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July 2, 2009

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I just attended a franchise seminar. The speaker represents a few hundred franchises that (he says) are hand picked. He has the prospect (aka victim?) answer some questions about themselves then he makes recomendations - based on your personality, capital situation, etc.. If you pick a franchise, then he does some due dilligence for you. If you both decide it's a good idea, he helps you get started. He says he offers this service free of charge, which means he gets a commission if he's able to sell you a franchise. Has anyone done this? Successfully? Unsuccessfully?

-- fender

How to Keep Customers from Tossing Marketing E-mail

People are so swamped by e-mail that companies must write sharp subject lines to get customers to read them. This month's column from Fuel.

Worth Reading: The Quick Take from Kiplinger

March 2008

Fuel

Fuel, which provides a feature each month for Kiplinger Recommends, is a marketing customer communications newsletter published by The Pohly Co. consulting firm. This month's author is California-based David Ward, who writes frequently about marketing, technology and the media for such publications as PR Week and Popular Science. He is a former correspondent for the London Daily Mail.

Given that you're swamped with spam and marketing offers, how often do you actually open e-mail from a company? Why did you open it? Was there the promise of an appealing offer, perhaps, or something that piqued your curiosity? What made you just deep-six all the others?

Once you understand some of those answers, you are a good bit of the way to understanding how important it is to write subject lines that catch the eye -- that's what makes people decide to even bother finding out more about whatever you are trying to offer or sell them. "Not only have consumers become increasingly wary of unsolicited messages, significantly reducing 'open' rates, but the rising use of spam filters, which often target particular keywords and phrases in subject lines, stops many marketing e-mails from ever reaching a target’s in-box," says this month's column from the marketing newsletter Fuel.

Fuel offers seven tips for writing subject lines that are likely to grab the attention of more readers. Keep subject lines short. Use your brand name. Make an offer. And our favorite one is to ask questions -- little intrigues humans more than someone asking about us.

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