I’m subscribed to a dozen or so email lists.
Most of them are big-name creators, copywriters, and email marketers. But I’m also subscribed to a few friends I made through X and other smaller creators who I felt like supporting and whose journey I wanted to follow.
And it’s incredible to watch how even the smallest creators are paying attention and learning from the big industry names. There are so many similarities you can draw.
Which is a good thing. You need to emulate high-quality content to get used to what high-quality content feels like after all. Only then can you venture out on your own, break the rules, and create your own way of doing things.
So I applaud that.
One problem with this strategy, however, is that it’s difficult to pinpoint why big-name creators do the things they do. You see what they do, but you don’t see why. Neither do you see the underlying principles they use to make their actions work.
I’ll give you an example.
Everyone and their mother’s dog realize that good email, especially daily ones, more often than not follow a general structure. The story structure.
You start with an idea/story/news item/celebrity gossip to entertain people, then teach a valuable lesson, and finally you transition to a CTA where you try to get your audience to do something, whether that’s clicking a link, replying to your email, or buying your product.
I refer to each of these stages as the meat, the bones, and the offer—or the open, the close, and the offer.
And that’s something almost everyone understands. That’s the thing you can see. And so almost everyone opens their email with some sort of idea. Which they try to turn into a lesson and then end with their offer.
Except there’s one problem I notice with almost all smaller creators. They break the #1 most important rule of email marketing. Costing them the sale, the engagement, the relation with their audience, and the whole thing they’re trying to build their business on.
And don’t come to me saying “Oh but Alex, I’m not in it to make money or sell my products”, yes you are. We all are. And that’s ok. I want to help you make sales, earn more money, and live a life of freedom. But I also want to get paid for doing so in the meantime.
Don’t you?
Because if you do, you better pay attention because I’m about to tell you the #1 biggest mistake most people make and how you can avoid it—so you can actually make sales through your emails.
And you don’t want to be part of the 90% of people who write emails but never make sales, do you?
Of course you don’t.
So here it is.
The number 1 biggest mistake most people make is failing to correctly open their email. They’re talking about the wrong story, the wrong news item, or the wrong idea.
The exact part of your email that does 90% of the work.
Choose the right opening and the right takeaway and you’ve done a lot of the heavy lifting in your email to get people to buy.
Here’s a simple litmus test to decide how (not) to open an email:
Ask yourself: “Will this idea help me make the sale?”
It sounds obvious. And it should be. But so many people fail to ask themselves this question when deciding if it’s worth opening their email with a certain idea they have in mind.
“But Alex how do I know if an idea helps me make the sale?”
Good question.
It’ll help you make the sale if somewhere in your idea there’s an element that:
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builds up desire in your reader for the outcome you’re promising
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stirs up his anxiety about the status quo
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creates more belief in your solution
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makes him trust you more
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dismisses alternatives
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creates an “in” group and makes your reader want to be in that group
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resolves objections your reader has
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simply motivates or inspires your reader to actually make a change and take action right now rather than waiting
If your story doesn’t have any of those elements, it’s not helping you make the sale. No alternatives.
No amount of funny stories, ChatGPT lifehacks, or cute cat pics will help you make the sale if your opening idea doesn’t include a single of these elements.
“infotainment”, “storyselling”, or whatever buzzword you use means selecting entertaining items that help you make the sale. Not simply entertaining people and just hoping they randomly buy from you.
And if you want to make extra certain people buy from you, then check out my course Simple Money Emails which teaches you all about it.
You can get it here: https://alexvandromme.gumroad.com/l/SME