A few weeks ago, I got an email with the subject line, “Once in a lifetime sit in….on this?? 😳.” The email was from “Your Official Invit.”
“Hm,” I said. “Who is this Invit and what does he want?” I opened the email.
It turned out to be from Clickbank, promoting their Platinum Summit event. I don’t remember ever getting any emails from Clickbank before.
Then a few days passed and I got an email from “A story you’ll love.” Again more trickery. It was really Clickbank again.
Then more emails. From “Your first sale.” From “Your boss.” And from “Future John.” Clickbank. Clickbank. Clickbank.
I finally unsubscribed.
I’ve never seen these stupid email from: tricks done well. And by done well, I mean done so it didn’t piss me off and so it made me want to buy whatever they were selling. Or even just read the email.
And so I thought I would certainly never try this myself.
But, maybe… maybe I will change my mind.
Because it turns out it can be done well. I saw Dan Kennedy do it well.
Dan of course never sent emails. But he did send sales letters and package inserts from characters like Viva The “Broken English” Cleaning Lady and Oscar The Obnoxious Elephant. The Oscar one starts out with a cartoon of a scowling elephant with boxing gloves on. Then there’s a headline which reads:
John, A Nasty Note From Oscar The Obnoxious Elephant
You might want to read carefully. You’ve already won a prize. Not that I think you deserve it.
This works. Not because it comes from Dan Kennedy. But because it’s entertaining and builds up the relationship instead of tearing it down (not that there ever was one, Clickbank).
I’m not sure I will ever figure out how to do this with made-up characters in email.
But maybe, if in the future you see an unfamiliar email from Casper The Clickbank Camel… consider it might be this guy right here.
Oh. But I forgot. You’re not subscribed to my email newsletter. If you’d like to fix that, so you and Casper can stay in touch, then here’s where to go.