A. James Editing, Inc.

I do a bit of writing for email marketing campaigns and thusly, I follow the musings of Ben Settle, email marketing rockstar.


He sends a daily email to his list with information about all things marketing, but specifically as they relate to email. Some email subject lines from the past: “Who wins the fist fight: copywriters or marketers?,” “Best emotion to sell to in emails,” and “Shy bladder at the keyboard” to name a very few.


Today’s email was entitled: “How to profit from typos.”


Perfect timing considering yesterday’s post.


With Ben’s permission, I’ve copied his email below:

Amber,

A new reader slaps the spelling cuffs on me:

“Your site looks great, but you have put there, instead of their in
your first paragraph and it creates a poor impression. Just thought
you’d like to know “

I must be losing my touch if you only saw one.

You see, not all typos are bad.

In some cases, they serve a valuable purpose.

Here’s what I mean:

First, if someone decided not to buy something from me or hire me
(actually, I’m not for hire, but still…) because of a misspelling
or whatever then I’m delighted — that person would almost certainly
be a big pain in the gluteus assimus to deal with.

(If I sold proof-reading services, that’d be the exception…)

Secondly:

I rarely care about spelling or grammar.

At least, in emails.

In fact, I often purposely leave misspelled words intact.

Why?

Because as Dan Kennedy and email Grand Puba Matt Furey say: “Money
is attracted to speed” — and spending time fixing little
grammer/spelling erros (hehe I misspelled those words on purpose)
is a waste of time when 99.9% of people simply won’t care or notice
anyway.

More:

This’ll REALLY freak ye olde spelling police out.

But in another market (weight loss) I send first drafts.

By that I mean…

I crank the email out (usually in about 4-5 minutes) and then let
‘er rip. No editing (unless the URL is wrong) or even thinking
about it.

Just sit, pound, send.

And it doesn’t hurt sales at all.

I’ve noticed it even HELPS sales sometimes.

That’s probably why old school copywriters used to purposely
misspell things in their ads

It made their letters look genuine.

Like personal letters.

And not “sales pitches.”

OK, enough.

For more contrarian email training, go to:

http://www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

Ben Settle
Marketing Specialist
Settle, LLC
www.BenSettle.com

Copyrighted & published by Settle, LLC.

All rights reserved.

Settle, LLC | P.O. Box 866 | Long Beach, WA 98631

A few posters to my previous post agree that spending too much time correcting errors is wasteful and unnecessary; keeping up with the speed of business being more important.


Really?


Typos actually helping sales?! (Gasp! Grammar Guardians, cover your eyes!)


I never thought so, but then again, maybe I’m missing out on millions when I refer to Grammar Girl and The Elements of Style for some of my copy.


Well, Ben Settle hath spoken.


What dost thou sayeth to that?

As you may remember from previous posts, I’m a networking junkie.


There’s something unspeakably cool about meeting a stranger at an event, meeting them for coffee a week later, and then hearing their voice on the phone asking if I can ghostwrite their weekly blog. (The answer was yes, btw.)


I was at one such networking event on Tuesday called the Schmooze, put on by Harlo Interactive.


I go to this event every month, and so do a lot of other professionals in Portland. Because there are so many regulars who attend, inevitably you start to see a lot of familiar faces.


Some might see this as a bad thing. Viewing networking as a way to meet new people to do business with. Seeing the same old faces means you’re not meeting anybody new, and thus, not drumming up any new business.


For those of you with this point of view, I would encourage you to instead see these familiar faces as opportunities to nurture and solidify existing relationships.


It’s true that prospective clients and partners will refer you simply because you’re the only copywriter or health coach or apparel designer they know, but imagine how much more strongly they’ll be invested in your success if they actually like you, know you and trust you.


So don’t snub those familiar faces. Give them a hug, catch up on the latest, and then move on to someone new.


Cake. And eating it too.