is, personalization. I mean, any system can drop a first name into a message, but that's really not personalization, not in 2020. Personalization nowadays is about knowing a person what matters to them. That's really hard to do even within email, but I don't know anybody doing that with SMS in any way that's actually genuine and works. SMS or Email?One last point that I want to make about this, and I think this is really important. Here's the best possible lens that you can use to know when to use SMS and when to use email. Ready for this? Ask. Ask people how they’d like you to communicate with them. You segment your audience, and then you pay attention to those preferences when you're sending them communication. There are going to be obvious exceptions to that, where it only makes the most sense to send a quick message via text. There are going to be other exceptions where somebody doesn't generally like email, but it makes more sense to send them an email anyway. But, if you're generally appealing to the ways they want to be communicated with, then you're meeting their needs and wants. When the two come together, you get top performance, like top athletic perform, but in a marketing framework. I'm going to let you in on one more secret. SMS and email. Are not really that different. Like the way jogging and squatting both use your legs. It's easy to understand why somebody who doesn't have competency could be confused. And it's easy to see that when you compare squatting and jogging to say... a peach... they are practically the same thing. From the outside, from a completely different perspective, they seem like the same thing. The truth is, is that they are quite similar, but they're not. The beautiful part is they work well together. Where email and SMS really shine Scenario 1: Let's say your putting together a sequence of emails to promote an event that you have coming up. Maybe you shoot out a text to everybody that you emailed to let them know to check their inbox. Now your open rates go up, but who cares about open rates? You want to know that they did something? Did they then click on it? Well, they can't click on anything within your email or get excited about the content if they don't open it. Open rates might not pay the bills, but they still matter. And you can drive that with texting. Scenario 2:&nbsp;Another way the two work together is let's say the actual event that you're planning comes up. Sending an email, as you get close to the actual hour of the event, probably won't work to remind people. But a quick text is a great way to say, “Hey, don't forget. You've got that thing coming up in the seat or tomorrow morning or whenever it is.” If texting is replacing anything, it's not email, it's replacing phone calls. In fact, for most of you, it's probably almost completely replaced phone calls at this point. Texting is your short and fast, convenient communication. Email is your personal and penetrating, but not cheap and easy, form of communication. Both require that you know your audience, you know their pain points, you know what they want, and you know what they believe. And you speak to those. Whether it's through texting or if you call it SMS, whether it's through email, whether you're running a gym or an online business, or one on one coaching, or you're selling fitness widgets... SMS and email will require slightly different attention from you, but they're going to leverage the same skills, knowing your audience and talking to them about the things that matter. They have questions about that. If you want to talk more about that, if you want to tell me I'm a total idiot and I have no idea what I'm talking about, please contact me. I love those conversations. Thanks for reading, <img width="324" height="108" width_o="324" height_o="108" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/082a51b8b0d24fe8fc8651258849cc2753a47854dfe2dab9f3e964231f7a1539/Damon-Signature.png" data-mid="130653236" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/324/i/082a51b8b0d24fe8fc8651258849cc2753a47854dfe2dab9f3e964231f7a1539/Damon-Signature.png" /> Damon https://damonremitchell.com/Email-Closeup-Gainesville-Health-and-Fitness Tue, 18 Jan 2022 20:04:53 +0000 Damon Re Mitchell | email copysolutionist https://damonremitchell.com/Email-Closeup-Gainesville-Health-and-Fitness Email Closeup: Gainesville Health and Fitness Setting the bar high during the toughest year ever<img width="324" height="108" width_o="324" height_o="108" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/082a51b8b0d24fe8fc8651258849cc2753a47854dfe2dab9f3e964231f7a1539/Damon-Signature.png" data-mid="130653238" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/324/i/082a51b8b0d24fe8fc8651258849cc2753a47854dfe2dab9f3e964231f7a1539/Damon-Signature.png" /> Gainesville health and fitness is a strong brand. It's a popular gym in the area that they serve in Gainesville, Florida. It's quite competitive amongst other gyms. It's no surprise to see that they remain standing amidst what is probably one of the most difficult years I have to confess. There's a lot I like about Gainesville's email strategy. What we're going to do is what I like to call a closeup. The traditional name for this is an audit or a tear down. I just don't like the sound of those words. We'll look at at least one email, maybe a couple and some broader views of what they're doing. If every gym or studio was doing what Gainesville's doing, the bar for email marketing in the fitness industry would be higher. To that point, I've had to get a little bit picky to find opportunities with their efforts.&nbsp;Here are the three things that Gainesville is doing off the bat that I really like:&nbsp; 1) They start early. They're asking new visitors. If they are a member, or if they're not a member from the moment they reach their site, this gets the ball rolling and starts the email marketing process early. 2) They don't over-ship. They send the appropriate amount of emails. My estimation sent at the appropriate times to the right people for the right reasons. It's great. 3) Their messages attempt to connect the pain points of their members or their prospects with Gainesville health and fitness (and the team members) as a solution.&nbsp; Opportunities for their email program are mostly tactical. For one, I have some concerns with a few design choices, usually ones centered on mimicking what's sort of status quo and email marketing. I'll get into the details here in a minute. And number two is with subject lines, which are tough. There's no two ways about it. Subject lines and preview text are tough. Before we dive into the actual email, I want to address the first talking point I mentioned, and that was the fact that Gainesville health and fitness gets the ball rolling right away. The moment you land on their website, there's a little screen pop or overlay that pops up and asks, “Hey, are you a member or are you not a member?” Once you select one or the other, you're entering either your login information or you're signing up to get on Gainesville’s list. The reason I like this is prospectively at some point I'm going to become a member. Until that point, I am a prospect or a lead. Most studios and micro gyms that I look at have high barrier to entry. They've created a setup where in order to even get on the field as a prospect, you're going to have to cross some sort of barrier that a lot of people are not interested in crossing. You might need to put down a credit card upfront, there might be no trial period, you you have to come take a class or you need to get into an appointment with a trainer or the owner of the gym. All of these are really great for distilling your funnel down to a really slim group of leads so that by the time they're sitting in front of you, your closing percentage goes way up. What you lose with that high barrier to entry is you lose all the people that were on the fence. Maybe they would have done it, but you scared them away. You can keep high barrier to entry with people that are interested and still open a channel of communication with people that are on the fence. By collecting that lead right away, getting them into a lead nurture sequence, shipping some emails, starting to talk about the gym and things that might happen when they first arrive. These are the things that are done in online businesses like software as a service and in e-commerce. These are standards of email marketing that for some reason, don't get picked up with studios and with micro gyms. To be fair, not all of them, but most of them. I believe it's a mistake. I believe there's a missed opportunity there that Gainesville is not missing. Let's take a look from inbox view of what the experience is receiving emails from Gainesville health fitness. You can see from February 20th when I received my thank you up until recent history. That’s about three dozen emails, which to me seems about right. The first thing I'm gonna do it was, I want to actually look at this part right here, which is the from. Almost consistently, these emails are from the same sender, which is great. It sets up a standard. I know who these are from when we deviate from that, I might wonder who GHF personal training is (referring to one email with this as the sender). What works well is to establish a single sender, and then stick to that as much as you can. It's not the end of the world if you break from that. (Think carefully and measure your results if you change the sender). If we look over at the subject lines and the preview text for Gainesville, one thing that I noticed right away is that we've got some fun subject lines, working in some emojis. But, after the subject line in this example here, three member options while we were closed, the preview text is missing. It goes straight into what appears to be their footer information. And that's consistent across all of these emails. Now, I could be having an issue with the way these are rendering in my inbox. I did open this up in a couple of browsers to double check. I'm pretty confident that what we have here is an opportunity with our preview text. That is just a snapshot view of what I see when I look at this right away. Like I said, subject lines are tough. You're trying to do a lot with a subject line. You're trying to connect with the pain point of the recipient. You're trying to connect that pain point with the business as a solution in some short or longterm fashion. You're trying to reveal what the email that we're about to open is about. And ultimately that all needs to connect to a call to action in a lot of cases, not a hundred percent of cases. Adding to that. There are these rules about subject lines. And in this case, it's worth mentioning that all of the subject lines that I've received from Gainesville, health and fitness are in a title format — like the headline of a news article — where the first letter of every word is capitalized. It reads like you don't understand the rules of email.&nbsp; I'm okay with the use of emojis here. I think ultimately it comes down to what tests, well, I have a personal preferencenot to use exclamation points. It's definitely not a huge problem with Gainesville's emails; nothing that I would say, “Holy cow, guys, you've got to stop it with the exclamation points.”&nbsp; I've had those conversations. There are a lot of you out there that are you using exclamation points like we're going to run out of them at some point, and you gotta get ‘em all used up before they're gone. If they don't add something to the subject line, if you can say the same thing — whether it's subject line or body copy — without an exclamation point? Just drop it. All right. Preview text. So none of these emails appear to have a preview text. The preview text is the one-two punch of your subject line. So your subject line will often set up the initial concept of what the email's going to be about or what I'm trying to talk to you about. The preview text comes in with the combo. It might close out the idea or it might expand the idea of the subject line. It's hard to get detailed here as far as every single example, but you want to think of it as your second chance to get the open. If you don't use your preview text, you're simply giving up that second chance to get them to open your email. In order for them to take any action on your email, in order for them to read it or click on it or make a purchase, they have to start by opening it. So why would you cut your chances in half? Some ESPs don't make it easy to put in a preview text. In fact, some make it damn hard to do it. I don't know what ESP they're using here, but. I would suggest getting a hold of the people that run that ESP and ask them, Hey, how do I do preview text? And then start leveraging that aspect of the program. Note: the rest of this transcription follows better with the audio and visual portion. Wherever I can, I’ve attempted to optomise this transcript for the hearing or vision impaired, but it’s far from perfect.&nbsp; Let's take a look at an email. Let's take a look at the second email that I received from Gainesville. Now I need to say something first disclosure's sake. I did not go to design school as long as I've been a digital marketer. I've I've had it street experience with design. I also steal everything valuable that I say from really good emails. They do a weekly tear down on their YouTube channel, and I strongly suggest anyone who wants to get better email marketing, that you subscribe to that channel and watch everything they create. They know what the heck they're doing. What we're looking at here is your basic newsletter. I love it. If every gym was sending out newsletters, how much heavy lifting would be done with the value building aspect of your business. Let's take a look at three different views of this email. So this is how this email looks in my inbox. No big surprises guys there. And then if we go to, uh, uh, Mobile view. You can see that it doesn't really change much between the two views. And so w what Gainesville has done for the most part is they've created very mobile centric view of their emails. It looks like just at a glance, the only big thing that changes that header gets a lot bigger. (Opening text-only version of the email) Here's an interesting thing to look at, take a look at this email for those people that are denying images in their inbox view. So a certain percentage of people, and the number usually hovers somewhere around 30%, whether it's 20% or 50%, it's probably not 50%, but let's just assume it's only 20%. That's one out of five people that are going to look at this email in this format. And this isn't terrible. I've seen a lot worse. Uh, we've got a lot of information to take a look at here. I think what's missing from this is we're not seeing image descriptions. Where we have images within the email, they don't have accompanying image descriptions in the ESP that show up as part of the text. If I don't have the ability to see the images, I have no idea what the images displayed. That minor fix could improve that user experience for that, whatever percentage of people that are seeing these. Here's an opportunity actually, as we go through this that I think is worth mentioning. (Referring to the top of the email) Upfront, we already have three or four different fonts at the top of this email. In fact, we've got the brand font, the sub the health and fitness, which is different. Then we've got this subsection or H1 and we've got another H1, which changes it (the font) again. And then we get into the body text. Something that would help clean these up a lot is to pick one or maybe two fonts and then try to stick to those two fonts. (Referring to block of text) This is not a picture of text. This is actual text and it's designed to adjust the size of the fonts and the way the text is organized when it gets into the mobile view. The one thing that I would say about this text here is there's really no reason for it to be center justified. From a design standpoint center, justification looks really neat and clean, but when you're trying to actually read it, it makes it hard. Generally, I try to make any body copy left, justified, unless it's just like a couple of lines of text. What you have to consider is that this short bit of text, in a mobile view, which is where most people are going to be reading it, ends up being a lot longer. That is a lot of back and forth for your eyes. As you're trying to read this, we've got a nice clean line here after the image (the bottom of the image itself functions as a line, so you could) left justify all that text. And then there's actually another line element here. So there’s no reason that couldn't have been left justified for this email. What's interesting is as we continue down through the newsletter, we then end up in a left justified section. Now, this is getting really picky, but I would even actually push these bullet points over to the left so that we've got a nice clean line along here. But I actually like this part of... you can see this just much easier on the eyes and easier to read than that first section where everything's center justified. This newsletter uses a lot of blue. It uses many types of blue, and I wonder if we couldn't reduce it to one color of blue, and then differentiate our buttons by going with something that’s&nbsp;not blue. It's okay that they’re blue, and ultimately you want to use whatever tests the best so maybe you send out half the people that get your newsletter with the blue button, and half get it with an orange... or a green... or whatever color you want. You can even do a white button that just has an outline, but that it stands out. If the goal is to get me to take an action with that button, then it should really jump off the page at me. Some of these elements like here (referring to a subheading), I wasn't sure if that was just a full, like a button that went all the way across or if it was a header. And a lot of that, again, comes to creating a consistent look throughout the newsletter — Ie. a similar font, if we're going to use an H1 header or an H2 header at the top of better resection, then make sure it's at the top of every section — so you teach me to look for that as I'm going through it. (Referring to social media icons) The use of these icons in the bottom isn't necessarily adding anything to this newsletter. What I think would make more sense here is to actually include some of their social media content in this newsletter. So if we're doing a lot of cool stuff on Facebook or most likely on Instagram, then put some of those actual posts on this newsletter, so I can see what you're doing on there. And if that interests me, then I can jump on that. There's no reason you can't have that in a newsletter: Check out what we're doing on social media. It’s far more engaging. Then I can decide from that very engaging image based content, whether or not it's something I want to follow. Almost everybody does this. Everybody, not just gyms, every business smacks those (social media) icons at the bottom because it's what everybody else is doing. But, if you stop and you look at it and you think about, does this add something to my newsletter or does it just add noise? I think it's more, unfortunately, on the noise side of it.By and large. I like this email. I like the fact, I just liked the fact that it's a newsletter. I like the fact that it, it communicates a number of different aspects of what Gainesville, health and fitness is doing about the facility upgrades. It talks about nutrition. It talks about some of the services that they offer. I wish everybody was doing this well. Okay. I want to take a look at two more emails and we're going to get through these all a lot more quickly than the first one. This first one is a message from Joe Cirulli. Uh, he is the founder and CEO of Gainesville, health and fitness, and it's a direct message about the issue wearing masks. This to me is just a perfect example of why you want to have a culture of email marketing. You can put these types of messages on your social media account, but you cannot guarantee that members, especially the ones that would otherwise complain about it, are going to receive it. When you send this message to somebody inbox, and it has a message about wearing masks in the subject line, and that's a concern of mine as a member, I'm going to open this. Whether I like the message or not, I'm gonna get it. This is just better communication in my opinion. And the fact that it comes from Joe is great. This kind of candor, and just straight talk, and transparency is gold. To me, this is the center of the bullseye when it comes to the rationale for why gyms should be using email marketing above and beyond sales and retention. Of course, those are our primary concerns, right? But these opportunities, when you don't we'll have this culture in place are completely lost. This email, as an email, compared to the first one that we looked at has a different look. It's branded with the same logo. We know it's from Gainesville, health and fitness, but you see the color scheme is totally different, which is actually totally fine. If this is going to stand apart as, Well... when we send newsletter emails that are this kind of bluish cast. And then when we send direct messages are going to have this teal and golden thing going on...&nbsp;That's fine. Again, we have these social media icons at the bottom, which I think just don't really add anything to this message. Um, but there's a nice call to action here. (referring to button)&nbsp;Want to know what our reopening guidelines are? Right there, click on this button. So I love that. Yeah. Um, actually even like that it's left justified. They tend to end up being in the middle, but all of this copy is left justified. So that makes sense to me. I think it's a great message. Another email that I want to look at is this one, which is about the personal training program. This is the one that I mentioned had a different sender: GHF personal training. And this is again, it's different look than newsletter, but it's got a little bit of that blue thing going on. But, I'm not exactly sure I know who it's from until I get to the footer. I might have suggested putting that up at the top along side, the personal training, because I might not know... especially if I'm not a member... I might not know that GHF stands for Gainesville health fitness. I might not know that they have this PT program that's branded in this way. I like that this (body) copy is look at that boom, like a ruler it's right there on the left. I think it could have been stronger if the message was, to a person and from a person. That's a bias that I carry. You will talk to many email marketers who completely disagree with that take. That is my personal bias. That's how I like to do emails. If it's going to have a message, I feel like it should be from somebody to somebody. And then we've got a call to action on a deal for some personal training click on that:&nbsp;Five sessions for you. I think the CTA itself could have been, um, a little bit more inviting. It's definitely clear to me what, what I'm going for when I'm going to click on this. It's about me getting five sessions. Maybe something that's inviting me to you check it out. Like, am I going to buy this as soon as I click this? Or, or am I just gonna look at more information on it? Do I get to try it on for size? So a little bit more clarity about what's going to happen when I click that button. Great work to the Gainesville health and fitness team. Congratulations to Joe. It's great to see that they're making their way through this pandemic, to the best of their ability. I am definitely curious to know what's going on with their efforts to refresh their building, and I'm excited for what's going to happen with them going forward. I hope that more gyms, more studios, more mini gyms can take a look at this work and see where there's an opportunity that maybe they missed; that they could pick up in their own email marketing efforts going forward. Thank you so much for watching. Take care.&nbsp; Cheers, Damon