I’m a big believer in e-mail marketing. Not, one-off, random e-mail marketing, but rather a coordinated approach using a prewritten sequence of e-mails calculated to achieve a particular result.

You know what I mean. We’ve all signed up for e-mails on some website. We’ve provided our address in exchange for an incentive (here’s the one I use on this site).

We use Aweber as our e-mail service provider and are quite satisfied. We write the sequence, and it handles the e-mailing to everyone who signs up on the list. These services, sometimes known as “autoresponders,” operate independently of your daily e-mail service.

Lawyers using e-mail marketing products like Aweber send readers a sequence of e-mails and newsletters after sending the free incentive. Sometimes readers keep reading. Other times, the e-mails go to their spam folder. Often, folks get the free item and then unsubscribe.

How Interesting Are You?

I’m fascinated by the autoresponder concept, so I subscribe to all kinds of e-mail lists. I’ll pretty much subscribe to anything, and I get e-mails from lots of lawyers employing this tactic.

Sadly, many of the e-mails are boring. And I mean BORING in “ALL CAPS.” Yes, boring!

They start off boring with a boring subject line. Then they continue to be boring with tedious word after tedious word.

It’s like the writer thinks no one will believe the e-mails are written by lawyers if they’re not boring. If that’s what they believe, then I’d say “mission accomplished.” We all believe you’re a lawyer.

Are you boring?

The objective is to send useful, valuable, informative information that gets read. You want your readers to finish one e-mail and look forward to the next e-mail. They should be disappointed if the e-mails fail to show up. You want them digging around in their spam folder to see whether they missed something.

The best way to get people interested and hold their interest is to tell a story. Ideally, you’ll tell them their own story. Everyone likes reading about themselves. Eventually, you’ll tell them your story and, finally, you’ll bring both stories together.

Whatever you send, it needs to be interesting and definitely not boring.

Find Out How Boring You Are With This 4-Part Test

So, are you boring? Well, I mean your e-mails, not you. Feel free to be as boring as you like, so long as your e-mails are interesting.

Here’s how you can find out whether you’re writing interesting e-mails:

1. Open Rate

Your e-mail service provider (like Aweber) provides statistics you can review. Check your “open rate.” That number shows how many of your subscribers open your e-mails. Are they clicking them open, or are they just clicking delete? Check each and every e-mail in your sequence. Each e-mail has its own stats.

A low open rate is a sign of a bad subject line and/or bad e-mails preceding the one you’re examining.

Tweak your subject line in order to move your open rate higher. Of course, you don’t want a subject line that results in disappointment by overpromising and underdelivering. For instance, the subject line “Stranger has requested you for a quickie” might get your open rate up on this particular e-mail. But when they open it and find out you were misleading them, then they’re less likely to open the next e-mail in the sequence.

Many e-mail service providers allow you to test subject lines against one another. For instance, you can send 1,000 e-mails with subject line “A” and compare the open rate to a different subject line “B.” Eventually, you’ll have a great subject line that you can use for a long time to come.

2. Click Rate

Include links in your e-mail. Link to some valuable resource on your website. Then check whether they’re clicking on the link. That data is also available via your e-mail service provider. Engaged, interested readers will click. If they’re not clicking, then you’re not interesting. Check the data and tweak the e-mails until they start clicking. Give them a reason to move their finger.

3. Open Rate on the Next E-Mail

After examining the open rate on the first e-mail, you’ll want to look at the open rate on the next e-mail and the one after that. If you see readers dropping off from one e-mail to the next, then you know you’re not impressing them with the usefulness of your content. You want to see the rate going up, not down. You want them forwarding the e-mail to friends so your open rate goes beyond 100 percent. That’s the objective.

When the open rate goes down between e-mails, you need to go back to the last e-mail and take it up a notch. Figure out why it’s not useful. Figure out why it’s boring. Figure out what you need to do to get people interested, so they continue to open subsequent e-mails.

4. Unsubscribes

Each e-mail in the sequence will also have an associated unsubscribe rate. Did people read the e-mail and promptly unsubscribe from your list? That’s not good. Again, check e-mail by e-mail and figure out whether anything you’re saying is driving people away from you. An unsubscribe is the death penalty of e-mail marketing. If you’re getting many of them from a particular e-mail, you know you’re out of sync with your audience and it’s time to reorient your message.

[ While I have you here, I wanted to remind you that you can get the latest articles delivered to your inbox a week before they go up on the web. Just one email per week. Sign up here. ]

Why You Need to Use an Autoresponder

The e-mail autoresponder is a useful way to get your message in front of the right people at the right time. It keeps you top of mind and works with a broad range of audiences. We use it to stay in touch with website visitors, referral sources, clients, potential clients, etc. We started small and grew our lists over time.

Playing with your sequence, tweaking the subject lines and message content, is an interesting and, for some, entertaining project. I enjoy finding ways to better engage our audience, teach them, and provide value as they manage the changes in their lives.

E-mail autoresponders are a terrific marketing approach for those creative lawyers who enjoy writing coupled with statistical analysis. Sadly, you won’t likely be able to work in subject lines like “Stranger has requested you for a quickie,” but you’ll still be able to test amusing, interesting, provocative approaches that bump up your open rates and click rates and drive down your unsubscribes.

Get moving. I’m already reading your e-mails. I’m excited about your stimulating subject lines, intriguing copy, and links I feel compelled to click. I hoping I’ll be glad my spam filter doesn’t work quite as well as advertised. I’m hoping you’ll get me interested in processing my inbox. Let’s see what you can do.