Let\u2019s talk about the flick \u201cUsed Cars”.<\/p>\n
It starred Kurt Russell as a shady used car salesman (complete with a plaid suit and everything) who used shady tricks to sell cars. In one scene, a guy is looking at cars across the street, at the rival car dealership. So Russell puts $5 on a fishing pole and \u201ccasts\u201d it into the lot, right next to the guy. The guy sees it and bends over to pick it up. As he gets closer, Russell reels the $5 bill away, with the guy thinking it\u2019s the wind. The guy then chases it across the street to Russell\u2019s dealership, so he can try to sell him a car.<\/p>\n
Anyway, here\u2019s the point:<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not unlike a lot of today\u2019s shady online media and email tricks.<\/p>\n
Like, for example, putting \u201cre:\u201d or \u201cfwd\u201d in the subject line to make it look like it’s a reply of forwarded by a friend (in a broadcast\/list email which is not Can-Spam compliant, the way I understand it) or \u201csent from my iPhone\u201d at the bottom of a broadcast email that has an opt out link below it, tends to get negative reactions, or simply ignored (with the rest of your emails) by people who know what you\u2019re up to.<\/p>\n
Ever read Gary Halbert\u2019s \u201cThe Boron Letters\u201d?<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a part where he talks about ads with headlines that say something like:<\/p>\n
\u201cSex!\u201d<\/p>\n
Or\u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cA submarine that can fly?\u201d<\/p>\n
Only to be about life insurance or whatever.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the online equivalent of the used car salesman with the fishing pole.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s dorky.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s short sighted.<\/p>\n
And, it slowly (or quickly) destroys trust.<\/p>\n
Yes, I know it supposedly \u201cworks.\u201d<\/p>\n
But, like the founding father of Internet marketing Ken McCarthy once said: Trust is like a light switch. And once it\u2019s turned off, it\u2019s all but impossible to turn that light back on. And it only takes one time that insults your reader\u2019s intelligence to flip it off.<\/p>\n
Anyway, I\u2019m mostly preaching to the choir here.<\/p>\n
But, maybe someone needed to hear it before doing something stewpid.<\/p>\n
If you want to learn how to write subject lines and emails that get eagerly opened, clicked, and (most importantly) bought from, with no idiotic tricks necessary\u2026 then check out my \u201cEmail Players\u201d newsletter right here:<\/p>\n