Making your emails almost neurologically irresistible to read…

„How come you’re watching Masterchef with me?“ asked my girlfriend. „I thought you didn’t like it.“

„I don’t,“ I reply, „but I do like watching this part.“

„And which part is that?“ she hits back.

„This part that’s on right now – when candidates nominate each other for the stress-test.“

She chuckles, „Why do you only like that part?“

„Because it always gets pretty spicy.“ I shrug.

So anyway…

The Croatian version of MasterChef is being played on TV right now.

And as you can tell…

This is definitely not my cup of tea.

I’m not much of a cook, nor do I care particularly about watching other people cook.

But – as you’ve read – my eye always catches that „spicy“ part of the show.

Why is that?

It’s simple:

Humans are inherently wired to pay attention to drama and conflict.

Imagine you’re sitting at your favourite restaurant next to this young couple…

Everything’s gravy. You’re drinking some fine wine while waiting for your food…

But out of nowhere…

The girl SLAPS the guy and storms out of the restaurant crying!

I promise you this:

EVERY single head will be pointed at that table.

Every.

What I’m trying to convey to you is…

To add some drama/conflict to your emails!

Because that’s one of the easiest ways to make your emails so attention-grabbing… and so interesting…

…that they border on being almost impossible to ignore.

How do you add it?

Well…

There’s no template/formula for this.

And it also doesn’t necessarily have to be human-to-human conflict:

You can go against a philosophy or some other intangible.

I’ll give you an example:

You can basically make an entire email about the whole Volume vs Intensity crowd for training in the gym…

Some say volume is best for muscle-growth…

Some say it’s intensity…

(For example’s sake, let’s say you’re pro-intensity.)

You could write an interesting and entertaining take-down of the entire volume-based philosophy…

(Emphasis on the “interesting” and “entertaining” part… even conflict/drama won’t save your email from being ignored if it’s not interesting and entertaining…) 

…and the proposition for an intensity-based one.

And at the end of it?

You could easily pitch a pre-workout as help for training more intensely.

(And they do help with that – at least the good ones do. So even the pitch/promo part of the email feels natural and unforced.)

Anyway… you get the idea.

Whenever possible, bake in some conflict/drama into your emails.

HOWEVER…

Don’t force it.

„A strength overextended becomes a weakness.“ – says an ancient Chinese proverb.