Recently, I’ve started buying from Omaha Steaks.
At first, it was to send “thank you” gifts to people (nothing says “you rock!” like a box of juicy steaks). And later, when the Nerd Girl and I saw some of their deals, we partook of their meaty fruit for our own enjoyment, too.
But then, the inevitable happened:
We started getting HAMMERED by email ads from them.
Now, don’t get me wrong.
I love reading email pitches (including spam, sometimes). Heck, some of my best ideas come from other peoples’ junk mail. But there are some things Omaha Steaks does that just irritates the living you-know-what out of me.
We’re talking “nails on chalkboard” irritation here.
The biggest irritation?
They POUND you with offers day after day after day…
Hey, I’m not saying that can’t work.
Frankly, it DOES work if you have the right list, product and traffic generating systems in place, and are only targeting the 5% of “low hanging fruit” (a BIG mistake, IMHBAO).
But I suspect they could do better.
Maybe even a LOT better.
In fact, methinks doing JUST these 5 things below could potentially double their sales in the next 30 days:
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1.) Quit pounding people with JUST straight offers
2.) Talk up the benefits of buying food by mail
3.) Give helpful tips about cooking steaks and other meals, nutritional facts, show how protein melts away flab, recipe eBooks, etc (all related to Omaha Steaks’ products, of course…)
4.) Have a personality “writing” the emails
5.) Don’t make everything look so commercial (test using plain text or HTML that looks like plain text — i.e. Gary Halbert’s “A pile/B pile” theory applied to email)
Look, I know Omaha Steaks ain’t listening to this.
And who knows?
Maybe they tested this stuff already.
I don’t much care, either way.
What I care about is you.
And these are just a few of the things I teach in Street-Smart Email that I’d bet someone else’s money would increase any business’s sales lickety split.
Yep, including YOURS.
Ben Settle
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