Almost two years ago, we decided that something was broken with the company email newsletter we sent to our clients, friends and those who requested it. It was easy to decide that, as fewer and fewer recipients were opening it. So we decided that instead of sending out a traditional email newsletter reporting on all the great things we’re doing, we would put to practice what we preach and send out something we think can help people communicate better with customers and prospects.
So we launched Idea Email. Internally, we’ve called it an “un-newsletter” as it breaks lots of rules. And it’s working, say the email marketing experts who have analyzed the mailings’ approach and metrics. The novelty of sending out a short e-mail that is intended to help a reader and not overwhelm them with too much information is a curiosity, it seems.
The folks at MarketingSherpa were kind enough to profile Hammock and its use of the Idea E-Mail in today’s e-mail marketing case study. Our e-mail marketing partner, Emma, recently created a case study on the same topic.
This is what we’ve learned. By trying to be useful, we’ve found it’s leading to great conversations and new work. And higher open rates. Perhaps there is something that you can learn from our experience. If you’re not a reader of Idea Email, here are the takeaways:
- We were receiving too many e-mails to keep up with and imagined you might have the same issue.
- Why not be more useful to an audience of prospects, clients and other marketing friends?
- Could we be more effective by sending something distilled (and more important, in our view) less often?