Blackjack Strategy for Email Marketing

Blackjack is one of the most widely known games in casinos and email marketing is the most common solution businesses use to market to their prospects and customers. For many, both are a game of chance not strategy. Email marketing has many similar characteristics that make marketing like walking into a casino. Are you going to take down the house or walk out empty handed?

In Blackjack, there are certain combinations of cards that are more likely to induce a favorable result. Traditional Blackjack strategy dictates to never hit above 16, to split on same-value cards and never take insurance. This is good to have fun, but will you win that way? Possibly, but it doesn’t scale to a decent win. If anything, only enough to break even or at most a couple more hands to play. Because of this limitation, more advanced Blackjack strategies exist to help players win the game.

In email marketing, there are certain characteristics that will keep subscribers happy, clicking and driving sales. That includes having a catchy subject line, killer content and having impeccable timing. However, for most marketers, it’s always a gamble as to what combination of subject lines, content and timing will work to their advantage. Thus, for most small businesses, email marketing a game of chance, not strategy.

In this analogy, email service providers and ISPs are the pit bosses and if you’re pulling shenanigans, they will politely (or not so politely) ask you to leave. They are there to ensure everyone is playing fairly according to the defined policies of that casino and the gaming commission for their jurisdiction. In the world of email marketing, email compliance managers make sure people honor the policies of their service and the legal requirements of the industry. Spam filters can be regarded as modern-day card shufflers because they both nullify the likelihood of one cheating their way to the win (or to the inbox) –  like how they limit card counting practices.

So, what’s an email ‘gambler’ to do?

Learn the game, practice and execute. No matter how many cheat-sheets, shortcuts or best practices you read, it will never substitute the actual results and lessons you learn by doing it. In addition, this requires you to be open-minded about the “game” and to be willing to try new tactics — and be willing to face failure head on.

Through practice, losing a few hands (or sending out a few low-performing emails) doesn’t seem to matter when you pay attention to the game at hand and know what works – and what doesn’t when you’re at the table – by sticking to a strategy.

I mentioned card counting earlier. This legal but frowned-upon tactic could work, but many people don’t execute it well, except for those kids at MIT. I admit my card counting is weak and I don’t do it. Nevertheless, the equivalent in the email marketing world would be to measure every click for every email and studying your subscribers’ activity so every move is calculated and expected. For that, the email marketing pit bosses want you to make every move calculated.

As you can see, both Blackjack and email marketing are similar in how ‘the game’ is played. Depending on your attitude and mindset, it can be either a game of strategy or chance. It’s up to you whether you want to leave with cash in your pocket or let the house win.

[Image credit: banspy]