What does it really take to get people get off their butts and take action?
New data coming from the push for Covid vaccines reveals critical insights into 3 critical elements of a message that moves people.
Regardless of your feelings about the vaccine, these insights can help you crank up your conversion rate in any scenario where you need to be persuasive
Not in the mood to watch a video?
No problem.
I’ll give you a brief overview of the 3 copy “nudges” right here.
[Bonus] Tip #0: Make sure you’re communicating with your audience.
Don’t expect them to know what you want them to do or when to do it.
In the video, I mentioned a 23% increase in “conversion” just by sending a text message telling people their vaccine was ready. I saw another study in which the SMS message nearly doubled the number of people who were vaccinated.
Tip #1: Your messaging must have a call-to-action.
If you want someone to MOVE, tell him to move.
Don’t count on your offer “selling itself.” Don’t simply provide information and expect your reader to take the appropriate action spontaneously.
Tip #2: Make the desired action as simple and easy as possible.
Any additional difficulty or complexity – real or imagined – will decrease the likelihood of your reader doing what he needs to do.
Tip #3:Increase motivation by implying ownership, e.g. “claim your widget.”
Humans are reluctant to give back or lose out on what’s theirs. (It’s called the endowment effect.)
We’re also prone to going along with the default selection when given choices. (It’s called default bias.) Show people their options, and make your desired action the default. You’ll likely see an increase in conversions.
The studies done show with statistical certainty that this stuff works. But they also show that different audiences require nuanced messaging.
No one-size-fits-all messaging.
Now, how do you plan to work these 3 copy nudges into your marketing?
And then we’ll discuss how you can turn that data into cash.
Back in June, I worked on a project where we sent 3 emails using 3 very different appeals:
Email #1 pointed to a big opportunity
Email #2 shared a unique story tied to the opportunity
Email #3 went hard on urgency, with a deadline just hours away.
Take a look at some of the raw data:
Let me quickly paint the picture:
Before Delta flared up so fiercely, the travel bug started ravaging the American populace. My client suggested that was a money-making opportunity for investors in the stock market.
That first email pointed out facts: the travel industry was down $4 trillion… but was on pace to more than make that up in the coming months.
The second email took a different approach. I told a story about Qantas Airlines “flight to nowhere” (which Inbox X-Factor members may recognize from one of the Weekly Email Plans)…
…and how that PROVED people were so desperate to travel that they’d get on a plane that landed at the same airport it took off from.
Again, the third message warned the reader he had just a few hours to take advantage of to travel industry’s recovery.
Take another look at the stats above…
The open rates are all pretty similar.
The click-to-open rates are wildly different — and not directly correlated to conversions.
The benefit-driven, “here’s how much you can make” email was the worst performer of the bunch in terms of sales.
The story-based email destroyed the other two in conversion rate. Readers who clicked were at least 49% more likely to buy from this email than the others.
(It’s worth noting that my client sends promos like this every week. The second email is almost always the worst performer of the three. It’s usually not so story-focused, though.)
And the urgency email had the most sales by a wide margin, even though it had a much lower conversion rate. The higher number of clicks more than made up for it.
How Does This Put Money In Your Pocket?
In 3 ways.
Understanding the lessons we learned in this instance (and which I’ve seen bear out in multiple scenarios over the past few months), I encourage you to:
1. Build urgency into your promotions wherever you can (which is probably more often than you think).
This particular client uses urgency the same way week after week after week… and it keeps on working.
It’ll work for you, too.
2. Tell stories more often…
… but consider letting urgency take the lead as you get close to a deadline.
Good stories tend to generate higher quality clicks and significantly higher conversion rates.
By the way, you only need 3 things to write a good story, as you’ll discover in this video:
“I haven’t consistently emailed my list for a long time. What can I do to revive folks who’ve gone cold?”
The question came up again in mastermind I do copy coaching for. A mastermind member asked how to reengage subscribers who hadn’t opened an email in 180 days or more.
I thought you might get value from the response I shared.
One note before I get to that.
As you know, most of those inactive subscribers are probably out of the picture. Make sure you’re using your best ideas on the engaged portion of your list, where you have the greatest chance of success.
That said, how do you save the small percentage of inactives you may still have a shot with?
Here’s how I normally play it:
1) Come up with the most enticing offer you can make.
Plan to send a short (2 or 3 message) sequence to the unengaged segment. I’d consider subs unengaged after 90 days.
2) Communicate the crazy offer with crazy subject lines.
As we’ve discussed around here someplace, subject lines like the following tend to get noticed and opened at a high rate:
I’m sorry
DANG! I messed up
I can’t believe I let this happen
You can also try more direct, emotional subject lines like:
Did I do something wrong?
Do you hate me?
Or more aggressive challenge-type subject lines like:
FirstName, should I give your spot to someone else?
Should I take you off my list?
I’m kicking you off my list in 48 hours
These can work like a charm. They make people mad, so you may have some blowback from that, but at least the angry folks will make a choice to reengage or get lost.
Also, specific subject lines about the offer itself, mentioning super low cost, free offer, etc. can generate lots of interest.
A recent example that worked incredibly well was
“5.99…SERIOUSLY, FirstName?!” (It also worked with $497 as the price point.)
3) Again, I’d make this a 2 or 3 message sequence.
Mix up the subject lines to hit them from multiple angles: (ex. Email 1: I’m sorry; Email 2: offer-based; Email 3: you’re toast in 48 hours)
4) I’d probably ignore them after that.
I usually delete super old people from the list, but clients sometimes keep them on an inactive file for ad targeting purposes.
5) Going forward, treat people as unengaged after 60 days (90 days worst case).
Because anyone who’s ignored 2 months of consistent communication is unlikely to suddenly get re-engaged without switching up tactics (like we’re talking about in this thread).
Now…
There are a couple other tricky moves you can use, but some of them are more likely to get people’s attention for the wrong reason.
1) Try an unexpected FROM name instead of what you usually use.
There are differing opinions on this tactic. I don’t think you want to change it up all that often. It’s a solid tactic when used in moderation.
You can put the offer in the From line. A client of mine used “Your Free Book” as the From line (sending to the regular list, not unengaged) and found it boosted opens and total sales.
I’ve used the Easter Bunny…Santa Claus… my son’s name… just weird stuff to catch people off guard and generate curiosity.
Or you can try something like “Support” or “Customer Service” generically. The subscriber may think it’s more of a transactional email and pay attention as a result.
Which leads me to…
2) Use a transactional-sounding subject line.
The kind of subject lines you get from a service you subscribe to, or from your credit card company or bank.
“About Your Account” has gotten huge open rates — but if the subscriber feels like you’ve tricked him, he may not be in the buying mood.
This is a bit of a dirty trick. Use your discretion when considering rolling it out.
3) One of my best parting subject lines…
I used this one many times and it consistently performs well.
“Have you given up on this?” is a great subject line when you’re getting ready to end a promo… or the relationship with an unengaged subscriber.
It’s a bit of an ego challenge and definitely a FOMO reminder.
Stole that one from Chris Voss’ book, Never Split the Difference.
— — —
That’s it.
If these subject lines suggestions and email ideas were helpful and you’d like more content like this, check out Inbox X-Factor.
In addition to subject line templates and a weekly email calendar to save you time and effort having to come up with topics to write about…
You get video trainings to help you make your emails even more profitable.
I’m working on a brand-new video outlining my Consumption Maximization sequence, which I recently used double total click-throughs and nearly 5X total consumption of the content I wanted my list to see… with almost no additional effort.
(If you’ve been on my list since March, you were part of the experience and didn’t even know it.)
You’ll get all that and more inside Inbox X-Factor.
I could talk about email all day. But I know you have things to do, so I’ll leave you to it.
