Question

Topic: E-Marketing

Why Does My Second Email Outperform The First?

Posted by Anonymous on 7/29/2007 at 1:59 AM ET 125 Points
I am interested to hear "why" what I have been doing works.

I do copy/email for my own company. I've read widely (Drayton Bird my favourite).

But I stumbled upon a technique by accident. Each time I use it, I get MORE responses to a second email than I did the first. In terms of either total responses to each or at least proportionally (I take out the respondents from the first email before sending the second).

Each time I have done this (admitedly only about 6 times now) the second email ALWAYs out performs the first.

The last campaign went to 223 people. I got 31 responses to the first. And 64 responses to the second.

That means, 13.9% response to the first and 33.3% from the second (64 out of 192 - obviously I didn't send the second mail to the respondents of the first mail).

Essentially, I forward the original mail to capture the text and then re-mail-merge it replacing the fields so the subject looks for example "FW: Merseyside funding dilemna".

The first mail is always conversational. But the second "forwarded mail" starts something like:

"Sue,

I'm not sure you got this (see below) but I was wondering if you have a second to reply?

All I need is a simple one word answer of "yes", "no" or "maybe". Any other comments you have would be really appreciated too.

Don't forget (again see below) that the more of you that respond, the more we all save.

Anyway, here's the message from yesterday..."

I always do this within 24 hours. On one occasion though I did it same day and the results were similarly high.

My question though is why does this work? And how can it be improved.

I'd love to hear of anyone's experiences of this or similar techniques.
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RESPONSES

  • Posted by Jay Hamilton-Roth on 7/29/2007 at 9:23 AM Member
    I'm guessing it's because of your subject line. People don't like to miss a business opportunity, and pointing it out is considered more of a soft-sell.
  • Posted by Annelies on 7/30/2007 at 3:02 AM Member
    I think it is a well know phenomenon that a second e-mail scores better than the first... power of repetion? What your technique concerns: If I receive an e-mail like that and I noticed it's a trick to get my attention, I will put you in my "blocklist". This technique is often used by spammers... just send out your e-mail a second time, that will do I guess...
  • Posted on 7/30/2007 at 11:04 AM Accepted
    I think it may be the persistence issue. People know that something is more valuable when you present it the second time.

    Jan @
    [URL deleted by staff]
  • Posted by michael on 7/30/2007 at 11:32 AM Accepted
    Have you tried removing the responders from the second and resending a third?

    Not necessarily related, but we've had success when we've mentioned an attachment but the attachment is not attached.

    A larger percentage request the attachment when compared to a link within the e-mail. Haven't figured that one out yet.

    Michael
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