Email Marketing Tropes to Avoid Till Judgement Day
“Tired of bla bla bla? Don’t worry! We’ve got you covered!”
“Are you a blab la bla looking to do bla bla bla? We are selling this shit.”
“At Bla Bla Bla, we're dedicated to empowering individuals like yourself to unlock their full potential and achieve their aspirations. That's why we've developed a comprehensive bla bla bla designed to equip you with the knowledge, skills, and confidence needed to succeed in bla bla bla.”
“Hey, did you see how Kim Longbottom’s bottom wiggles?”
If you have come so far, you either think I’m nuts or going somewhere with something. The second option is true.
My mailbox is spammed with shitty promotional emails every day much like yours and I’ve been wondering lately how we, as a species, have come to this. Human communication is so much more than coos and gesticulation, and here we are, welcomed every morning of our miserable lives by equally miserable attempts at email marketing. I mean, who writes these copies? My guess is they are either AI tools or cretinous influencers with too much Bud Light down their...ask Dylan Mulvaney to complete the sentence. Either way, email marketing - and copywriting as a whole - has devolved into a marketing afterburner since they decided to digitize good old-fashioned marketing. And yet, marketing by way of letters used to be an art once.
Here's a brilliant example of mail marketing by one Gary Halbert (“R*t in H*ll if you don’t know who he is already!” ~ Flibbertigibbet):
But there’s still redemption to be had. For starters, avoid these mistakes:
1. Stop using clickbait
Yeah, do that already! You want to push a product? Don’t ask people to look at some tardy socialite’s ass. Trying to ‘shock’ your reader with an outlandish subject line serves no purpose. Some marketers have the propensity to leverage curiosity gap (it’s the space between what we know and what we don’t). But it doesn’t work in the case of email marketing. Decent readers don’t want to read emails that start like this:
Besides being verbal diarrhea, this strategy only serves to demean the reader by equating him to a porn-addicted chimpanzee in some exotic zoo. Using clickbait on email or any other form of marketing campaign is plain dishonesty.
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2. Don’t beat around the bush
Your reader didn’t ask you to tend to their bush, did they? Jump straight to the point with a matching subject line. Use hooks like:
Don’t use an overly commanding attitude. Subject lines starting with “Learn how to”, and “Transform your career with” all sound like “Take a dump in my bathtub”, and readers don’t want to read any further. You are just not giving them anything to ponder. And don’t be afraid to use long subject lines.
3. Stop Goading
Social media is the next best thing to happen to humanity after Global Warming. But we must learn to live in a world rife with denial and stupidity. ?Having said that, your Zuckerized brain can make you goad your readers to subscribe to all your shoddy social media channels. Don’t go there. People tend to get confused if you list out too many links for them in one email. One link per email is a civilized thing to do. Push your product without being pushy. That’s a tightrope you got to walk.
4. Stop sending too many emails
Once a week is good, twice a week not so much. Thrice a week is a territory you don’t want to encroach into. Not everyone is loquacious. There are many like me who love to sit quietly on the porch with a can of beer and wonder about our place among the stars. A volley of emails disturbs the meditation. Besides, who wants to hear from someone who isn’t even a girlfriend every day? If you’re sure someone’s not reading your emails at all, bow out of their mailbox quietly. A simple parting email is a good idea in such a case. I remember @Itchyboots doing the same in my case.
5. O, f*** private messages!
Have you ever opened a ‘private message’ in your life? They have ‘scam’ written all over. Email marketers often believe it to be the best tactic to make an MIA subscriber open an email. But bona fide ‘private messages’ come from naughty liaisons or John Wick. Readers aren’t dumb and they will never open a ‘private message’ from a brand marketer unless they are feeling kinky.
The Dos and Don’ts of email marketing don’t constitute an exact science. You got to appreciate the fact that effective marketing hinges on a clear understanding of the human psyche. Don’t place your audience in a pair you wouldn’t slip on.
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