3 days ago, I sent out an email with the subject line, “Don’t rape your audience.”
That hook came from a quote from screenwriter William Goldman (Princess Bride, Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid), who compared gradually seducing your audience (movie screenplays) to raping them (TV writing).
Like I said at the start of that email, rape is a shocking metaphor. In today’s society, it’s borderline impermissible.
So sure enough, when I checked my unsubscribe count for this email, it showed I disappointed, offended, or perhaps triggered a lot of people. ​​My unsubscribes proved it. I had 7 unsubscribes total, which might not sound like a lot, but is 5.8x my norm for the past 90 days.
I did the hard work of checking who all those unsubscribes were.
Some were new — they signed up only a few weeks ago for my “Analysis of Daniel Throssell” presentation.
Others had been on my list for a while.
Either way, none of them had ever bought anything from me… replied to any of my emails… played along with any of the engagement bait I regularly put out… or even opened and read my emails very often.
So there’s that, the hard and toxic fallout.
On the other hand, I also had a dozen thoughtful replies to my email, both about the subject line and the idea in the body. Almost all these replies came from successful marketers and copywriters. For example, copywriter Robert Smith, who runs his own CRO agency, wrote in to say:
Yo.
Yesterday I was on a zoom call with the team.
It was about our marketing emails.
I shared my screen and opened my email app to talk about a thing.
Instead of talking about our email stuff, we spent the next 10 minutes admiring your subject line.
It’s tier-1.
At first, I had a thought like:
“In a non-DR market this would get super-high Opens, but just as many Spam complaints.”
Addendum to original thought after opening:
“…Only if the body doesn’t deliver.”
3rd addendum after reading body:
“And… It delivered.”
Kick ass! And super inspiring to see. Really got me thinking: “my subject lines suck!”
Robert pretty much spelled out everything I wanted to say about this crisis.
Shocking subject lines, and shocking topics in general, will polarize your audience.
But if you can somehow back up your shocking stuff in a congruent way, you will only scrub away the barnacles clinging to the gleaming white hull of your magnificent ship.
At the same time, you will engage and bond more deeply with successful, thoughtful people, the kinds of people you want to associate yourself with, whether as customers, clients, or just readers.
You might say I am not telling you anything new here.
And you’re right. Ben Settle and Dan Kennedy before him have both been preaching this kind of repulsion marketing for years.
But fundamentals like this work. And so they are worth repeating from time to time. Until maybe the right time, when it all clicks for you and you decide to try it out for yourself.
Anyways, if you have a business, and you’re worried your subject lines suck, then you might want to hire me to help with that.
Because as of now, I’m offering consulting. And one of the things I’m highly qualified to consult on is email marketing and copywriting. And not just the shocking and repelling kind. And not just to my own email list.
If case you are interested, fill out the form below, and I’ll be in touch: