Recently LocalMediaInsider, our parent company,  sent an email that had a spectacular 60% click-through rate from time-crunched, over-informationed local media executives.

What to know how we did it?

First off, we wrote a case study on a Facebook messenger bot named Ginny, developed by the Virginia Pilot newspaper. It  was a rare example of an traditional media company developing its own innovative technology, plus it is monetizable and fun, with a charismatic project leader, who spoke at a Local Media Association event.

So we expected a great click through rate.

But here’s our dirty little secret: It was our second try.

Here is how we saved Ginny and turned her into a super star:

1. Starting with a great list

We always start B2B marketing campaigns with a super-targeted opeed-in email list of business-side executives, in this case media executives interested in transformative change; that’s pretty much most of them today.

A best practice of LocalMediaInsider is also to continually cull the list  to eliminate anyone who has not clicked in six months and  to build even more targeted ‘interest groups’, ie media executives that read topics that span from audience data and self-serve advertising sales to digital agency services.   These segmented lists get as much as 78% open rates and are a gold mine for our sponsors.

However, in this  case we sent Ginny´s case study to the entire list, so the audience alone was not responsible for the big results.

2. Choosing a subject line that poses a ¨need to know” question

The subject line not only affects the open rates, but also  click through rates. When we send an email with multiple articles, we will sometimes send two emails one with the first key topic, and make that also the lead story, and then a second one to non-openers with a new topic, and change the lead story to match.

Those who are interested enough to open, are also more likely to click, so the click rate will show as a higher percentage.

In this case  the first  subject line, “MediaTechReporter: Ginny the FB messenger bot debuts…”  had a big open rate, but just 21 unique clicks overall.  Clearly, the subject line was not the problem.

Still we enhanced the subject line  a bit and went with:  Should your media company use a social media bot?   This subject line delivered 75% of the number of opens as the first subject line,  from an audience of previous non-openers. A winner!

    3.  Going exclusive 

In email marketing, it is easy to burn out a B2B audience by sending too many exclusive emails. However, exclusive emails have more click throughs, so there is always a tension between “Do I put this in a newsletter” and “Do I send an exclusive email, with only this information?”

At LocalMediaInsider,  the Media Tech Reporter  is designed as a “quick read” once a month for busy execs. Some of the information is news in itself, ie not intended to be clicked.  But even with five or six news items, a promotional blurb that “sells” content on the other side of the click can deliver 400 click throughs.

On our first send, however, out of five or six other topics in the Media Tech Reporter,  the Ginny story got about half the clicks.

The new subject line, Should your media company use a social media bot?  was also sent as the exclusive content in the email,  and had  but 50 times more click throughs. 

Maybe the subject line was better at targeting the right people, or the  copy in the email was better, but exclusivity certainly also helped.

      4. The copy: Telling  a better story

Now let’s take a look at the copy in these two emails to see how writing itself made a difference.

The test in the first  email was a typical news item delivered in a conversational voice (email text in italics here):

Ginny, the Facebook messenger bot debuts at the Pilot

In case you missed the 2018 Digital Revenue Summit, one media company finally got in the game of bot development and created Ginny, a Facebook messenger bot, who delivers news tips and takes customer complaints. Check out  how they did it here, and be prepared to be charmed. 

Granted it had to compete with five other topics in the newsletter, but could that account for a 600% increase in click throughs? Probably not.

A key difference is the  second email told a  better story. Here is the headline and text for the second email:

Exclusive: Should you use a FB messenger bot?

It is always encouraging to see media developing new tools, and one of the more clever innovations we’ve seen this year is Ginny, a Facebook messenger bot developed by the Virginia Pilot. 

Why you ask? And do you need one? Ginny is primarily used to instantly route common customer service complaints and sign-up readers to sports and weather text alerts, hands free. How do you get one? In this blog, the Pilot explains how they built Ginny. If you are not up for that, we’ve included a contact at the Pilot, which plans to offer the technology to other media companies. 

Spoiler alert: When I log on to test it out, Ginny is charming and  reminds me, “Remember, I´m a (emoji image of a bot) so I may occasionally need a little help and some patience.”

So I lie.  

I tell her that my newspaper was wet this morning.

Read more. 

Yep, that got their attention.

In the engagement hierarchy, advertising is at the bottom,  any kind of newsworthy content is one step up, but great story-telling is at the top.

5.  Changing font size and copy length 

A last lesson is that we also increased the  font-size, and shortened the length of the second email.

The first MediaTechReporter was in 12pt type and  an down the length of two screens.   We placed new Ginny the Bot email promotion  in 14 pt type.

Here is an explanation on font size for marketing email from DirectIQ: 

Most marketers and design professionals now agree that the minimum font size for body text in emails and blog posts is now 12-point. Many suggest 14-point or even 18-point font because the screens of desktop monitors tend to be farther from people’s faces than printed media they hold in their hands. Also, people do not experience text on a mobile device the same way they do on a sheet of paper.

Larger font sizes are more comfortable for people to read. This comfort correlates to positive emotions that make readers more willing to continue reading and to convert.

We also made sure the email was more  “friendly” in length; it  took up just a few inches, making it simple to read without scrolling.  The word count came in at  just under 200 words.

Hubspot, based on the results from 40 million B2B emails, says that’s a good length:

Data suggests the ideal length of an email is between 50 and 125 words. Emails this length had a response rate above 50%. A similar study found emails with approximately 20 lines of text, or about 200 words, had the highest clickthrough rates. When in doubt, keep emails short and under 200 words.

 We felt we could get the critical information into a few paragraphs and it worked!

6. Time and day of send 

Yeah, it counts a lot, both on LinkedIn and on direct email.  We moved the post to what we have found is our best time and day for conversions, in this case, click throughs.

End result

Of 1000 media executives who opened this email, 600  clicked through  to read the story. If the Virginia Pilot was marketing this product that would be an excellent list for them. Tested content like this is great for LinkedIn ads to develop even more prospects.

If you like the way we think, let us put content marketing to work for your company.