A few days ago, a well-known marketer sent out one of his daily emails. I don’t to make it sound like I’m trying to make my name by repeatedly picking on people with bigger audiences than me, so let me just use an impenetrable alias for this guy. We can call him Gavin Juff.
So Gavin sent out an email a few days ago. The subject line read something like, “The one thing all successful copywriters have in common.”
But then, Gavin opened the body copy of his email with a long and I assume interesting personal story.
I say I assume it was interesting, because I just scrolled through it, looking for that “one thing” payoff.
And you know what? The payoff was, in effect, “We all make mistakes, and it’s okay.”
I rolled my eyes at this.
The fact is, Gavin was actually sharing a worthwhile point. The fact is, he put in a good amount of effort to illustrate his point with an (I assume) interesting personal story. And the fact is, it took me all of three seconds to open his email, scroll to the end, and feel he had wasted my time.
So there you go. That’s my personal story of a frustrating recent experience. I’m not sure what valuable point you can take away from that. Perhaps it’s something like:
“Excessive use of proven direct response techniques in personal daily emails can be more of a liability than an asset.”
Or maybe it’s something like:
“Make sure the transitions between your copy sections (including from subject line to body copy) are congruent and adequately prepared.”
Or maybe it’s just something like:
“The number one problem with daily email copy is a preachy, old-hat takeaway. But if you have to make such a takeaway because it’s actually true and important (like in Gavin’s case above), then sell something else in your subject line. Such as, for example, yourself and your frustrating personal experience.”
Anyways, I realize I haven’t done much to educate you in this post. I will try to do better in the future.
In case you would like to get my daily emails, and witness me trying to educate you more on the fundamentals of email copywriting and persuasion and influence more broadly, click here and follow the instructions.