Let me start this by telling you that most emails straight-out suck.
The most common traits I see is:
- They're not enjoyable to read
- They teach nothing
- They're click baity
- They're salesy
So how will we fix that?
By not using click-bait subject lines.
By using an approach that will hook the reader from start to end.
And by using a combination of entertainment through stories and education through lessons to make our emails the PERFECT read.
Subject Lines
Crafting Great Subject Lines
The subject line is the gatekeeper of your emails.
If you write something too bland, people will not care enough about it.
If you always write click-baits, people will stop opening your emails.
That's why it is important to understand how to perfectly craft a subject line and find the intersection between curiosity and relevance.
So, what makes a good subject line?
1. Inspiring curiosity in the reader 2. Letting the reader know what’s in there for him
If your subject line fits those parameters, you’ll get your emails opened.
There are a few formats that work like a charm, let’s go over some of them.
Polarizing
Easy to understand how this works.
If you’re polarizing, both the people that support your point of view and the people that don’t will want to open to either reassure themselves or to see what kind of nonsense are you writing.
Example: Can a vegan man be manly?
Straight to the point
Just go straight to the point of the main subject that you’re writing, this will be transparent to the reader and it will funnel only those that really want to read what you’ve written.
Example:
Email advice from a 7-figures copywriter
Benefit-driven
People love to get the good stuff, so tell them exactly what they’ll get once they read your email, and make it spicy so they have no option but to open.
Example:
Increase your email open-rates with one simple trick
Negative statements
Sentences written in the negative are way more attention grabbing for us than the positive ones.
There’s something about us that’s hardwired to take more caution about the negative than to give more attention to the positive.
Example:
Don't do this if you want high open rates
Numerical
Using numbers appeals to the logic side of your reader, and if you combine this with a benefit-driven or a negative statement style, you’ll get yourself a lot of opened emails.
Example:
5 things that are ruining your business
FOMO
No one wants to miss out, I’m sure that you’re more than aware of the power of using the fear of missing out to get people to pay attention.
This is especially good when you’re running a discounted promotion on a product.
Example:
2 hours left to get the XYZ system
Question
Questions demand attention because questions demand an answer.
They’re extremely effective at grabbing your reader's eyeball, especially because they will want the answer to the question you just asked.
Example:
Is this holding you back?
Money
It’s of no surprise that Forex and MLM schemes work...
People love money, and they’ll always get attracted by it, no matter how unreal the given possibility is.
We don’t want to use money as clickbait, but talking about money numbers is always a good way to get your reader’s attention.
Example:
$2000 of coaching for $14.99
Pattern Breaking
Disrupt a certain pattern that your reader is used to.
That will spike curiosity because you’re presenting a different angle that they were not aware of.
Example:
Mother Teresa was selfish and I can prove that
FINAL NOTES: Every list is different, and it’s impossible to predict which type of subject lines will do the best. I always like to look over the past emails that I’ve sent and try to figure out what sort of subject lines do better.
Email is all about testing, and there’s no one size fits all solution because there are no equal lists.
Fill-in-the-blank Subject Lines
X secret tips from authority figure
Examples:
- 3 secret tips from
NYT best-seller author - 5 secret tips from
legendary copywriters - 10 secret tips from
ripped bodybuilders
How I do something for my clients
Examples:
- How I
write emailsfor my clients - How I
do diet plansfor my clients - How I
structure workoutsfor my clients
What to do if non-desired outcome
Examples:
- What to do if
you can't gain muscle - What to do if
your sales page are not selling - What to do if
you're not gaining followers
This is stopping you from desired outcome
Examples:
- This is stopping you from
getting new clients - This is stopping you from
making course sales - This is stopping you from
losing weight
Why people who do this never desired outcome
Examples:
- Why people who
skip schoolnevermake it in real life - Why people who
don't tweet enoughneversell a lot - Why people who
jogneverput in muscle
You're doing something wrong and I can prove it
Examples:
- You're doing
writingwrong and I can prove it - You're doing
squatswrong and I can prove it - You're doing
list buildingwrong and I can prove it
Steal this context trick
Examples:
- Steal this
anticipation-buildingtrick - Steal this
content creationtrick - Steal this
persuasiontrick
How I ended up achievement
Examples:
- How I ended up
working with a 6-figures agency - How I ended up
selling 100 courses a day - How I ended up
putting in 7lbs of muscle a month
How to desired outcome without typic hassle
Examples:
- How to
make moneywithoutinvesting thousands - How to
put musclewithouttraining 6 days a week - How to
lose fatwithoutrestricting carbs
Copy this context trick to desired outcome
Examples:
- Copy this
Netflixtrick tomake recurring clients - Copy this
bodybuildertrick tobuild dense muscle - Copy this
tweet styletrick to gethundreds of retweets
What I would do if I had to do something again
Examples:
- What I would do if I had to
learn copywritingagain - What I would do if I had to
build an audienceagain - What I would do if I had to
lose 50 lbs of fatagain
Can you desired outcome with minimum effort?
Examples:
- Can you
build musclewithone workout a week? - Can you
make moneywith oneemail a week? - Can you
build a profitable agencywithone hour of work a day?
- Grab it while it's hot
You need this ONE thing to benefit
Examples:
- You need this ONE thing to
sell more ebooks - You need this ONE thing to
lose 5lb a month - You need this ONE thing to
increase open rates
The difference between bad results and good results
Examples:
- The difference between a
$100anda $1.000 product launch - The difference between
losing 2lbsand10lbs of fat in a month - The difference between
a 10 followersanda 10.000 followers Twitter account
This is how you know if matter of study is any good
Examples:
- This is how you know if
a courseis any good - This is how you know if
a diet planis any good - This is how you know if
a business modelis any good
Hook/Lead
It is the gravitational force that keeps the reader interested in your email and not close it after reading the first sentence.
Most of your readers choose whether they'll read your email or not based on the first line and the last line.
And if your first line is not on point, there's a good chance they'll not read the rest of the email.
To write a good hook is to catch your reader's attention.
So how do you do it?
Well...There's several ways. Here are some of my favorites.
Questions
Asking the exact questions your reader have is a persuasion SUPER POWER.
You'll get them hooked to your email.
The point here is to make it ALL about the reader.
Make these questions benefit-driven or pain-solving.
Example:
- Do you feel tired of hitting the gym 5x a week and not losing weight?
Do you want to eat whatever you want and still lose body fat?
Do you want a "less intensive" workout plan that leads to better results?
- Still listening to internet goo-roos in 2021?
Sick of falling prey to their get rick-quick schemes?
Want to learn from someone that has REAL world exprience?
If / Then
By far my favorite and one that never misses.
You get in your reader's head with the IF and you get them to read with the THEN.
Examples:
- If you want to make your emails strike a chord in your reader's mind then this simple trick I've been using for the past month is the ONLY thing you need to know.
- If you're not sure whether my coaching call could help you hit your fitness goals, then John's result will absolutely change your mind.
- If you can't lose more than 10lb of fat per month, then this ancient Chinese technique might be exactly what you need.
Negative
Example:
- The other day I've WASTED $100 on a dead useless course, and I don't want you to make the same mistake as I did.
- You've heard the goo-roos preach about the "laptop lifestyle" but they never told you all the downsides that come from working for yourself.
- Last summer I stupidly packed 10lbs of fat when trying to look "more muscular..."
Brief introduction that sparks curiosity
This one isn't flashy or anything. It's just a great way to introduce the context of your email.
Example:
- Last night I had the craziest of dreams. I dreamt that all my life-savings were lost due to a bank rookie mistake...
- When I last logged into my Gumroad account I couldn't believe that I had made $2,000 USD in less than a week...
- The last time I placed my feet on a scale I weighted 10lbs less than what I thought I did...
Transition To The Story
It's not always easy to make a smooth transition that makes the reader realize there's A LOT in your story for him to benefit from.
Here's my favorite way to do it:
Let me tell you the story of [your story] because it clearly shows that [benefit-driven reason].
Examples:
- Yesterday I was watching this great freelance summit, and it made me realize there's a CLEAR pattern in emails that sell.
- The way Sherlock Holmes lured this thief into his house teaches the EXACT same principles you need to know to get clients effortlessly.
Not every story will need this as it will be persuasive on its own, but this is a great way to make sure people keep on reading.
Story
People love stories, and most email marketing guys are only doing boring and pushy promotional emails that deliver no value.
Stories are powerful selling mechanisms, they make people reach conclusions on their own and they connect you and your reader in the same wave-length, they’ll be the ones reasoning why they need your product and that makes them feel like they’re making a good decision rather than being sold.
Telling a story is not only exciting but also a way to give context to a lesson, and people will keep on coming for your emails because they know you have something valuable & entertaining for them every day.
The reason the movie industry makes so much MONEY is due to it’s highly-entertaining & dramatic nature, and that’s exactly what you should aim to do with your emails.
Stories are marketers' best option because they fill the three parts of a whole when it comes to the value they provide.
The greatest advantage of using the daily story-based email method is that you’ll be able to sell without being too pushy because you’re not directly pitching your product.
Here’s how you do it the right way:
- If you're selling a product that saves time, tell a story when you wasted precious time.
- If you're selling a product that gives clarity, tell a story where the main character needs clarity (doesn’t need to be you).
- If you’re selling a product that puts money in people’s pockets, tell a story where you had no money (and you needed it).
That’s the beauty of this way of selling, you don’t need to state the same problem over and over again, you can simply state a problem that stems from the same nature.
Let’s go over an example just to make this clear.
Your solution: Help beginners that don’t know where to start doing X.
The problem it seeks to solve: Lack of clarity
Example of problems you can come up:
● Failing to give the first step ● Feeling overwhelmed ● Conflictual ideas ● Procrastination
All these problems come from a lack of clarity, your story should aim to talk about one of these problems and give a solution for it.
After finishing your story, reframe your product as the solution to your reader's story just like the insert story solution was the solution to the story's main character problem (This should be done in the call-to-action section.)
Transition To The Lesson
- Why am I telling you this? Because...
- This is why...
- If there's one takeaway from this, I want it to be...
- And that's why it's important to...
Lesson
We’re not in the entertainment business, and even though we use it as a means to an end (teach something), you still need to be clear about what it is that you’re trying to teach in your email.
If your reader doesn’t understand what lesson you were trying to give, he will soon discard your emails. Stories are great to give context, but you must not forget to extract a lesson out of a story.
Example:
Let’s say we just told the Little Red Riding Hood story in our email.
We could extract the lesson by saying:
“That’s exactly why you shouldn’t trust in strangers online, and you should always stick with creators for a while before rushing to buy their products just because they say so”.
Transition To The Call-To-Action
Here are my favorites to connect the lesson with the CTA:
- With that being said...
- And that's why...
- Which leads me to...
- And if you want to learn more about this...
Call-to-action
This component is arguably the most important part of your email.
Your email success depends solely on the follow-through rate, and if you fail to push people down your funnel, the whole email, although not useless, will lose most of its value.
Here are 3 golden rules for a good call-to-action:
1. Direct and assertive 2. Qualify the right people 3. Has some sense of urgency (optional)
Example 1:
If you want to 10x your email sales, click the link below:
LINK
Example 2:
There are less than 12 hours to grab my best-selling course at 50% of the price.
>>> Click here before it's gone
Weaponize Your Email
At this point, if your reader made it this far, that’s because:
1. Your copy was on point 2. He’s somewhat interested in what you have to offer
And this is where the magic happens and we seal the deal with those who are still not sure about your offer.
The 6th component can come in many shapes and forms, but the most usual is:
- Before your signature
- After your signature using a P.S.
What we want to do now is WEAPONIZE our email for MASS PERSUASION.
It must be impossible for your reader to IGNORE your offer.
Here are all the different ways you can do this:
- Bullet-point list with all the benefits of what you’re selling
- Generate urgency with a deadline
- Testimonials from your customers
- Give a bonus with the purchase
You can even go as far as choosing two of the things listed above.