A while back, I got hired to write a doomed sequence of emails.
This was for a kit to help with fermenting your own vegetables at home.
The client who was selling these fermenting kits had done a survey of his customers. He found that some of them cared about the health benefits of fermented foods. Others cared about the tradition of fermenting (eg, “My grandma used to make dill pickles”).
And so I got hired me to write a bunch of emails for the two segments. One focusing on the health benefits of fermented foods, and the other on the tradition of fermenting.
I did as the client asked.
And the resulting emails bombed.
No sales.
So what went wrong?
My feeling is it was like the famous scene from the movie Tommy Boy.
You know, the one where Chris Farley plays Tommy Callahan, a fat party animal who tries to become a successful salesman.
After failing over and over to close even one sale, Tommy Boy takes a good honest look at himself.
“I’m like Jojo the idiot circus boy with a pretty new pet,” Tommy says while holding a muffin.
The muffin represents the sale.
“Oh my pretty little pet… I love you,” Tommy says to the muffin.
And he strokes the muffin.
And he massages it.
Harder.
And harder.
Until he rips the poor muffin apart, while screaming, “I KILLED IT, I KILLED MY SALE!”
And that’s basically what happened with these fermentation emails.
The people on this list had signed up for fermentation recipes. And here they were, getting email after email about autoimmune health and the history of sauerkraut.
In other words, the emails were trying too hard to be clever.
And in doing that, they scared and repulsed the customers, who really just needed a simpler, more direct sales message.
At least that’s the conclusion I drew from this fiasco. Along with the fact that segmenting your list, while it might sound sexy, can backfire unless you know what you’re doing.
Anyways, maybe you’ll find this info useful.
And if you want help with your sales copy, then put on your little coat, twirl around until it rips apart, and take a look at the following offer: