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How to write a perfectly persuasive email that converts into revenue

 

Would you like consistent income from your promotional emails without sounding pushy or desperate in your email copy?

Of course you do!

NO ONE wants to come across sounding like an icky salesman.

And for good reason.

Over 26 scientific studies confirm the obvious: people don’t like being sold to.

The data reveals that buyers like to feel in control and loathe being pressured.

What your buyers and donors really want is to…

… know they are making the right choice.

What that means to you

If you want your email marketing to generate consistent revenue (and who doesn’t), then your email copy needs to be all about helping your buyers feel confident that they are making “the right choice.”

That’s a huge service to your buyers because today there are so many choices it’s hard to know which is the right choice.

Think about it.

Don’t YOU love it when someone isn’t pressuring you to buy but instead giving you all the information you need to make the right choice?

And a huge relief for you because it’s leaves no question what your emails need to say,

Entrepreneurs and nonprofits cleaning up online have already figured this one out.

Your window of opportunity

You see that heaps and gobs of email you get is still pitchy.

This creates a tremendous opportunity for you to NOT sound pitchy and instead stand out in the inbox using the proven game plan I’m about to drop on you.

Before we jump in, I want to be clear about integrity.

I’m not encouraging you to just tell people what they want to hear to get a sale or donation.

You won’t last long in business if you do that.

I AM encouraging you to smartly give your readers the EXACT information they need to make the right choice.

If that means that sometimes the choice they make is a big fat “no” that’s okay, because…

…by a Godzilla-sized margin you’re going to have a higher number of happier buyers and donors with fewer returns or charge backs when you give reliable information up front.

Also…I’ve found that a “no” just means “no today” not “no forever.”

This is a system to built to drive consistent email revenue *and* build your brand

If you wanna bump your email revenue by a few percentage points then by all means focus on tactics like what time of day is best to send your emails.

But if you want to be strategic.

If you want move the needle and boost your email revenue by 2x or 3x, then focus on what your buyers or donors need to believe in order to say “yes” to you (or open their wallets).

This is where real email income growth comes from.

When you position yourself as the trusted source of information to help your buyer make the right choices… or at least have the chance to make the right choice, your emails get opened more than the next guy. They get clicked more than your competition.

And you get consistent predictable income.

Isn’t that what you want?

Writing what your buyer needs to hear or believe rather than what you’re yearning to say might be like trying on a new boot that feels a bit too tight and smell funny.

You know why?

Cuz most of the time your buyers are fixated on the wrong things.

Mine too!

Drives me nuts.

But here’s the thing…

Your buyers are like teenagers (and moms, and dads, and grandparents, and especially toddlers, and… well everybody); they want to be understood and respected *before* they’re gonna listen to you.

The marketer that knows their audience best, wins.

Focus on the messages your buyers need to hear in your promotional campaign

The modern consumer only pays attention when something matches their unique preferences, beliefs, needs, or lifestyle.

The harsh reality is that we are all bombarded with too much information to be able to pay attention to anything more.

The key to success for any marketer is understanding the psychology of your buyer and what your buy needs to believe to buy.

Science and testing have proven that all human beings essentially have a set of the same mental triggers that drive actions no matter what.

To get your subscribers to take action, you need to know what those triggers or beliefs are to use them in your messaging.

Here are the tested and proven psychological triggers, a threshold if you will, that you need to meet to get someone to open their wallet:

• Big promise – what are the big results your buyers will get? Sell the results and you’ll sell more.

• Benefits and features – what do the features of your service, product, course, mission really mean for your buyer? S.p.e.l.l. i.t. o.u.t. for them.

• Emotional reason – What is your buyer’s biggest emotional motivation to take action Please use a story here. Could be a one-email story, or a story that arcs over the life of your campaign. I don’t care. It just needs to be a story to really grab your readers.

• Social proof – How can you be trusted? Testimonials? Happy customers? Huge number of customers? Secure online transactions? Reviews? Guarantees?

• Urgency and Scarcity – What’s the reason I’d buy now rather than wait? What will I lose if I don’t act now?

• Freedom of choice – Why is this the best possible choice of all the choices I have?

• Easy Button – How easy is it to buy and get started? Cuz if it’s too big of a hassle or mystery, I’m out.

• Beliefs specific to your industry, such as safety standards, adaptability, guarantees, access, turnaround times.

 

The answers to the questions above just created EXACTLY what your emails need to say.

You’ve just answered what your buyer or donor needs to believe (and hear from you) to have the confidence to open their wallet.

See how that works?

Cool, huh?

No more staring at a dreaded blank white screen at a loss for words.

You’ve got the copy that will light a fire under them.

Use it.

So, the next question is…

How Many Emails to Send

How many emails you’re going to send in a promotional campaign is driven by how many beliefs you need to help your buyers sort through combined with “the rule of one.”

The rule of one is: one topic per email

A confused mind says “no.”

If you have too many concepts in one email, you cause reader paralysis and shoot yourself in the foot.

Exception: some of your messages: urgency, scarcity, or “easy button,” will be written into multiple emails as part of what I call your “big close,” so I exclude them from the rule of one.

But still.

You’re probably looking at somewhere between 7 to 12 emails per promotional campaign.

Is that more than you’re comfortable with?

You can send more email than you think because every email you’re sending now is bursting at the seams full of great information your buyers are hungry to hear.

Your emails are brimming with your personality, so it feels like they are hearing from a friend, not a vendor.

Anyone new to your list needs to get to know you anyway.

The cold hard reality is that a new prospect or lead is unlikely to buy from you the first time they hear from you.

They need to hear from you a few times to build trust and like you.

Send some emails that leave them thinking you know them better than they know themselves… it’s a surefire way to build that trust and fans.

Here’s a quick snapshot of a basic promotional email campaign:

E1 – Big Promise, benefits, social proof, scarcity or urgency, easy button
E2 – Benefits and features recap (with story or testimonial), scarcity, easy button +24 or 48 hours
E3 – Social Proof (with story) – + 24 or 48 hours
E4 – Overcoming Objections – + 24 or 48 hrs
E5 – Bonus ending today – + 24 or 48 hrs
E6 – Doors closing in 17 hours – + 24 or 48 hrs
E7 – Door closing in 2 hours + 15 hours

Your Voice

The single biggest email mistake I see is that entrepreneurs and nonprofits fail to let their own personality shine through their email copy.

Email copy without personality is as bland as eating bark.

With online marketing, you can’t make eye contact. You can’t whisper. You can’t wink. You can’t raise your eyebrows. You can’t make a fake fart noise in the bend of your elbow.

When you write online you only have words to communicate your message.

Your “voice” is a medley of your unique point of view, syntax, vocabulary, stories you tell (or don’t), sense of humor, punctuation, emotion, sarcasm (or not), and timing.

Bloggers and authors know what I’m talking about here because your writing voice is your brand. It’s how you build a following.

If you don’t have a distinctive writing voice yet, you can jump-start one with a three-step process to gain an immediate competitive advantage.

1. Develop your writing voice by “trying on” the characteristics of writers you love and read. You don’t take their voice entirely, but borrowing some of the characteristics that appeal to you is fine.

2. Identify the characteristics of writers your buyers or donors love and read—if they are not the same as yours. Maybe you’re a baby-boomer that sells to millennials and that means your pop icons and vocabulary are on different tracks. Again, pick a few of those characteristics that you can adopt as your own.

3. Incorporate those characteristics into your email writing. Try one or two per characteristics per email to slowly ramp up your audience. You’ll find some characteristics work and some don’t.

Your voice evolves over time.

Watch your email interaction and open rates kick into high gear when you let yourself shine through in your email copy.

Irresistible Subject Lines

Would you be surprised to learn that 2047 people told a pollster that the “sender” was a bigger reason to open an email than the subject line?

After reading the first three strategies I just shared, it makes sense, doesn’t it?

By now, you are already getting higher open rates with your fascinating and memorable personality and killer emails jammed full of info your buyer really wants.

But here’s the thing…

 

Now that you’re confident that your email copy is perfect, you want as many people as possible to open your emails.

Am I right?

So let’s get down to how to write super-compelling subject lines to boost your open rates (or at least make it easier to crank out respectable subject lines):

1. Create suspense in your previous email with a “P.S. Look for “you-fill-in-the-blank” in tomorrow’s email” or some other bread crumb like that. It’s called an open hook and television shows use this all the time with a cliff hanger that makes you watch next week or next season.

2. While there are 16-plus subject line formulas that get high open rates, the most basic formula that works is this: Benefit to the reader + Curiosity = Opens. When in doubt, use that formula.

3. Write at least 5 subject lines for each email. This forces you to try different combos and choose the strongest.

4. Your pre-header and first sentence may show up in a preview… especially a mobile preview so choose those phrases and sentences as carefully as you do your subject line. In fact, use any of the subject lines you brainstormed, but didn’t use.

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If you’re ready to take your email to the next level and create some emails that consistently generate income, grab my mini course, Emails that Convert Into Revenue and let me show you exactly what to do, and how to do it in 5 modules over 2.5 hours… on your schedule.