Jump to content

    How I tripled Yelp’s email response rates with just 3 changes.

    This is a guest post by Alicia Glenn:Alicia GlennShe works for Yelp as a salesperson, and this is how she tripled her B2B email marketing response rates with better copy.  Tell us your tips & secrets!

    ---------------Alicia takes the keyboard now-------------------

    You can also download this entire post as a PDF by clicking here

    ---------------Alicia takes the keyboard now-------------------

     As a salesperson for Yelp, I noticed that there was a lot of room to improve our sales email templates. On an average day, I might send out anywhere between 20 to 50 emails. If I got one email response back that day, sadly I considered that a win.Where was the disconnect? Shouldn't businesses WANT to be in communication with Yelp? If for some odd reason you never heard of Yelp, it’s the number one online business directory -- think of it like the modern day Yellow Pages. We affect businesses on a daily basis and are reaching out to help grow those businesses through advertising.Eventually, I realized what was holding us back and preventing higher response rates, our salesforce sounds like a bunch of robots...like little Yelp Robots, with no personality, being manufactured and churned out.....image04Yelp’s emails don’t sound like a person wrote them. Therein lies the problem. People don’t feel the need to respond to generic non-human sounding emails like this………image01This is understandable, because you don’t feel like someone is actually waiting for you to respond. What would happen if a business owner knew or felt that an actual person was waiting on the other side of that email? Wouldn't they feel more compelled to respond?PROBABLY. 

    My First Try at Customizing Emails:

    I started writing more customized emails, and surprisingly business owners would respond. Whether it was positive or negative, I didn’t care. All I wanted was a response. My main goal when crafting emails was to convey that I’m human and waiting for them to get back to me. Showing that you’re a real person also builds a sense of urgency.Example:image06After sending out a few successful custom emails, I came up with a formula for crafting effective sales emails:

    Feature + Benefit + Value + Human Factor = Dope A$$ Email

    Now let’s use the above email to see if it passes the test:Feature: Linked to his restaurants’ Yelp pages.Benefit: There’s opportunity for him to grow his business through Yelp.Value: Over the past year we’ve brought him over 600 leads.Human Factor: I had a leg up because I had spoken to him briefly over the phone, but he preferred to communicate via email...even though he had NEVER responded to any of my emails prior.So I added this as the headline, which also added a human factor:image05That put pressure on him and made him realize that I waiting for a response!

    Experiment to Increase Yelp’s Email Response Rates:

    After a while I pondered, how can I take this to the next level? Then good ole Nev popped into my head. I thought to myself “dang, he could really do damage if he redid all of Yelp’s email templates”! Almost like what he wrote about Uber emails (I guess great minds think alike)!Anyways, I decide to channel my inner Nev and do an experiment, especially since I love coming up with creative ways of getting people’s attention. For this experiment, I simply sent out 50 custom emails and 50 Yelp emails, then measured which one had a higher response rate.Guidelines for the experiment:
    1. Businesses could not be ESL (English as a Second Language).
    2. The business owner needs to know what Yelp is. The way I gauged that was whether or not the business owner had claimed their Yelp listing.

    (Below is what an unclaimed page looks like)

    image07

    How I Revamped Yelp Emails with AIDA & FBVH Formula:

    Before starting the experiment I needed to come up with a couple of custom templates to use. I did that by taking my most commonly used Yelp templates and giving them some oomph! This wasn’t my first rodeo. I took a crack at cold emailing back in college, which was pretty successful.

    Here is one of my most used generic templates from Yelp (fyi I inserted my name and a fictitious business name):image02The reason I like this template is because it gives a lot of value and shows the opportunity.But, there’s something wrong with this email. It almost passes my FBVH formula and Nev’s AIDA formula. I readily use both now when crafting sales emails.My FBVH formula: Feature + Benefit + Value + Human factorNev’s AIDA formula: Attention + Interest +Desire + ActionNow as I mentioned, this template TECHNICALLY follows the AIDA formula which covers most of FVBH…but what is it missing? The H...Human factor.Let’s break it down:Attention: 5 directions mapped to you from Yelp.Interest: What has happened on your page?Desire: You could be seeing a lot more business from yelp.Action: What is your availability this week?Now that we determined that it passes the AIDA test and only missing the H in the FBVH formula, we know what to fix. However, the email is also borrrrringgggg, which makes it easy to ignore...The reason emails need a human factor is not only to make them realize that a real person is waiting on their response, but it’s also to relate to them. It’s possible that the business owner doesn’t know what a mapped direction is, or other metrics you mention to grab their attention. Your product/service could be going over their head.Most of these business owners are upwards of 40 years old, so the goal is to get them excited and interested in learning about your product/service. I decided to rewrite the email.Here’s a custom email I wrote along with a REAL RESPONSE from a business owner:image03Twinkles wasn’t too happy. Funny response from a lady that runs a kids party planning business (you would think she would be nicer).Custom email template 2:image08Much better right?  just adding personality to your email can make a world of difference.I also tried a mix of different email headlines:
    • Hi [biz owner name] (wanted to try a simple one)
    • One with a mystery factor: The secret to getting more customers (which I realize now probably sounded a bit gimmicky).
    • Then I also tried a few that I came up with using Nev’s headline formula:
    [End result customer wants] + [specific Time Period] + [ Address the Objections]My headline: [Get More Business] + [Right Now] + [Even If You Have a Small Budget] Ok, so I’m sure you want to know how everything turned out. The results of the experiment are below….drum roll please….Experiment Results: Going from 3% Response Rate to 11%Results of the Experiment:

    Yelp Template Email Results (Before):50 Sent33 Opened1 Response3.33% response rate :-(

    Through this experiment I found that while using Yelp’s email marketing templates, I was averaging around a 3% response rate. This was in line with my peers as well. I asked my coworkers about their email response rates, and it was unanimous that they typically send out upwards of 50 emails without getting one response back.

    Custom Email Results (After):50 Sent35 Opened4 Reponses back11.43 % response rate :-)

    Success! I nearly tripled my response rate and slightly increased my open rate as well!The benefit of Yelp or any business revamping their sales templates is to get prospects in the HABIT of responding. Right now they are in the HABIT of ignoring Yelp emails because they lump it together with all the other sales emails they get from companies like Yellowpages, Groupon, Seamless, etc.At the end of the day, generic emails can lead to missed sales opportunities. One of the sayings at Yelp is that “deals don’t get closed over email,” which is true. However, email is a very powerful tool, and if used correctly it can provide an opportunity to reach the DM (decision maker) that you might not have had otherwise.Now I know my custom emails are probably not Kopywriting gold, but what I realized is that making yourself sound like a human can, and does, make a difference.Sincerely,Alicia Glenn 

    ------------------Neville steals back his keyboard------------------

    These are some MIND BLOWING RESULTS.  Imagine working everyday, sending the same 50 emails, and getting 3X the results by changing the words around??That's pretty awesome. Let Alicia know what you learned (or any improvement suggestions) in the comments below!

    Download this entire post by joining my email list:

    SAuAPMUCmyMoaqpeHIW4ZSb_7xWMSr-um-p5589C

    This post has some juicy insider B2B email info that most people won't ever share. Keep this post in your own swipe file. It contains:

    --All the info in this post.

    --Full sized (easier to read) images of the examples.

    --Your own copy of all the scripts contained in this post.

    --A great resource to share with your sales team.

     

    Enjoy it and use it wisely. Sincerely,Neville Medhora


    User Feedback

    Recommended Comments



    Guest Alejandro Casteleiro

    Posted

    I have a question, do you think there is a direct relationships of the opening rate with the effectiveness of the email's subject and a direct relationship between the kopy of the email and the email answering rate???

     

    And thank you for these formulas, they are gold:

    FBVH formula:

    Feature + Benefit + Value + Human factor

    AIDA formula:

    Attention + Interest +Desire + Action

    Alex

    Link to comment
    Guest John Twomey

    Posted

    I really just want that free Nev box. I love hard copy.

    But I'd like to address the issue of the "human factor" as it is refereed to here, as making your emails sound like they come from an actual, authentic person.

    I write mostly in formal English without resorting to colloquialisms, vernacular, or slang, inappropriate abbreviations, or writing "2" instead of two. I don't try to be breezy or too informal, I just try to inject some dignified humanity into the piece. One dignified human respecting another dignified human using clear, eloquent language. I think people respond well to formal, respectful, dignified, yet clear, effective, and informative writing with just the right touch of humanity to let them know that a human resides in there somewhere.

     

    Use all the formulaic acronyms you please to craft your pieces: just don't use B - S because people smell that coming from a country mile.

    John

    Link to comment

    Korking Post!

    Two methods I employ to achieve a human connection are writing as I would speak and making nice pretty pictures of people who generically represent my audience.

    Stick the picture above your Mac and look at your 'person' before, during and after you write.

    Link to comment
    Guest Christen

    Posted

    Hi Chung,

    Those are good ideas too. I also hate getting a "no response."

    Question for you?

    Once you send your first intro email when do you follow up? And, how many times do you follow up before you decide to put them on the back burner (e.g. 2 months).

    I haven't been tracking my results methodically but, I can confidently say I capture a significant number of customers through my 2nd follow up email. Here's my trick.

    Within 24 to 48 hours of sending a cold email with no response I'll follow up like this...

    Hi,

    "Just checking to see if you've had time to read my message. -insert 1 sentance summarizing value proposition again.-

    Talk to you soon,

    Christen"

    Link to comment
    Guest Hernan

    Posted

    Thank you for sharing Alicia and Nev

    I learned the following:

    1. The importance of humanizing what is written. It is to do it on equal terms.

    2. Specify the components of the AIDA formulated in what was going to write.

    3. Use the FBVH Formula

    I really would have liked, Alicia, that you had specified the use of the FBVH formula in that letter as you did it with AIDA

    Anyway, it is a post instructive with the promise of astounding results, when you apply the concepts you teach

    Link to comment
    Guest Neville

    Posted

    Hey Alejandro.....actually I'm not so sure about that.

    I personally don't send out SUPER CLEVER emails to my email list. Generally it's just something small and short as you can see:

    https://copywritingcourse.com/copywriting-headlines-that-sell/

    ......I really believe that in the long run it's the connection to the reader and TRUST you build with them.

    Just having snazzy headlines will work short term, but not long term.

    Link to comment
    Guest Neville

    Posted

    John, the point is not to shun proper English. The experiment was to be more casual and type like friends do.

    Definitely BS will drive people away for sure, that's why I'm actually not a huge fanatic on headlines and subject lines. They're important to get people to open an email, but if they consistently don't match the content, long term readership vanishes.

    Link to comment
    Guest Neville

    Posted

    Oh nice, you've actually printed out your customer "Bob", nice!
    Link to comment
    Guest Mary McD

    Posted

    Am about to launch a pretty major email campaign, to take advantage of a product launch, and the timing couldn't be better... I've gotten the list generated, and will now use these techniques to get opened!

    Thanks, A and N!

    Link to comment
    Guest Theodore Nwangene

    Posted

    What a very interesting experiment Alicia,

    This is really good. What is the essence of sending out an email campaign when you know they won't be opened let alone be read?

    People receives so many emails these days and if you really want yours to be opened, you must give them a good reason to. Sending out generic emails no longer work.

    This is really an awesome experiment Alicia, thanks for sharing.

    Link to comment
    Guest This Simple But Untapped Marketing Strategy Can Make You a Popular Blogger

    Posted

    […] had a guest (Alicia) on his site with an awesome case study  how she tripled Yelp’s conversion […]
    Link to comment
    Guest 5 Copywriting Hacks Designed to Give Your Business a Boost - AZ Franchising | Franchising dalla A alla Z

    Posted

    […] example, in these B2B email templates from inside Yelp, two versions were sent out to potential customers: A boring email and a casual-sounding […]
    Link to comment
    Guest 5 Copywriting Hacks Designed to Give Your Business a Boost - Macopo

    Posted

    […] example, in these B2B email templates from inside Yelp, two versions were sent out to potential customers: A boring email and a casual-sounding […]
    Link to comment
    Guest 5 Copywriting Hacks Designed to Give Your Business a Boost - The Dessauer GroupThe Dessauer Group

    Posted

    […] example, in these B2B email templates from inside Yelp, two versions were sent out to potential customers: A boring email and a casual-sounding […]
    Link to comment
    Guest 5 Copywriting Hacks Designed to Give Your Business a Boost | Anton Agency

    Posted

    […] example, in these B2B email templates from inside Yelp, two versions were sent out to potential customers: A boring email and a casual-sounding […]
    Link to comment
    Guest 5 Copywriting Hacks Designed to Give Your Business a Boost | Sometrending

    Posted

    […] example, in these B2B email templates from inside Yelp, dual versions were sent out to intensity customers: A tedious email and a casual-sounding […]
    Link to comment
    Guest Geoffrey

    Posted

    I'm glad that I found this article! I manage my newsletters with GetResponse and now I know how to create better emails!
    Link to comment
    Guest Volodymyr Protsenko

    Posted

    "This Account Has Been Suspended"—a message you receive when entering Alicia's site. Something to consider about her skills and knowledge.
    Link to comment
    Guest Ark Pizarro

    Posted

    Thanks for the tips! I applied them and saw my response rate jump right away. The personal touch makes so much sense but in business we always want to sound so robotic for some reason...

    Thanks again!

    Link to comment
    Guest Email Blast Templates | wholewheatdiet.com

    Posted

    […] How I tripled Yelp’s email response … – Looking for some B2B email marketing tips that will actually improve response rates? Here’s a case study with examples from one of Yelp’s elite salespeople. […]
    Link to comment
    Guest 28 Powerful Tips on How to Write Cold Emails That Will Actually Get a Response

    Posted

    […] Alicia Glenn talks about tripling the response rate for the business she works for, there are a few elements that never miss from an email: feature, […]
    Link to comment
    Guest 28 Powerful Tips on How to Write Cold Emails That Will Actually Get a Response | jamescastle96

    Posted

    […] Alicia Glenn talks about tripling the response rate for the business she works for, there are a few elements that never miss from an email: feature, […]
    Link to comment
    Guest Marlene

    Posted

    Hi Nev and Alicia,

    Very useful post! Thank you so much!! I just learning how to write copy and these tips are just gold for a newbie!!

    Also, Alicia, I work for a Twinkles-like person and that is her standard response - almost word for word - always!! Almost comical .. almost..

    Link to comment
    Guest 28 Powerful Tips on How to Write Cold Emails That Will Actually Get a Response - Blogging Income

    Posted

    […] Alicia Glenn talks about tripling the response rate for the business she works for, there are a few elements that never miss from an email: feature, […]
    Link to comment



    Create an account or sign in to comment

    You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

    Create an account

    Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

    Register a new account

    Sign in

    Already have an account? Sign in here.

    Sign In Now

    • Join 55,000+ people getting our newsletter

      nev-and-logo-going-into-email (3).gif

      - Get notified of new posts -
      - Get weekly S.W.I.P.E.S. Email -
      - Get a free masterclass in copy -
      - People love our emails, see testimonials -

    ×
    ×
    • Create New...
    Guest