The Best Email I Ever Wrote?

Are your emails boring? How do you know?

If you’re even a little nervous that your subscribers yawn when they get your messages, you’re going to like what we’re talking about today.

If you’re confident your emails are interesting and you’d like to crank up your must-read rating to an even higher level, this will be good for you, too.

I’m going to show you one of the best emails I’ve ever written.

It’s from a few years back, but you can’t help but learn something from this beauty.

And if you’re writing financial copy, there’s no reason you couldn’t use something like this right now.

Here we go.

(Eeesh! I just spotted a typo. Hilarious.)

Quickly, there are 3 main ideas you can take from this:

1. This email is essentially one big pile of PROOF.

Four high-caliber economic experts are all saying the same thing at the same time.

A large percentage of emails make claims and just expect readers to believe them.

Another sizeable percentage of emails make claims and explain them… but don’t offer actual proof.

Now, proof doesn’t automatically make copy interesting.

But overwhelming proof creates a forceful argument that’s hard to ignore (even if it’s unpleasant).

2. There’s a hint of conspiracy at play.

If all the former Fed chairs are talking about recession, why is the current chairman sweeping it under the rug?

And why is no one else talking about this? And why isn’t the current Fed chair Bazooka Jay Powell addressing it?

When your emails evoke meaningful questions in your reader’s mind, you give him reason to keep reading, clicking, and even buying.

And when you regularly create that experience for readers, they give you endless opportunities to sell them.

By the way, it’s worth pointing out that ANYONE could have written this email. The quotes are in the public record. Zero claims are made about the company sending the email.

So when people ask, “how do I sell my services when I don’t have much or any experience.” This is a decent place you can start.

3. It oozes urgency.

The danger this email talks about is just around the corner. You can’t really afford to think about this later. It demands immediate action.

Investors don’t want to get crushed, so they’ll pay attention and consider taking the action recommended.

Your emails are most effective when you address an urgent opportunity or danger. If your reader can push off a decision until later, he will.

You can’t always control that. Still, I encourage you to make every effort to add urgency to the ideas you share in your emails.

During my guest appearance on The Financial Rebel Show, this email came up:

Of course…

No one knows how brilliant and urgent your copy is until they open the email.

In my book Subject Line Science, I share 11 “made you look” secrets and dozens of examples to help you entice more subscribers to open you emails – and open in the right frame of mind to take action.

Worth checking out if you’d like to write hard-to-ignore emails.

(The “made you look” secrets also work for social media, video hooks and other places you need to grab attention.)

The Sweet Science of Getting Paid from Email

Email Copywriter Donnie Bryant teaching in a college classroom

You never hear people talking about this, but it’s an important concept to wrap our minds around if you want to maximize your email marketing revenue.

Here it is: when discussing subject lines, most people only talk about getting opens. But subject lines have don’t just have one job.

In fact, subject lines have 3 jobs.

But before the recipient can open an email, it has to get noticed. To catch the scanning eye mid-scroll. That’s Job #1.

Job #2 is to entice opens. A subscriber will only open an email if he believes he’ll be rewarded for doing so. So a subject line must communicate that there’s value inside (and value comes in countless forms).

I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone teaching about Job #3, which is this:

A good subject line should appeal to people in the right mental and emotional state to open, read with enthusiasm and take action – or put readers in that state.

In other words, the subject line FRAMES everything else that follows.

If you’ve been testing different kinds of subject lines and paying attention to the metrics, you may have noticed that the subject line with the higher open rate sometimes has a lower clickthrough rate.

Why?

Because different subject lines may attract different people, and people in different moods at the time. And they can affect your mood when you see them and decide to check out the email.

The unique combinations of curiosity, desire and emotion in the subject line can have a big impact on clickthrough rate.

Here’s where it gets wonky.

You’d think that the clickers (a majority of them, at least) would all be in pretty much the same mental space.

They’ve read the same body copy inside the email and based their decision to click on that.

Meaning the conversion rate on the page linked to should be relatively consistent between both subject lines.

But when you track the metrics, you see that’s often not the case.

I’ve seen the click-to-conversion rate (i.e. the percentage of people who buy divided by the total number of people who clicked the link in the email) on an order form differ by as much as 200% between test versions.

This is real data from a recent A/B split test:

Same send time. Same email body copy. Same sales page. Same order form. The only difference was the subject line.

The A version has a specific, big promise in the subject line – and it highlights a specific opportunity the subscriber believes could be very profitable. Those who open are curious about specific stocks.

The answer is not in the body copy or on the sales page. You’d have to buy the product to find out.

The B version is ambiguous. There’s a fast-approaching deadline… but that’s all we know from the subject line. Those who open want to know what they’re about to miss out on.

Again, the email body copy and sales page are identical for both emails. Both highlight the specific opportunity and the urgent deadline.

But the more urgent ambiguous subject line made twice as much money with fewer opens and a whole lot fewer clicks.

The tricky part is that you don’t always know which factor will prevail.

What does this mean in practical terms?

First, simply knowing that subject lines impact the deeper metrics, all the way through conversion on an order form, will help you get more value from your testing.

Second, think about what mental and emotional state is optimal for converting your readers.

Then test! Pay attention to what your list responds to. Not just what emails they open… but what kind of appeals lead to conversions.

You’ll get to know your subscribers in a more profound way than you may have thought possible.


Everyone knows subject lines are important. In my experience, most people don’t realize just how important they are or WHY.

Having read this far, you know something a most marketers don’t fully appreciate.

And there’s so much more to discover!

In Subject Line Science, I share many of my deepest insights I’ve learned about enticing people to open, read and buy from marketing emails.

You’ll also get dozens of templates, “made you look” power words and more.

Check out Subject Line Science on Amazon.

What Your Spotify Wrapped Really Reveals About You

I don’t know about you, but I’m not familiar with too many “offers” that get 50% conversion.

From any company.

Paid or free.

And then there’s Spotify Wrapped.

Fine, maybe it’s more of a feature than an “offer.”

But they package it up, offer it for a limited time and promote the heck out of it.

I haven’t seen this year’s numbers, but 51% of users checked out their Wrapped in 2022. About 14% of them also shared their results on social media.

The whole thing works pretty well. So well that YouTube and Apple have borrowed the idea. (Duolingo, too!)

What makes Wrapped so enticing?

It’s focused on the #1 most interesting topic on the planet: YOU.

We’re all the center of our own universes. So we’re incalculably interested in ourselves. How could we not be?

As an extension to that idea, we’re also fascinated by anything we believe can tell us more about ourselves. Help us understand ourselves better.

With Wrapped, we already know we listened to music all year. Spotify uncovers hidden patterns and tell you what your listening habits really say about you.

Over the years, they’ve diagnosed your music “personality” and assigned you to a city based on your music selection.

All ways of giving you ways to think about and categorize yourself in your own mind… share your (favorable) findings with the world… and compare/contrast/connect yourself with other people.

Genius.

People can get really attached to their categories. Myers-Briggs. Political parties. Astrological signs.

Even a simple dichotomy like entrepreneur vs. 9-5er.

And once they put themselves in a category, they can easily begin using it as the lens they see the world through.

This reality can produce profound influence.

Think about ways you can show your prospects and clients more about themselves. Help them understand themselves in a helpful new way.

And if you put them in categories you define – or give them a way to self-assess themselves into one…

You have an opportunity to shape how they see themselves, their optimal next steps, and more.

It’s a powerful position to be in. Use you power wisely.

P.S. Once people accept their categories, they see things differently. And they see different things.

There are certain ways to “trigger” those individuals with email subject lines.

I share more details about this in the Secret Handshake chapter of Subject Line Science, now available on Amazon Kindle and paperback.

This is one of the concepts David Garfinkel and I discussed on my recent appearance on The Copywriter Podcast. Enjoy!

Boost Your Email Marketing with Subject Line Science

I’m excited to announce that you can now preorder my brand-new book

Subject Line Science: 11 “Made You Look” Secretes to Get Emails Opened and Read.

iphone displaying "Subject Line Science" bookcover

Seems like everyone’s been asking for this.

It’s a quick read, but it dives deep into my process for creating impossible-to-ignore subject lines.

When you devour the lessons in this book, you (or your marketing team) will have the tools to write must-open subject lines that win attention, make subscribers excited to read and open the door for big sales.

You’ll also get some of the AI prompts I’m playing around with to give you even more fresh subject line options.

One of the 11 “made you look” secrets revealed in the book is what I call the “Tootsie Roll center of persuasion.” Here’s an example:

You’ll get a whole lot more insight about this in the book.

Subject Line Science will be officially released on November 17.

But when you preorder the book now for just $9.99, you’ll also get access to 3 exclusive bonuses for free:

  1. The audiobook (also on November 17)
  2. 104 Steal these Subject Lines templates
  3. Big Ideas for Unforgettable Emails video training

If you take action, this information can transform your email marketing results AND your business as a whole.

Get more details and preorder Subject Line Science now to take advantage.

Have a productive day!

Give Your Readers Rose-Colored Glasses

Copywriter sunglasses with reflection of a bundle of roses in the lenses.

You’re a reader, right?

I know you’ve seen copy like this before:

I want to point out a few things about this copy device, which I call an identity preframe.

You see them at the beginning of sales pages/VSLs, webinars and occasionally on a website homepage.

Maybe you’ve even used something like this before.

Here’s the thing…

The identity preframe is set up to look like a filter.

A few seconds or centimeters of copy to make sure you’re only talking to ideal clients (and everyone else knows not to waste their time).

The example above even had a STOP hand and explicitly tells the reader to leave if he doesn’t meet the criteria.

It’s not a filter.

When done right it:

  • makes you identify a characteristic you possess (or think you possess) but wish was more pronounced
  • gives you a sense of empowerment
  • heightens the desire for the transformation.

Despite its construction, the copy isn’t designed to make anyone stop and leave. Rather, the idea is to make most readers stay and read more. To think “this presentation/pitch is all about the me I want to be.

The example above goes a step further.

Bullet point #3 adds guilt into the mix. You’re going to fail your loved ones if you don’t step fully into this identity.

This kind of copy frames the rest of the copy in the perspective of “the me I want to be.”

Appeals to (aspirational) identity hit at a deeper level than features, benefits, advantages and opportunities can by themselves.

And certainly deeper than saying “this is for service providers, parents and 9-to-fivers who are thinking about starting their own business.”

How are you getting viewers/readers to see “the me I want to be” in your copy?

The Reading Rainbow Theory of Marketing

In many ways, I believe Reading Rainbow is the greatest children’s TV program ever.

The philosophy that drove the show also applies to marketing.

The threefold purpose of Reading Rainbow was to:

  1. encourage an interest in and love for reading
  2. diversify the voices you’d consider listening to, and
  3. point viewers to specific books worth reading.

The show accomplished these purposes by inviting viewers into new worlds, exploring different experiences and getting you excited about learning more.

Then it told you where you could learn more.

The show used an influential medium popular with children (TV) to direct them to another medium (books).

This, of course, was all done by our loveable, trusted guide, LeVar Burton.

(Gurus in every niche could learn a lifetime of lessons from LeVar, by the way).

Marketing does the same thing.

You should move people from social media to your email list.

You move them from email to your sales letters.

From search ads to product pages.

And you’ll do it with copy that does the same thing an episode of Reading Rainbow does:

Invite viewers into your world… show them an opportunity to experience something better than their current reality… and get you excited to learn more and ultimately to make a choice to act.

But don’t take my word for it!

Outsourced Thinking (and Why It’s a Good Thing)

Thinking is hard work. Most people avoid it at all costs.

If you can earn someone’s trust, he’ll gladly allow you to do some of this thinking for him.

If you can display deep expertise on a topic he’s interested in, he’ll happily outsource some of his thinking to you.

If you can minimize the perceived risk or difficulty of changing perspectives/approaches, you may find you have a loyal convert… and a paying client.

[I took this picture earlier this month after speaking at the University of Illinois at Chicago, the city’s largest university.]

This may all sound kind of negative or “manipulative,” but there’s nothing wrong with outsourcing brain work. In fact, most people are craving this kind of leadership.

Nobody can know everything, and even if we could, it would take a lifetime to learn it.

Why do that when we can just plug into someone who’s already an expert?

With that in mind, you may want to:

1) Build your trustworthiness.

2) Demonstrate your expertise.

3) Think about how the person you want to persuade perceives risk as it relates to the topic you want him to think differently about. Can you minimize the risk or reframe it to make it less frightening?

Take these steps and you’ll amp up your persuasive abilities in a major way.

Writing for Change

There’s an observation that most people don’t change until the pain of not changing is worse than the difficulty of changing.

Because change is hard.

It’s hard because of the resiliency of routines and habits, fear of the unknown and the discomfort of learning and doing something unfamiliar.

But maybe more than any other factor, change is hard because we have reasons for nearly everything we do.

The decisions we make are (almost) always our preferred choice from the options we have at the moment. We form habits and routines by repeatedly making the same kinds of decision… all for reasons that makes sense to us.

So as persuaders, you and I have a difficult task: getting folks to do something different than the norm. And pay us to do it!

You see a lot of sales copy trying to overcome the inertia against change by hyping up a “better” way.

Another approach goes back to the observation that pain may be necessary. That kind of copy shows you all the ways what you’re doing is wrong and dangerous.

Then it presents the “better” way.

Your favorite late-night infomercials use this approach to great effect.

You can strengthen that by telling your audience they’ve been lied to and/or taken advantage of by proponents of the wrong way.

Whenever possible, I prefer a third approach.

Externalize the change. There’s a new sheriff in town and the rules are different now.

For example, “the process of purchasing rental properties is completely different now that mortgage rates are above 7%.”

The external change can be either an imminent threat or an emerging opportunity. Or both.

So rather than focusing on the change you want your should-be buyer to make (because there’s a fair chance he’ll stick with “the devil he knows”)…

You focus on the size/severity/sweetness of the change happening in the world.  

All 3 of these approaches work.

This message is all about making sure you have all 3 options at your disposal.

Have a productive day!

The Attention Game Starts Here

Hooks that snag your reader instantly

Some days it seems like an impossible task, but…

Before you can accomplish ANYTHING with your copy, you have to win your reader’s attention.

Once you pull him in, you can take him wherever you want him to go.

With email, the subject line starts the attention-seeking mission.

On social media, you start with an arresting hook.

(As you may know, this falls under the category of Instigation, the first “I” in my 4-I Formula.)

Great hooks focus your attention, sparks strong curiosity and makes it hard for you to NOT invest a little time to find out what’s going on.

I recently did a training on copywriting for social media for a high-ticket coaching group.

I’d like to share the segment about writing hooks with you.

In the video, you’ll discover 12 hard-to-resist hooks ideas.

The training was specifically geared towards social media, but the ideas also work for email copy, articles, videos, etc.

I hope you find some inspiration – and that your engagement increases when you use these hook ideas.

Have a productive day!!

This Copywriting Mistake Will Cost You

If you want to sell more of your product or service…

Stop focusing your copy on the thing you’re trying to sell.

For most audiences, that’s the wrong approach. To be persuasive, you have to:

  1. Quickly help them decide if this is for them or not
  2. Highlight transformation they’ll experience when they say “yes”
  3. Appeal to emotion, not just intellect.

Take a quick look at the copy example below…

Screenshot of emotional email copy with arrows pointing to sections focused on escape/excitement, desire and aspiration.

112 words and not a single detail about the product.

It describes the kind of people whose lives have been changed (so the ideal client can self-identify) and paints a picture of HOW their lives changed (to build up desire)

It doesn’t matter what the product is at this point. Buyers aren’t after the product. They want the result.

People don’t buy things just so to have them sitting on a shelf.

They’re buying a better life (in whatever way the product makes that happen).

Caveat: this is less true when you’re selling to people who are very familiar with your product or service. They know how amazing it is, so you’re free to use their positive experience as a launch pad for your new copy.