Came a question earlier this week:
Dear Ben
Greetings and felicitations!
I’m curious as to why you don’t use a salutation in your (irreverent, often entertaining but, honestly, can be a wee bit misogynistic) email missives?
Surely a little, “Dear Friend” or “Dear Aspiring Email Copywriting Supremo”, or even a casual “Howdy” or “Hey there!” wouldn’t go amiss?
Gosh, you know, it’s even possible these days to <insert first name here>. Amazing!
Personal and engaging is good, no?
Or perhaps, against prevailing wisdom, it makes not one jot of difference?
Love to hear your views.
Survey says:
I get more opt ins by not collecting first names.
And, yes, if you know what you’re doing, including or not including it makes absolutely no difference whatsoever.
But, you know what?
I don’t get surprised by questions like this.
Most copywriters and marketers live in “tactical” world, and don’t understand (nor have ever been taught, so it’s not their fault) the concept of principle-based marketing and copywriting vs tactic-based. That’s why they focus on things like salutations and open loops (nothing will give a goo-roo fanboy a chubby faster than seeing an open loop in an email) or whatever, instead of just working at being a more engaging, personality-driven writer.
More:
As for any precious little snowflake who needs to be greeted with a salutation?
Or who takes my chick jokes literally and not as entertainment?
Or who needs political correctness?
They can go piss off back to their safe place.
We don’t want ‘em around here.
Back to tactical vs principle selling/marketing:
The January “Email Players” issue goes into a lot more detail about this, including a real-life example showing what I mean by this and just how much of a difference it will make in anyone’s sales, in any kind of format.
(Email, video, face to face sales, whatever you do.)
Here’s where to subscribe to get it:
Ben Settle
