Here’s the backstory: Learning tech charity Learn Appeal got in touch this Christmas to see if we might be able to help them raise some funds. They had two free passes for this month’s Learning Technologies conference, worth £1,099 each, to give away and they wanted everyone in the L&D industry to know that. L&D minded folks who wanted to win these hot tickets needed to do two just two simple things before Jan 14th to be in with a shout. First they needed go to Learn Appeal’s fundraising page and suggest an innovative way the charity could use technology enabled learning to support disadvantaged communities, then they were asked to hop over to BT Donate and give a tenner.
No problem we thought: let’s hammer out a one of our NowFriday newsletters with sexy headline like “Win two free conference passes for Learning Technologies” or “Get over £2,000 worth of free conference passes” or maybe even “Learn Appeal’s fantastic deal” which we quite liked because it rhymed a bit.
Anyone who knows anything about SEO and words never to use in email marketing can see where we’re going with this. Fire out a piece of email marketing with any of these headlines and they’re going to get the red flag from every spam checker on the planet.
So what about something like “Contribute ten pounds to Learn Appeal and potentially acquire Learning Tech conference passes outside of the classic financial arrangement”? Spam filters are happier with this but punchy it ain’t. Free conference passes is no small beer. It’s like – your getting £2, 200 worth of free stuff! Better perhaps is “Derive gratuitous passes for this month’s Learning Tech conference by donating a minimal sum to Learn Appeal” but again, why make this more complex just because super simple messages like Win tickets to this month’s Learning Tech conference don’t go down well with the spam filters?
“Learn Appeal was founded to bring both the e-learning industry and those who have an interest in e-learning together and combine our resources. As Learning and Development Professionals, we know the benefits technology enabled learning can bring to ourselves, our organisation and those we support. Learn Appeal’s mission is to bring those benefits to disadvantaged learners and make a positive difference to their life chances.
If the spam checker on your system stopped that message getting to you from us, or anyone else this month jump here and start supporting.