HACKING A MARKETING EMAIL
How to sell anything using an email
When I decided to be an entrepreneur, I quickly learned that I need to develop certain skills in order to be successful.
My formal training is chemistry, analytical chemist to be exact. I can look at the structure of a molecule and tell you what’s the best way to analyze that molecule, whether it’s a DNA, protein, carbohydrates or drugs, in urine blood or just water.
I hope I didn’t bore you to death when I talked a little bit about science, because that’s what I am going to do with a marketing email I read from the internet.
It was an email from Trey Lewellen, an e-commerce expert selling physical products (I’m a marketer too but I sell information products, chemistry related information).
Trey started selling flashlight through a website but failed. So at that time, he has a closet full of unused and unsold flashlight from China through Alibaba Express.
The flashlight became a nuisance because every time he gets something from the closet, it falls everywhere.
When Trey was trying to get a remote controlled airplane from the closet, he told us, that a flashlight fell.
It occurred to Trey that he needed to dispose the flash light in one way or another. So he and his brother tried to sell it through a website.
Someone suggested to him to why not “rent” an email list so he can sell the flashlight. He paid an insane amount of money, I think it was around $80 grand, to sell the flashlight via a huge email list.
Here’s the email:
The Military has recently released a technology that is now available to the public.
Here’s why:
Wide spread attacks inside the United States HAVE become a reality that’s currently being brushed off by main media sources….to not cause panic.
In good faith, the Military have released archived LED technology which has been placed inside Tactical Flashlights called the G700s.
The technology kicks in when ‘Strobe Mode’ is activated, producing a pulsating frequency that disorient a threat within milliseconds.
Massive orders are coming in from Police Departments, Fire Departments, and Armed Forces. Don’t you think you should be doing the same?
Grab a Military Grade Tactical G700 flashlights TODAY and BE PREPARED and DISORIENT the THREAT!!
This email made more than $80 grand, enough to pay the owner of the email list and the copy writing services.
If we analyze this letter like an English professors dissect Shakespeare’s prose, I can tell you there are basic principles at work here.
But before I continue, where you moved by the email?
I was.
Anyway, there are two principles that caught my eye here in the very beginning — talking about the military, an authority organization.
But before I move on, let me introduce and explain first the Principles of Persuasion as discussed by Robert Cialdini in his book “Influence”.
To be persuasive, these are the factors that may influence the other party.
- Reciprocity
- Authority
- Commitment/consistency
- Scarcity
- Social Proof.
So here we are:
The Military has recently….
The very start of the letter is signaling authority. Doctors, lawyers, engineers, endorsing a product. This product, based on the email, came from the military.
Wide spread attacks…
This, I think was telling the public the problem is…and of course, the product is the solution…
Massive orders are coming in from Police Departments, Fire Departments,…..
In this part of the letter, it’s exploiting the principle of scarcity, since massive orders were placed by the big organizations, then there will be limited supply is left to the public.
At the same time, it’s exploiting the principle of social proof, that everybody are ordering it, especially the law, it is a proof that you should buy it too.
Shouldn’t you be getting one too?
