You've put a ton of effort into getting email subscribers. You're emailing them regularly with great content. But they just seem to be falling flat. You're not connecting or engaging.

It may well be that the cause is you're breaking the Rule of One.

In this week's 5 minute marketing tip video I explain the Rule of One and how to use it to get more impact from your emails.
 

 
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Video Transcript

Hi, it's Ian here. Today's 5 minute marketing tip is about how to get more impact from your emails using the rule of one. I'll show you how after the break.

Hi, welcome back. I'm sure you've noticed there's often a big difference when you're receiving emails from people between those emails that you really pay attention to, you read thoroughly, they seem to really impact and connect with you, to mean something and you very often do something as a result of reading those emails, and other emails where the content's good, it's interesting stuff but it kind of just washes over you, you never really make that personal connection with the person who wrote the email, and you never really do anything with it.

Now, making a connection, having impact with your emails is obviously vital. Firstly because if people don't' take action, don't do anything with your emails then they're not going to get any benefits from them but of course, you're not going to get any benefits either. They're not going to buy from you, they're not going to do something with your charity, they're not going to phone you up and ask to work with you, so you need your emails to have impact. Really good way of doing that is to use the rule of one. There are 3 parts to the rule of one ironically.

The first part of the rule of one is to write your emails to one person only. If you want to make that real close connection you have to write your emails as if you're speaking to one person, so you really need to understand who your ideal client is that you're writing to. Their hopes, their fears, their aspirations, their goals, their problems, their day to day challenges, really understand them in depth so you can write about things they care about. You can write in language that connects with them. You can illustrate with stories that are meaningful to them and by using language that's like you're talking to someone over coffee or in a bar, directly to them, you'll make that closer connection, so write to one person.

Secondly, you need to write about one topic. Now when you're doing blog posts and stuff like that and articles, very often the most popular, the most successful articles are big long lists, 37 ways of doing this, 15 ways you should try for this, 7 best resources for this. When people are surfing the web kind of casually those are the things that attract their attention and they go off and read them. Those work very well in terms of blog posts but when it comes to emails when you're sending something to someone's personal inbox, you want to make a more personal connection. A big long list of 27 things doesn't make that personal connection. It is very impersonal. You're much better off trying to pick one topic, one idea, one tip, one single thing you want to write to them about illustrated with a story ideally as well.

I found my original emails, when I first started doing email marketing seriously, 5 or 6 years ago, I was trying to cram every email with loads and loads of content and make 5 points in this one, 7 important points in this one, 8 bits of content in the next one.

At one point I kind of ran out of content a bit and I just wrote one simple email which was a story, you may have seen it. It's called, “Are we going to do this?” or “Are you going to do this? Which is where my wife, Cathy, kicked me up the butt a bit to get into action and clear up the bottom of our garden. We'd been putting it off for ages. It was one simple point about gritting your teeth and doing something, even if it's a bit painful at the time. I was a bit worried when I sent it out because it wasn't packed with all the content that my previous emails had been but it got the very best response I had ever got. People started writing back to me and saying, “Yes, I'm in exactly the same situation. I really feel for you. I went though the exact same thing. I'm going through the same thing now. I've really put off this stuff but I need to just get down and do it.” Loads of emails coming back like that. More than any of the other emails I had sent out before and put together. That one simple story making one simple point really works well in email. Not only does it get that one point across forcefully, it also makes a personal connection with people.

Finally, have one call to action. Don't try to ask people in your emails to do too many different things because you'll just confuse then. Don't have an email that's click here to go and view something on YouTube, click somewhere else to go and read a book, click somewhere else. Just give them one call to action to do. Now you may repeat the same call to action through the emails. If you're inviting people to a webinar then for the people who are ready just after hearing the title of the webinar you might have a link, a single call to action to go and sign up for the webinar early on in the email, and then at the bottom of the email you have the same link. It's the same call to action repeated more than once so you're not giving people too many choices, it's the same one. Just concentrate on that one call to action. You're much more likely to get people to do the one thing you suggest to them in an email than to suggest 3 or 4 different things and then rather than choose between the 3 they just end up doing none.

That's really the rule of one. Write to one person and really deeply understand that person. Make one point and illustrate it with one story, and have one call to action. If you do that your emails will have a lot more impact. Now no-one gets it right all the time. If you look back at plenty of my emails I've been trying to make 7 points, I'll have 3 calls to action or whatever but at my best, and at your best, you'll use that rule of one and have one person you're writing to, one main point you're trying to illustrate and one call to action. Give it a go. Next time you're writing an email follow that rule of one and see what the result is. I'm sure it will work for you. Cheers.