Lights! Camera! Call to action!

I reviewed a lot of recruitment letters during the past week, and I saw evidence of some great work. The writers provided a lot of compelling reasons why a prospective affiliate would want to join our programs. What was sometimes lacking, however, was a strong call to action. After providing all of the great details of a program, we sometimes fail to entice the recipient of our recruiting e-mail to take action now! Let me provide a few examples:

One letter ended with "Let us know if you would like to discuss a possible partnership or if you have any questions." This is a passive statement. It doesn't guide the recipient to do anything except to decide whether or not they want to contact us. Is that really the message you want to send? The rough translation of this is "You can contact us if you want to. Whatever. Either way." We need to close these letters strongly with clear direction as to the action we want these prospects to take.

How about this? "Contact us today so we can help you join this great new program!" or "Join this program at [ web site address here ] and start earning great commissions!"

Here's another example. One recruitment e-mail ended with "Please get in touch with us at your convenience." It's better. The recipient knows what we want them to do - contact us. But it's still a bit up in the air, isn't it? "At your convenience" doesn't exactly instill urgency, does it? To be honest - we could care less about their convenience. We want them to drop everything and ACT NOW! How about "Please contact us at your earliest convenience so that you can start earning money by promoting this program." Now we've given them an incentive - money!

Some of the opening lines of our recruiting letters also showed signs of passivity when we want ACTIVE VOICE. For example, "I wanted to contact you regarding the XXX program." Drop the "I wanted." You crossed that bridge when you sent the e-mail. Understand? How about "I am contacting you with regard to the XXX program."

Another opening line was "We'd love to speak with someone about a partnership with our client and your site." Someone? Some random person? We are making it sound like we are just flinging these e-mails randomly into the ether, hoping someone gets the message. No! Always assume you've reached the decision maker and try to convince that person to take action now. Try "We'd love to speak with you about a partnership between you and XXX." This makes the message more immediate and, if you can convince this person that the message is worth acting on, they will either act or pass it on to the real decision maker.

Our recruitment letters are full of strong reasons to join our programs. We just need to stand behind those reasons by providing strong calls to action so that prospects become affiliates. If you are ever in doubt, send your e-mails to me and I'll help you through it. Good luck!

One last note this week. Some of you may already be aware of this, but I wanted to point out that no matter how big the company, mistakes will be made. Google learned that lesson this week when its Valentines Day holiday logo mispelled the company name. As you know, Google is known for holiday logos. This week's Valentine's Day featured the latest example, but the giant search engine was definitely not feeling the love. That's because Google was misspelled "Googe" this time around. Huge Googe mistake! Just goes to show you're never too big to ignore the importance of proofreading!

When to use e-mail and when to pick up the phone

It is so important in business communications to remember that words have power. They have the power to inform, the power to inspire and, unfortunately, the power to irritate. We all become so accustomed to communicating via e-mail that it is important to recognize that there are times when e-mail is not appropriate. Because we all telecommute, we cannot often have face-to-face discussions. Therefore, picking up the phone is critical at times when you want to ensure that your words are understood.

So, if you need to talk to a merchant, client or affiliate about an issue, potential problem, point of contention, etc., the BEST way to avoid confusion, misconceptions, etc., is to pick up the phone.

When to AVOID using e-mail:
- Never send e-mail when angry. Type your message in a text editor (don't let it anywhere near your e-mail client as the SEND button is so often confused for SAVE). After you are calm down, re-read the message, edit it and hit send. Or better still, pick up the phone and be professional in tone even when you're really steamed!
- Keep e-mails constructive in substance and professional in tone. Treat people with the same courtesy and respect in e-mail as you would do face-to-face.
- Write in a factual style, avoiding verbiage that can be misconstrued. E-mail is one-directional. The recipient cannot "hear" your intonation. You cannot see their facial expressions as your message is being read.
- Guard against sending e-mail that can be taken out of context or that contains confidential corporate information. E-mail is easily forwarded and copied. Once it leaves your account, an e-mail can take on a life of its own.
- Do not use slang or idioms that could be misunderstood outside your region or country.
- Resist replying to all recipients in a distribution list unless the sender specifically asks you to do so.
- Never use e-mail to communicate proprietary corporate information. With millions of hidden readers and dastardly hackers lurking in cyberspace, eMail simply is not secure.
- Never conduct negotiations by e-mail. If you are going to have a conversation that requires give and take, pick up the phone.
- If you're conducting a long interview with lots of questions, pick up the phone.
- If you are delivering bad news, it's always better to pick up the phone so you can explain, console, etc.
- If you have any reason to suspect your message will be misconstrued or confusing to the recipient, pick up the phone instead.

For managers, here are a few more tips:
- Don't become a robotic e-mailer to your employees or the members of your team. When you rely on e-mail to the exclusion of all other means of contact, you risk alienating others. Employees, customers and suppliers all crave human interaction. While some people may be content to communicate electronically nearly 100% of the time, others may feel slighted or unappreciated unless you maintain ongoing personal contact.
- Never use e-mail to fire employees or deliver bad news. Without the benefit of body language, facial expression, or intonation, e-mail is the worst way to deliver bad news to employees. Whether your objective is to terminate an employee or notify a department head of budgetary cutbacks, demonstrate respect for your employees by delivering bad news in person or by phone.
- Do not use e-mail to discuss an employee's performance with other managers. Managers are not required to like every employee on a personal level, but they are obligated to treat each worker with professional courtesy. If a manager needs to discuss an employee's professional shortcomings with the human resources director or instruct a department head to terminate an employee who just isn't working out, this discussion should be held in person and behind closed doors or by phone.

What about Instant Messaging?
Instant messaging is also written communication and can therefore be just as misconstrued as e-mail with the saving grace that, because it is mor e instantaneous, you might be able to quickly clear up any misunderstandings. However, in most cases picking up the phone is preferable to using instant messaging.

Instant messaging is really for quick communications (such as "Just reminding you our conference call starts in 10 minutes. See you there!" or "Hi. I'm checking in to see if you received that document I e-mailed you last night."). If you are communicating detailed instructions or sending documents, it's best to use e-mail as the message trail is easier to pick up later if the need arises.