I was at Barnes and Nobles the other day reading a fascinating book about email marketing. The essential crux is really significant in an age where email is ubiquitous: treat email communication with care.
From a marketing perspective I've seen organizations send out mass emails without the slightest regard to who's actually receiving them. How the audience receives them and behaves afterwards isn't necessarily developed.
Quite the contrary as email is very important in developing a close relationship with audience members. Think of the number of emails you use to keep you informed by an organization (listservs, newsletters, offers and etc). Once you are "in" their inbox only one of three things can happen with that message:
1. You are deleted... bummer
2. You are not high priority...that matters if the email is time sensitive
3. You are opened nearly immediatly
Conversion emails are more concerned with what happens next. If the object is just to get awareness out about a future "thing" option three is all that matters.
Each email address also has a monetary value. Yet another thought which rarely gets associated with viral campaigns. The sheer volume (i.e. thousands of recipients) creates an aura that the actual person opening a message isn't as important as the "effort." The authors report each email address has a value of roughly $120.
Unfortunately, if you are sending any email including an "ask" (conversion) the assumption that copy editing is more important than actually providing relevant information is wrong. Dazzling isn't as important as remaing on each recipients mental radar.
Think beep beep beep...
