Since it’s Christmas time… here’s the gift of an option for thinking differently about email:
Last month while on a long walk, I got an idea for a sale for one of our courses we sell at Low Stress Trading. It’s a course I have obscenely profited from as have many of its customers. i.e. I have a passion for it, and believe in it, use it myself, and sincerely want more of our students to have and use it.
And on this walk, in my head, I mapped out 5 emails.
This was not planned, and there was no plan to even sell it any time soon.
i.e., completely impromptu.
When I got home, I plopped myself on the couch with my laptop, thought up an irresistible deal for this course based on what our audience wants, and then knocked those 5 text emails (no images, pictures, graphics) out right in front of Stefania and Low Stress Trading COO Nicole English (who was visiting us) – no doubt with a big goofy smile on my face, since I enjoyed writing them so much.
I probably spent only 20 minutes or so on those emails, if that.
But let’s just round it up to 30 minutes to make it all more “realistic.”
Then, I sent those emails to my business partner at Low Stress Trading (who created the course I was selling) Troy Broussard, to make sure the info in the emails was accurate, and that he’d even want to sell it at all. Again, there was no plan to sell this course, just a brain fart I had on a walk.
Then we pre-loaded them and for 5 days (Black Friday week) we released the Kraken.
Before I tell you the results:
It’s important to note that during those 5 days Troy “fed” off my enthusiasm, and started thinking up & rapidly recording MORE content to add to that particular course, including an interview with me on how I use the info in the course. And he then even added a couple more emails he wrote to the sequence.
So we sent 7 emails total before all was said and done over those 5 days.
These emails were sent to a list of 2800 people (buyers) give or take.
A few hundred already had the offer, though, so it was probably more like 2500 leads.
Now for the results:
Just a hair under $100k in sales of a digital (pure profit) offer.
Not super-inflated goo-roo numbers by any means.
But that’s with ZERO upsells, which would have probably added many more thousands of dollars to our coffers. But we haven’t bothered with upsells yet. I explained why in the October Email Players issue this year – where I talked about how we had 600%+ growth this year alone, and are well on track for the company going to 8-figures by this time next year, in its 3rd year of existence.
But that $100k came from 7 emails – 5 of which, again, took me a whopping 30 minutes to write.
And that were sent to about 2500 leads over 5 short days.
Now, quiz time:
Were those sales a function of using an ESP with lots of “features”?
Or, was that a function of me writing “world-class” email copy?
No.
It was primarily a function of “plain vanilla” marketing 101 basics:
* Message-to-market match to a super engaged and even grateful customer base
* Having genuine enthusiasm & passion for a course that does way MORE than promised
* An irresistible offer (combo of pricing & bonuses) with a hard deadline
* Word-of-mouth in the community from prior buyers (unscripted/unsolicited – they couldn’t help talking about it)
* Some well-timed, shamelessly obnoxious TEASING by me in the Low Stress Trading community
* And, perhaps most important of all:
Us having spent 2+ years overdelivering consistent, prioritized (more prioritized than the “marketing”) customer Experience, Support, and Service – not to mention forming insanely strong relationships with our affiliates, our students, our referrals, etc… and all primarily done through…
1. Simple, TEXT-only emails – with no images, pretty design, or nonsensical “engagement devices”
2. That got delivered into the inboxes – and not in the spam, junk, or promotions tabs
3. That formed/strengthened/expanded our relationship with the people who read the emails – including those who did NOT buy, many of who will no doubt be more likely to buy in the future, since we weren’t being pushy, we respected their time, and we gave them an exciting and unforgettable buying Experience
A wise boy or ghoul will be able to extract all the many lessons embedded in the above story.
But for those who need everything in a checklist or in some AI summary?
Pfffft!
Right over their pointy lil’ heads.
But ultimately, there are two main things to realize:
First, it proves it’s not the email “copy” that matters most. Copy is force and merely a sales multiplier. The real work is done via the “leverage” of using the fundamentals above, that have been working since the first Sears Catalog was mailed out in the 1800s.
And secondly:
It also proves “features” from whatever ESP you use as a necessity for sales and/or growing a business into the 6, 7, or 8+ figures and beyond simply ain’t so. I daresay $100k in sales, born from a brain fart on a random walk, to a mere 2,500 people, with nary a single split test, not a single image used, and no pretty designs or email goo-roo tricks & chokes applied, should prove that.
All of which are a few reasons why I suspect in the coming years you’ll see a shift back to the basics I wrote about in this email.
But if not?
Good.
Just means more sales for those of us who know what we’re doing..
To learn more about this kind of approach to email see the paid Email Players newsletter:
Ben Settle
