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Found via Email Marketing Voodoo.

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Like just about any field, online marketing has its axioms. And none is more well-known than “content is king.” Or, to be specific, valuable content is king.

I didn’t think about content or value much for my first year or two at AWeber (I didn’t think of what I was doing as creating content), but as I shifted into a marketing role, I started paying attention to the advice that seasoned marketers were giving out to n00bs (like me) via articles, discussion boards, etc.

The same advice kept coming up over and over in each article and thread:

• Create Valuable Content
• Create Valuable Content
• Create Valuable Content

What Makes Valuable Content?

None of what I read answered what I really wanted to know (and what I think a lot of folks in marketing want to know):

How do you know if the content you’re in the process of creating is valuable?

It’s easy enough to know after the fact – you can look at traffic, opt-ins, clicks, retweets, Delicious saves, comments, conversions and any of a number of other metrics. Or you can ask your audience (if you have one) what they think of your content.

But how do you know beforehand?

I’ve been thinking about this a lot more lately as AWeber grows, because I’m not personally creating all of our content anymore. I assist others through brainstorming, feedback, editing, etc. but they do the lion’s share of the actual creation. And “I know value when I see it” (which was a useful guideline when I was the only one creating content) doesn’t scale.

So what does scale?

I have an answer that so far seems to work well, and while it might not apply to every type of content, it’s useful to think about when you’re working on your own content.

The 5-Minute Value Rule

Whenever I think about content that I’m going to create, I ask myself:

What are people supposed to do in the 5 minutes immediately after reading/watching/listening to this that will __________?”

The blank at the end is different for everyone. For what we do at AWeber, it’s “improve their email marketing campaign/results.” If you’re Whole Foods, maybe the answer is “help them eliminate unhealthy eating habits.” It’s whatever your audience ultimately wants in exchange for paying attention to you.

You’ll notice that a lot of the content I (help to) create contains an explicit or strong implicit suggestion that the reader/viewer/listener do something fairly specific upon finishing the content. That’s no accident.

Why 5 Minutes? Why Not 10? Or 30?

I can see some people – maybe even you – reading this and saying,

Great, but it’s kind of lowbrow… don’t some valuable ideas require more than 5 minutes’ work/thought? Doesn’t this rule skew your content (and push your audience) toward small-picture thinking?

And to be sure, I don’t posit this rule as a cure-all for your content creation woes.

But the point of this rule isn’t really about 5 minutes in particular.

Make Your Value Tangible.

That’s the point of this rule.

See, I don’t want a passive audience who thinks my content might be valuable. I want an active one who makes a clear connection between what they read/watched/listened to and a tangible, positive result. (If that result is also quantifiable, all the better.) I want them to realize that result, and when they do, to immediately think of my content.

The 5-minute value rule helps to focus my efforts on creating that tangible, positive result.

This Is Just For Educational Content, Right?

I don’t see why it can’t apply to promotional content, too.

Here’s a hypothetical example: you receive an email from a shoe retailer inviting you to try their new state-of-the-art size and fit finding tool and buy a pair of shoes.

They might offer incentives to get you to click through and try it (free shipping both ways, a discount), but those aren’t the value… at least, not according to the 5-minute value rule.

The value in this email and landing page/tool (working together) is that you can immediately find a pair of shoes that you love, in your size (and that will fit you well), from the comfort of your home, office, smartphone, wherever.

• You don’t have to drag your ass out to the mall and fight crowds and traffic.
• You don’t have to wait for a salesperson to look and see if it’s in your size.
• You don’t have to go to seven different stores.
• You don’t have to deal with lines, screaming kids, people asking you to take a survey (can you tell I don’t like the mall?)

You just traded in an afternoon’s (a whole day’s?) headaches for a few minutes’ browsing, thanks to that email. And it was 100% promotional.

Are there cases where it might not apply? Sure. I just can’t think of what they would be. But hey, it’s my rule, so I’m probably biased. What do you think?

So What’s the 5-Minute Rule For This Post?

(Don’t try to tell me you weren’t thinking that this whole time.)

I hope you do at least one of the following things in the 5 minutes following finishing this:

• Look at the last article/post/email you created and ask yourself: what’s the audience supposed to do with this right after they finish reading it? Anything?
• Ask yourself: do you have a rule or guideline that helps you determine if something you’re creating (or thinking of creating) has value to its intended audience? If so, what’s your rule?
• Try out the 5-minute rule the next time you’re thinking about creating content. Ask yourself: “What are people supposed to do in the 5 minutes immediately after reading/watching/listening to this that will __________?” (Fill in the blank with whatever fits your audience.) See if it helps you focus your content.

And while you’re at it, take a minute or five to let me know what you think about this rule

Photo by Rakka

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

There’s a term bandied about the email marketing world that needs to die.

In fact, it’s arguably already dead. Yet it hangs on, and nobody seems to so much as raise an eyebrow when it gets dropped into conversation.

What is it?

Legitimate.

Don’t believe me?

Nah, you probably don’t. Because hey, your emails are legitimate, right? It’s all those phishing, pill-pushing, pump-and-dumping, porno pimping shysters whose emails are illegitimate.

It’s so very black and white. Except when it’s not.

I got a real earful of the term “legitimate” at an email conference recently, and it struck me that in the “legitimate” email marketing industry, this term is well on its way to being regarded the way that the phrase “opt-in” is.

What I mean is, the term carries no meaning. Its presence or absence neither adds nor removes credibility. Email marketers use the term because we feel we have to – but it’s not like anyone actually thinks you’re more or less legitimate for having said it.

Multiple Meanings

Part of the problem that nobody seems to recognize is, the word means different things in different contexts, and to different people.

Heck, let’s not even get into the different entities in the email world who might interpret “legitimate” differently just yet. Let’s start with a few of our friend Mr. Webster’s definitions:

Legitimate: (1) being exactly as purposed: neither spurious nor false; (2) accordant with law or with established legal forms and requirements; (3) conforming to recognized principles or accepted rules and standards. (source: merriam-webster.com)

Whoa! Not exactly simple, eh? I mean, let’s put these into somewhat email-related terms:

1. Being exactly as purposed: neither spurious nor false. Wait… whose “purpose” are we going with? The sender’s? That doesn’t seem useful for our purposes. Maybe the key here is “spurious” – in other words, forged. OK, so emails that are forged are not legitimate. Fine.
2. Accordant with law or with established legal forms and requirements. OK, so if my email is CAN-SPAM compliant, it’s legitimate. That sound cool to all you email marketers out there? (For those of you not in the know, spamming is legal under CAN-SPAM. Seriously. Look it up. But how many of us would consider spam to be “legitimate” email?)
3. Conforming to recognized principles or accepted rules and standards. Now we’re talking. So to be legitimate, your email must conform to the recognized principles and accepted rules and standards of… AOL? MAPS? RFC 2822? Go on, tell me, I’ll wait.

Now, when the dictionary gets you 3 distinct definitions and creates that much confusion, imagine how much more fun it gets when we start talking about how multiple parties (each with unique motives and interests) define “legitimate.”

What Groups Use This Term?

Some of the relevant entities who may define “legitimate” differently:

1. Email marketers (and we’re unlikely to all define it the same way)
2. Email service providers
3. ISPs
4. Recipients

We could add more groups to this list, but this is a good short list to illustrate the ridiculousness of trying to use the word “legitimate” to describe your emails.

Even if all those groups started with the Webster’s definition (which is unlikely anyway), each one is going to refine the meaning to fit their needs. By the time you get any 2 of them talking (God forbid you get 3 or more of them talking), the term hinders clear communication more than it helps it.

So Why Do We Use It?

An assumption that everyone else defines it the way we do? Or maybe a desire to rally around a word that distinguishes all of us from the worst that email has to offer? Or just habit?

Beats me. All I know is, as best I can, I’m ditching the word until someone can show me why it’s worth using.

I don’t suppose in the grand scheme of things this will change much, but hey – I’m a former language guy. This stuff matters to me. And if you’ve ever cared about words like “email blast” or “opt-in” or “spam,” maybe it’ll matter to you, too.

Your Thoughts?

Is this worth getting riled up over? Or are such semantics pointless?

How do you use “legitimate” (if you do) when discussing email? How do you see others using it? Is there a Grand Unified Theory Definition of “legitimate” that I’m unaware of? Enlighten me!

Just for fun: here’s a JPEG of my mindmap for this article. It goes into some more details/areas that I didn’t touch on here, partly because this post is plenty long as-is.

Photo by Eustaquio Santimano

This blog hasn’t seen much writing on email, but thanks to Andrew Kordek, I am writing about email on another blog: The Email Zoo.

It’s a group blog that we and a few other “industry folks” (i.e. people who spend all their time thinking about email marketing) put together as a place to praise and critique the email campaigns that we receive.

The email critique is not a new idea – almost every email marketing blog has a few posts on them – but it’s nice to have a separate blog where I can write about the emails I get without creating the actionable tips and “how to” articles that the AWeber blog is known for.

And hey, I’ve already written a post there, which is more than I’ve done here thus far.

So go check it out.

Photo by James Cridland

Thanks to periodic nudging by a few people, you may find some thoughts on email, marketing and other stuff here now and then.

I say may because I can’t guarantee at the moment that I’ll publish often. I already write for one blog, and while that doesn’t often keep me busy outside of 9-5, it does mean that I spend a lot of time thinking and writing about email as it is.

More importantly, I’m not convinced there’s even a need for another email blog. There are already many quality ones. To say the market for email marketing blogs is crowded would be quite the understatement.

Other Email Blogs You Should Read

If you’re here looking for email tips, try some of the ones listed below. If you don’t get enough of what you want there, come back and let me know.

• No Man Is An Iland
• BeRelevant
• The Email Wars
• Adventures In Email Marketing

And that’s just a starting point.

So Is There Nothing Worthwhile Left To Say?

Photo By hoyasmeg

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Who said anything about worthwhile? I’m not guaranteeing worthwhile here. You can’t hold me to it. (How’s that for setting expectations?)

All disclaimers aside, I hope I end up writing some useful stuff here. Ideas, suggestions and questions you wouldn’t normally get from me elsewhere.

One of the constraints of writing for someone else is that their audience and goals drive the discussion. I love blogging at AWeber, but I definitely have some things to say that just don’t fit the audience or scope of that blog.

(Plus, it really sucks to be wrong on a company blog with 14,000+ subscribers, and I’m sure I’ll be wrong a lot here. Fortunately there aren’t many of you stopping by yet. Hopefully by the time there are, I’ll mostly be right.)

Care to Stay Tuned?

With any luck, this “hello world” post will lead to some more substantial writings.

As of yet, there’s no email subscribe here Update 2/4/09: there is now an email signup in the sidebar, but if you want to keep tabs on me, you can grab the RSS feed.