Comments on: E-Mails Aren’t Direct Marketing? A Quick Look at the Most Misunderstood Media Channel

By: Miscellania VI — Inklings â€¢ The Copywriter’s Blog

Miscellania VI — Inklings â€¢ The Copywriter’s Blog — Wed, 23 May 2007 18:58:29 +0000

[...] are writing tons of email ad copy these days. If you’re one of them, you must read Tom Chandler ’s The Copywriter Underground post on email. It lists 8Â basics you need to follow if you want your email copy to get results.Â [...]

By: Tom Chandler

Tom Chandler — Wed, 23 May 2007 17:44:26 +0000

Excellent! Still think mine would make a better movie — Terminator 5: the Rise of the Copywriters

It just smells of blockbuster.

And wouldn’t “Free Extra-Sharp Harpoons” work better? Can somebody plug these into Glyphius?

By: Roberta Rosenberg, The Copywriting Maven

Roberta Rosenberg, The Copywriting Maven — Wed, 23 May 2007 17:12:03 +0000

Or maybe not … copywriters will take on the challenge, retreat into their brains, and come up with a 25-character way of saying: Ahoy, Harpoon Ahead.

By: Tom Chandler

Tom Chandler — Wed, 23 May 2007 15:44:34 +0000

Roberta: I think Blackberry/mobile e-mail thing was what prompted the 53 character subject line statistic (I read that somewhere, but my creaky old brain can’t remember where).

At some point, we’re going to realize we’re being asked to slam a benefit, branding and the word “harpoon” in the first 31 characters of the subject, and en masse, we’ll rise up and — as a group — rage against the machine (the wireless e-mail machine).

I mean, it could happen.

By: Roberta Rosenberg, The Copywriting Maven

Roberta Rosenberg, The Copywriting Maven — Wed, 23 May 2007 14:57:02 +0000

Thanks for the shout-out, Tom! One more thing to consider for subject heads. Folks today are increasingly using their Blackberries and other handhelds to review their email. That means your subject lines have to be even more concise/truncated than before.

By: Tom Chandler

Tom Chandler — Wed, 23 May 2007 04:36:55 +0000

Michi: You can only cover a fraction of the environments used by your readers, but it’s a good reason to sign up for free gmail and yahoo e-mail accounts, and to download some of the common mail readers.

By: Michi

Michi — Wed, 23 May 2007 03:47:17 +0000

What a great idea to send the email to yourself and read it to see how it really looks. That’s something that I wouldn’t have thought of, but will actually be very helpful.