Gregg Blanchard February 15, 2019
I get a lot of marketing emails. You probably do too. But how many do I open every time without fail? I can count those on one hand.
One of those is sent from Startups.com's Wil Schroter.
I often learn the most when I'm dissecting my own behavior, so as I dig into the reasons a certain Gregg Blanchard clicks on what he does, here's what I uncovered about this particular bit of marketing.
#1) The Content is Incredible
This is, by far, the biggest reason. Somewhere in the past I realized that opening emails from Wil was absolutely worth my time because it never let me down or bait-and-switched me with a gimmicky subject line. They respect my time and attention and don't try to trick me into anything.
Every piece was honest, real with zero fluff. It was clear that Wil both know what the heck he was talking about and took the time to not just say it, but say it well.
As I was writing this I got yet another piece that spoke to exactly where I was in my journey. It's clear Wil has been here before and it's clear he takes the time to put those thoughts into a well-written story.
#2) The Content is (Mostly) in the Email
I gotta be honest, I am sick and tired of reading content on websites these days. The popovers, the cookie notices, the ads all make for a distracting experience. So I guess I shouldn't be surprised that one of the things I love about Startups.com is the fact that I can read the first half of the post without leaving my inbox.
If I'm intrigued, I can click for more. If I'm not, all good. Either way, they give me a ton of value without asking me to do anything more than the initial click I entrusted with their message. This may be only about 20% of why I open, but as I reviewed my behavior it was clear this played a role.
#3) The Design is Lovely
This may sound strange, but as a guy who strives for good design (and usually comes up short), I love seeing the little graphics they include at the top of every email. I've never been one to believe that design alone could make me want to open an email, but here I am.
Everything above and below the graphic is clean, matching, easy-to-read, and looks great in my inbox.
I think it's a small reason in the grand scheme of things, to put a totally scientific number on it maybe 5% of the purpose for opening, but it makes a difference.
It's not to look at nice looking things, and Startups.com's emails look nice.
So There You Go
Kind of a fun exercise to deconstruct my behavior and nice to put some positive words behind a site and email series that has taught me a lot and kept me level headed in recent months as I've tried to get the ball rolling a little faster with SendView.
So, thanks, Startups.com and Wil Schroter. Keep up the good work.