I was talking to a girl once and she said, “What do you think, if I were an animal, what animal would I be? What animal do I remind you of?”
The fact is, she reminded me of a bear — in all the best ways. But I couldn’t say that.
I tamped it down and said she made me think of a lioness.
“Hm ok,” she said. “Do you wanna know what animal you remind me of? But wait, I don’t know the name in English.” She went rooting around her phone.
“This!” she finally said with a big smile. “So cute it is!”
I looked at the picture. My animal doppelganger was staring back at me with dark, beady eyes. I started to laugh. It was a weasel.
The girl, who was not a native English speaker, just shrugged. For her, the story ended there. I’m sure she’s forgotten all about it since.
But I knew the double meaning of the word “weasel” in English. And so, my brain lit up and I laughed. I wrote down this story as soon as I could, and here I am, telling it to you now, a few years later.
And in case you’re wondering what my point is:
Many people will tell you that the secret to good emails is so simple. Just talk about what happened to you today. Then milk it for some sort of a lesson and presto! Immediate influence.
I disagree.
For the vast majority of people, myself included, I think this “bland breakthrough” style of emailing is a terrible approach.
Because except for a few rare storytellers, those types of emails rarely come together to surprise and delight. They rarely light up the reader’s brain the way my brain lit up at being (favorably) compared to a weasel.
Instead, all you get is the girl’s reaction — a shrug, and on to the next thing.
Maybe you don’t see the distinction I’m trying to make. So let me give you an example of an email that turns the light on.
It comes from one of the bonuses I’ve been putting together for my now-ended Influential Emails training. This bonus — “My 12/4 Most Influential Emails” — includes my 12 most influential emails, as well as 4 emails by other marketers that influenced me the most in my copywriting career.
The example I want to give you is one of these “other” emails. It was written by Ben Settle and it’s been stuck in my head for years.
I asked myself today why this email had such an impact on me.
I came up with two things. I won’t spell out what they are, but I will tell you I worked both of them into this email that you’re reading. Plus you can also see them in action in Ben’s email at the link below.
And in case you’re wondering whether it’s really worth your time to click and read another email right now… let me put it this way:
If you could write something today… and have it stick in other people’s minds so strongly that they share it and promote you to their own attentive audience, even years later… do you think that could be valuable to you?
If you say yes, then take a look here: