One of my engineer-background droogies Sanjay Pande who does for real scientific tests (doesn\u2019t just play a scientist on the Internet sharing memes from \u201cI Fucking\u00a0Love Science\u201d on flakebook all day), drops some knowledge.<\/p>\n
First, the context:<\/p>\n
He was a charter \u201cEmail Players\u201d subscriber.<\/p>\n
He read my recent email about how email game trumps sales copy game.<\/p>\n
And, he wanted to show a real life example of such. There\u2019s lot of wisdom (handed to your righteous self free) in the following \u2014 especially if you read it more than once. I hope you appreciate his taking the time to compile it.<\/p>\n
Here goes:<\/p>\n
Hi Ben,<\/strong><\/p>\n
Fodder for both skeptics and believers \u2026 with proof. You may use this as you like, or toss it. Doesn\u2019t matter. It\u2019s really related to today\u2019s e-mail headline.<\/strong><\/p>\n
Here it is:<\/strong><\/p>\n
We had to revive some 5-year old products we had, as we\u2019re still busy producing new stuff that isn\u2019t ready yet, so we did a sale event (e-mail player style).<\/strong><\/p>\n
[Note: I\u2019ve been a subscriber from the beginning all the way to when I moved away from Canada, but am not anymore because of draconian import measures in my current country of residence. I highly recommend the publication to anyone in business. Besides, I think I may actually have all your products, except for the E-mail Players issues from when I had to discontinue on account of not even having a known address]<\/strong><\/p>\n
The sale ran for a week. Monday to Monday.<\/strong><\/p>\n
# of sales: 21<\/strong>
\nRevenue: 7K (There\u2019s more, but I\u2019m restricting these figures to the period). <\/strong>
\nRefund: 1 of a $47 product that we actually bonus, so I personally gave it to the person even though they didn\u2019t ask for it (integrity).<\/strong><\/p>\n# of E-mails Sent: 5 (Could have done more, but really busy. I do have 3 little kids).<\/strong><\/p>\n
E-mail Subject Lines: Mostly Bleh for most people who don\u2019t know their audiences.<\/strong><\/p>\n
#1. What Would You Do?<\/strong>
\n#2. How to Take Advantage Of \u2026<\/strong>
\n#3. Think Like a Chef!<\/strong>
\n#4. [VIDEO] The Ultimate BI Solution!<\/strong>
\n#5. Natural Farming and The Data Vault<\/strong><\/p>\nSales Letter: Oddly, there was no \u201creal\u201d sales letter. It\u2019s just a description of what they\u2019re getting, i.e., the course curriculum and a buy button. This is it _____ (Would appreciate if you don\u2019t share this url). By the way, the video isn\u2019t even about the course \u2026 LOL. Had a placeholder so I had to put something somewhat related. Talk about having ZERO emotions, I doubt you can beat it.<\/strong><\/p>\n
Open rate: 17% to 20% (Meaningless as I have had 80%+ opens with zero sales so I don\u2019t care). Besides, you can\u2019t tie an e-mail to sales. Period. And, if someone wants to argue with me on this, they\u2019ll do well by looking up my credentials. Google analytics is like pre-kindergarten stuff for us (for a frame of reference).<\/strong><\/p>\n
Audience: Geeks in a very specialized niche. Nobody in their right mind would even pick an audience like this to sell to. It\u2019s the hardest thing you can do, when there\u2019s so many much easier targets out there. Definitely NOT a \u201cstarving crowd\u201d a la Gary Halbert.<\/strong><\/p>\n
The only thing keeping us going in this is the honesty and integrity of the solution we\u2019re providing. People are throwing money at things that will fail (oddly much like what you dub the Gooroo Casino).<\/strong><\/p>\n
That\u2019s all!!!<\/strong><\/p>\n
By the way, loving the Copy Slacker product. It\u2019s stuff that you\u2019ve taught many times, but I love the new packaging and messaging this time. Could have used a little more editing on the transcript, but then again, you\u2019re living and breathing the fast way to do things. I\u2019m sure, it\u2019s going to help me immensely in formulating e-mails and sales letters quicker.<\/strong><\/p>\n
Warm Regards,<\/strong><\/p>\n
Sanjay<\/strong><\/p>\n
PS: Big thank you for all the knowledge you\u2019ve shared over the years.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Couple thoughts:<\/p>\n
One of the biggest disappointments of my business career was when I started doing pay-per-click ads and realized how limited online tracking to a sale can really be \u2014 especially using email. Sanjay reminded me of that above. In fact, my AdWords guy Jim Yaghi (another for real computer scientist, who understands the discipline and rigors it takes to do a genuine scientific test, and doesn\u2019t just throw the terms around online to dazzle people) has told me the exact same thing.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s also why for the last several years I\u2019ve been far more interested in tracking trends.<\/p>\n
Did sales go up, or down last month?<\/p>\n
Up?<\/p>\n
Good, carry on my wayward son.<\/p>\n
Down?<\/p>\n
Time to re-examine something (offer, traffic, email approach, current events, etc)<\/p>\n
Yes, there are probably more complicated (and maybe better) ways to track.<\/p>\n
But, I like simple.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s also why I believe consistency rules the roost in email, and why the vast majority of people selling online would be better off focusing on writing an email every day (or, even better, multiple times per day) designed to sell something to their lists, than obsessing over opt outs, open rates, clicks, and statistically irrelevant email split tests to their lists of 234 people or whatever.<\/p>\n
To be clear:<\/p>\n
(For any marketing fanboys who have heartburn over what I just said)<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not saying to not track email metrics if you want\/need to.<\/p>\n
Track to your heart\u2019s content.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m simply saying to focus on writing better emails first.<\/p>\n
After all, testing two turds against each other simply gives you a shinier turd\u2026<\/p>\n
Speaking of which:<\/p>\n
If you want to learn the ins-and-outs of email tracking, delivery, metrics, statistics, etc there are far better options to choose from than simple-minded elBenbo. But, if you want to learn the how-to\u2019s of writing lots of emails that sell (and doing it without struggle, frustration, or \u201cwriters block\u201d, etc), check out my \u201cEmail Players\u201d newsletter. Specifically, the March issue which goes to the printer in a couple days. One of the goodies inside is a simple content-generating formula I learned from one of the world\u2019s top Twitter gurus (he wouldn\u2019t call himself a Twitter guru, but he sells hundreds of thousands of copies of his books each year via Twitter and his blog content).<\/p>\n
Click the shiny, candy-like link below to get it in time:<\/p>\n