Pirates of the Caribbean

A pirates’s guide to email marketing

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If you’ve ever seen Pirates of the Caribbean (which you should—shame on you if you haven’t), then you came across a wonderful quote (one of many) by Captain Barbossa when Elizabeth Swann demanded him to release her (and bring her back to shore).

The famous quote goes as follows:

“The code is more of what you call guidelines than actual rules.”

In case you truly haven’t seen the film, the [Pirate] code refers to a set of ‘rules’ every pirate is expected to uphold, no matter how foul, devious, or unethical their plans or desires are.

After all, a society without rules is nothing but pure chaos—even one ruled by pirates, rule breakers, and miscreants.

Now, I’m no pirate. And I’m guessing you aren’t either.

So what does this have to do with either of us?

Well, the same principle of the pirate code being more guidelines than actual rules applies to almost everything we do.

As a beginner learning a new skill, you’ll be taught to adhere to and follow certain rules. Rules such as “Always follow the rule of one” for persuasive writing, “Show, don’t tell” for storytelling, or even the instrument pallet you should use to evoke certain emotions while creating music.

All of these serve a purpose, they will help you develop your skills and ability.

But as you grow, you’ll start to realize that every single rule you’ve been taught, isn’t really a “rule” as much as it is a “guideline”.

Many great copywriters have broken the rule of one on occasion.

Many great authors bombarded their readers with exposition being told to them instead of it being shown.

Many world-class composers have completely gone against common expectations when it came to instrument choice for certain musical styles—just look at Hans Zimmer using the organ as a device for the science fiction hit Interstellar.

William Zinsser said it best when he wrote, “Writing is no respecter of blueprints” in his book "On Writing Well” (a must-read).

And so it goes for email marketing as well.

While I do focus on teaching you a few basic “rules” to keep in mind in my flagship offer, Email Valhalla, I’ll also show you when to apply these and, more importantly, when not to apply them—after all, they’re only guidelines.

Click this link to find out more: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla


A hidden secret to make your customers do the stuff you want

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I’m a big movie guy.

Well, I’m a big a lot of stuff guy. But for the sake of today’s email, it’s movies.

(Stick with me for a moment, it’ll all make sense in a second why I’m talking about movies)

One of my (and almost everyone else’s) favorite movie franchises is Pirates of the Caribbean. There’s a lot of good (and bad) to be said about it. Many of which has already been said by other people I won’t bother you with today.

But I want to talk about something else.

Something not many people often talk about.

And that’s the quotability of the dialogue.

See, we all know famous lines of movies that get quoted a lot. Think of lines such as “I am your father”, “I’ll be back”, or You shall not pass”.

All great lines and great scenes.

But Pirates has it’s own unique trick to create this quotable dialogue.

You might remember quotes such as “Why is the rum gone?”, “This is the day you will always remember as the day you almost caught Captain Jack Sparrow”, and many more.

And there’s a huge difference here.

While some scenes were definitely great, most of them weren’t. They’re just average scenes with average dialogue.

So why are they so quotable?

Because the characters themselves often quote others or repeat their own dialogue. And they use the same lines in multiple settings, under multiple different conditions, often with different outcomes and with different emotions to them.

Simply said.

Pirates uses a lot of repetition to make you remember certain lines of dialogue, almost making a game out of it.

This makes the dialogue immediately quotable because, well, the movie shows you how quotable it is.

So getting back to what this has to do with you.

If you want people to pick up a certain habit, if you want them to do something, if you want them to remember something, then show them how to do it, when/where they can do it, and most importantly, repeat yourself often.

I dive deeper into this topic in Product Creation Made Easy where I show you how you can create your products in such a way that ensures people will take action and actually do the stuff you tell them to do, remember the stuff you teach them, and even repeat what you said to others—at which point they’re basically doing your marketing for you.

If you want to learn more about that, then check out Product Creation Made Easy here: https://alexvandromme.com/pcme