How to attack each email with a potentially very profitable right frame of mind…

So my pet cat of nearly 10 years is slowly dying – she has an inoperable brain tumour that’s going to siphon life out of her for the next few months until we have to put her down.

But none of that is anyone’s problem.

I just wanted to share a potentially very powerful & profitable email insight that somehow found its way into my head after thinking about this whole ordeal.

(I know, I’m that weird that I can’t kick marketing/emails out of my head even in a situation like this – my brain is just simply always on the lookout for insights & ideas. Hence why I even once wrote an email on why my email method may not be the healthiest one for its user: “Why my “Email Storyselling” methodology may not be mental healthy friendly…”)

Anyway:

Before we even determined she had a tumour… we had to do a CT scan.

Since there are no CT machines in the city I live in, we had to drive 2 hours to one which does.

And we did, however for reasons I won’t go into…

…we didn’t end up doing the CT scan. We were told to try again in some 7-10 days.

But you know what we did after 7-10 days?

We didn’t listen to them.

Not the fact that we should re-try the CT scan…

No…

We just didn’t do it at THEIR premises.

Why?

Because the entire experience there felt very…

Transactional.

Very corporate – very much a ‘you’re just another patient to us whose money we’d like.’

That isn’t to say they were unprofessional… or that they lacked the know-how… or that they were unpleasant to communicate with…

No.

We just felt that the overall approach was very “distant” – for lack of a better word.

Whereas the vet clinic we actually ended up doing the CT scan at?

Night and day difference.

The experience was much warmer – you could tell the vet and the staff actually cared deeply, and were going out of their way to do their absolute best for us in this situation.

Here’s my point:

Most emails in this – the sports nutrition industry – are like that initial vet clinic:

• Very transactional…
• Very corporate…
• So little personalization and care for the subscriber/reader/customer…

When I was developing my “Email Storyselling” methodology…

I wanted to make sure my emails would come across as that second vet clinic.

(I.e. very warm, personal, with little-to-no whiff of the email being just there to siphon money out of the reader/subscriber – even if that’s the ultimate end goal of it.)

In the Appendix of my book, you have 11 email examples of how emails like that look.

Not only THAT…

But I also broke down exactly in what frame of mind to put yourself in…

…in order to craft emails like that.

Here’s what I wrote on that Google Doc:

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Post-recording note: One question which I wanted to cover – but forgot to – in any of the videos was the:

“This kind of method of doing emails seems a bit too personal to me for running a big sports nutrition brand. Sure, they may work for you because you run a personality-driven brand… but how do you suppose they’ll work on a business which isn’t bound to anyone or anything’s personality/character ?” 

Here’s the approach I take regarding that:

Picture your business as this brick-and-mortar store with the owner (or the employee) working behind the counter. Then think of all the emails in this Google Doc as conversations the business owner/employee has with the regular customers who come in.

For instance:

• A bike shop owner/employee could write emails about the amazing new tyres that a distributor just released and how they’re ordering a test batch…
• The argument the owner/employee had with a distributor from China this morning…
• The awesome new set of mountain bikes that just arrived…
• The crazy bike marathon stories the owner/employee did ‘back in his day’ before his knees gave in…
• He could rant about the state of the entire bike industry…

You get the idea (and you also have the emails for the sports nutrition brand equivalent of these kinds of emails in this entire Google Doc – I went with the ‘employee behind the counter’ route for those.)

Hope that makes sense.

TL;DR – Just picture a small B&M business you visit where you have a good relationship with the owner/employee behind the counter.

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The second vet essentially treated me like that.

And in the end, it’s why he got my money and – more importantly…

My TRUST.

I predict trust is going to become an even more valuable commodity – than it already is – in this world of ever-increasing poor (or downright anti) consumer practices… and the bland & soulless so-called generative AI content on top of all that.