The Science of Copy: How to Drive More Opens and Conversions in eCommerce Email Marketing - EP5
In this episode of the Send It podcast, host Jimmy Kim and co‑host Chase Diamond dive deep into the "science of copy" for e‑commerce email and SMS marketing. They begin by highlighting three core objectives of any copy: building audience/engagement, fostering loyalty, and driving conversion. The conversation then enumerates twelve distinct copy styles—storytelling, direct‑response, conversational, benefit‑oriented, urgency/scarcity, educational, playful/humorous, social‑proof, personalized, sensory, PAS (Problem‑Agitate‑Solution), and seasonal/event‑based—each explained with purpose and examples. They present a nine‑rule framework that underpins effective copy: the Big Idea, the Rule of One, an Irresistible Offer, Headline + Lead, Unique Selling Proposition, Write Like You Speak, Benefits Over Features, Write‑Then‑Trim, and Talk to the Person (not the crowd). Jimmy shares his personal “3 E’s” checklist (Excite, Educate, Edify) for a final pre‑send review. The hosts also discuss a new Gmail feature—summary cards that create premium real‑estate at the top of the inbox—and speculate on how marketers can leverage it. Throughout, they stress genuine personalization, testing, and avoiding generic, corporate‑sounding copy. The episode ends with a sponsor shout‑out to Appbrew, a call‑to‑action to join their newsletter, and a teaser for the next episode on scaling personalization without losing a human touch.
Chapters
Gmail is starting to improve all these things around events, experiences ultimately. And this new thing is like e-commerce. There's so many styles of copywriting, but really there's only 3 things you're really trying to do. Make sure there's an end date to your sale, because if you don't put an end date, why would they want to make the purchase now?
You basically want to use this type of copy to take someone having a want and turning it into a need.
These are insights around the fundamental rules of copywriting.
Personalization. A lot of times when you open up an ESP and when you select a segment and it's 1,000 people, you know inherently in your mind that this isn't just going to one person. So you start writing for the general crowd.
Or what I like to do is I like pull up your other 3 competitors and let's look at your headlines and your hero message. Do you guys all sound the same? And the answer often is yes. And you're like, well, that's your problem.
There's Monday Night Football, there's basketball, I think there's the World Series. Like there's just so much stuff happening today.
I know it's, it's like, what do you wanna watch? This is that weird like fall overlap that happens in sports that occurs and then hockey starts sliding in there here soon too. So.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, there's a, there's a lot going on. So I dunno if we wanna talk about that or anything else, but I'm, I'm getting Yeah, no, I already hit record, so we're good to go, dude.
Let's, uh, let's shoot this pod. You ready? 3, 2, 1.
From the open to the click, they're the masters of the flow. Just watch your list grow when your leads turn to go. Did we retain you so far, or do we have to extend it? If you want results, you know you gotta send it. Yeah, you know you gotta send it. Yeah, you know you gotta send it. Yeah. You know, you gotta send it.
What is up everyone? Welcome to Send It, where we discuss anything and everything retention marketing, specifically in email and SMS marketing and e-commerce. My name is Jimmy Kim and I'm here with my co-host.
Chase Diamond.
What's up, Chase? Today we are doing episode number 5, and just like last week, we nerded out. We're gonna nerd out again. And this time we're gonna talk about a topic that I think is very important. I actually think about this as one of my strengths in marketing, which is the science of copywriting. And I know you love it. What do you think about this today?
Yeah, dude, I'm pumped. And I know we've been talking before about deliverability, right? Once that house and that foundation's set, copy's gotta be one of the most important things. The ability to move people and get them to take action within an email or a text, that's powerful.
Yeah, absolutely, man. Well, before we jump into that, let me just go ahead and do a first thing. Let me give a big shout out to our sponsor, Appbrew. This is for brands that are scaling. A great way to add loyalty is to launch a mobile app to your store. Appbrew can help you drive conversions and growth both performance-driven mobile apps, go check them out at appbrew.com. Really cool guys over there. All right, Chase, I want to continue this whole thing and I want to kick this thing off with something hot off the press because I think that that's what we can do here and we can kind of tell people about cool things that are happening. So I'm going to share my screen real quick since we are on the whole desktop thing and we can do this. But let's talk about this real quick. This is kind of cool. So it's not super hot. I talked about and tweeted this a couple weeks ago, but I realized that we haven't talked about it. Gmail is starting to improve all these things around events and like experiences ultimately. And this new thing is like the summary cards basically allowing you to kind of take up this new real estate on the top of an email essentially with things that are like real-time notifications like purchases, events, bills, travel, and so much more. What do you think about this, man?
Yeah, it's nice. This is actually the first time I'm seeing it. This looks clean. It looks nice, dude. It's so hard for me to find things in my inbox when I find them, you know, if they're plain text or if they're emails, like it's hard to locate like the important details. I love the fact that like front and center, Here's the things that you need to know. Here's when it's happening. So it just feels really clean. It feels really organized. I feel like this is like my personal assistant within my email.
Yeah. You know, I love Gmail that they continue to innovate this thing. And, you know, obviously because they own such a majority of the world in email, you can— they could stop innovating if they wanted to, but they just continue to make the world a better experience. So pretty cool little email update there. I thought it was fun. I don't know how marketers will be able to tap into it, but I assume in the next couple of weeks, just like everything else, we'll start to see developer docs and different information around how you can start tapping in. And I don't know the right use use cases yet, but that's for marketers to go try and find out and find ways to leverage it and hopefully not break it. But well, that also will happen too. You know that. All right. Look, we got this agenda here. So let me lay out the framework here, Chase, and kind of kick this thing off. So we're going to start by kind of, I'm going to say like top to bottom, right? And this is the way we're going to go through this today. So we're going to start off on the top. We're going to go over like the styles of copywriting in e-commerce, right? We're going to talk about all the different ways we're going to describe him, the goals, a little example around there. Then we're going to dive in one step deeper. You have this great social post that you posted last week that I saw. It was the 9 rules of copywriting, and it was a really cool infographic. But I felt it'd be really fun if we walk people through that infographic because it's just a bunch of words, and I think if you go through it, people might get really excited about it. And then I'll kind of finish this thing off tonight with one of the things I talk about on social all the time about how I think about copy and what I always do is like my last check before I hit send. So let's go ahead and kick this thing off, man. And you know, in e-commerce, right, there's so many styles of copywriting, but really there's only only 3 things you're really trying to do. You're either trying to build the audience and engage them, you're trying to build loyalty, or you're trying to drive that conversion. And everything we do in each style that we have is different goals with products and audiences. But let's go over like the effective ones. I think we nailed down to 12. You and I have been going back and forth and said there's probably 12. So we'll go back and forth, we'll talk about each one. But Chase, I'm going to kick it off and let you share number 1.
Heck yeah. Number 1, we're going to start with storytelling copy. I feel like this is one that's often forgotten, right? And I'm really a big proponent of like you have to sell with your story and sell with the story of your customers. It is one of the easiest and quickest ways to build that emotional connection and really draw the reader in close, right? Really build that bond and relationship is by telling your story and putting the story of your customers front and center so other people can kind of raise their hand in their homes and be like, that looks like me, that sounds like me. I can resonate and really relate with that. So it's just such a great way to deliver a message that kind of is emotional and heartfelt, for lack of a better way. So for example, you know, if you have a skincare company, you know, talking about one of your customers, maybe it's someone named Jamie or Sarah or whoever it might be. Talk about how, you know, she was struggling with breakouts and today, you know, because of your product, she's never been happier. And really just share like that transformation, kind of the before and after. And even if like you were one of the people that solved your own itch and that's why you built this, that is really a deep message that people can get behind. So storytelling copy is a must within emails and SMS and frankly on your website, your ads. It should be throughout your guys' marketing.
Yeah, I mean, that's the age-old tale, right? Like people say that a story sells. The greatest speakers in the world tell stories. I mean, even as we look at all the things that happening in this world. I mean, it's all storytelling that leads the world. People love a good story, man. All right. Number 2, I come from this world, so I love this one. I think direct response copy is really underrated often because people just don't focus on the performance side of just driving immediate action of a purchase or a click. I think that when you're focusing on, you know, benefits, features, urgency, clear call to action, and having that concise and compelling formula really where you're just getting people to shop now or get their 20% off right away, dude, I think that's underrated. People don't do enough selling and being direct about it. And it's really as simple as saying you got only 24 hours left to save 30% off this bestselling backpack. Get yours now before they're gone, right? Like, it's compelling message. It's to the point and telling people what they want. Don't be ambiguous. I always tell people, like, if you're going to go for the sale, go for the sale. And there's no stronger way than direct response copy.
Yeah, I feel like there's quote unquote direct response brands and those are more of like the long-form kind of plain text, the psychology. Those ones crush. They never look the best, but those always crush. Whereas like more in our world, it's like this branded kind of perfect image of this e-commerce brand, and they pretty stray far from doing direct response. And so I feel like direct response and the storytelling and all those things are kind of lost arts in kind of the world that we live in. And most people listening to this probably aren't too pushy and aren't too salesy because they themselves don't get it or they don't want to receive it. But pushing customers to make that purchase through direct response, dude, like it's so cut and clear that it works. Like people just have to do it.
Yeah, 100%, man. All right, go on to the next one, man. What are you thinking here? What's the next one?
Next one that I thought of was conversational copy, right? And this really stems from speaking kind of to and kind of with your audience versus speaking at them. So really kind of doubling down on that, speaking with them, making it feel approachable and relatable as a brand, you know, really kind of humanizing the brand, I think is how you get around kind of just seeming stale and corporate. So kind of combining some of the things we talked about, right? The whole thing around storytelling and then conversational, that really makes your copy, you know, personal, feels relatable, and it really speaks to the person with where they're at and not talks to them like you're above them type of a thing. And with that, right, like, you know, it's if something changes in the weather right now, we're kind of entering fall and, you know, we're a couple of months out from winter, you know, talking about people's closets and how, you know, they need to maybe redo and kind of, you know, upgrade their wardrobe to, you know, being now focused on kind of colder weather, you know, sweaters, pants, jackets, beanies, those types of things. And even kind of sharing like you as the owner or you as the marketer, you as the customer support person, whoever's kind of customer-facing and front and center. Talk about some of the things that you bought from the store that you own from the store and kind of some of the things that you're doing, right? Getting a whole new set of candles, getting some fall kind of stuff from the house. And with that, you know, if you're an apparel company, the clothing that you're buying kind of to be on brand, on theme, I think that could hit really, really well this time.
No, I love that, man. Conversational. People like to feel like they're in the conversation when going through the buying process. I mean, they always just say that Gen Z wants to buy with you, not against or be sold to. I guess they want to buy with you ultimately. So there's a lot of that. But, you know, that leads me to the next one, which is number 4 for me, which is Benefit-oriented copy. What I mean by that, and you just kind of mentioned about the you, you know, people want to talk about themselves, man. They want to know what they're getting out of this thing. And, you know, highlighting what the customer gains as a benefit by purchasing it is a really good way to get someone excited about it. If it makes their life easier, happier, more fulfilling, I mean, it solves a problem. What's in it for me, man? And that's like the thing that I think people forget is like you got to tell people what they're getting. So if you're thinking about like, let's say you're selling like foldable bins, right? You would say something like, goodbye to your clutter, right? Our foldable bins keep your home organized and give you the style and safe, you know, peace of mind to, you know, get organized, whatever it might be. Right. But a benefit-oriented copy is so powerful and not enough people just resell what their actual value prop is ultimately. What do you think?
Yeah, I love that. I think that is a huge mistake that people make is they're not focusing on the benefits or they're always focusing on the features kind of as you mentioned. So switching kind of that is huge, right? And the next one I'd say, and this is an element of direct response, but urgency and kind of scarcity within your copy. You know, inherently most things aren't urgent or scarce, right? There's very few things in life that are, right? It's like taxes, there's a deadline. You know, I got invited to come to jury duty, so that's another one that's time sensitive. Outside of that, like maybe like a prescription that you need from a doctor, most things aren't urgent or kind of scarce. And therefore, if you don't make things urgent or scarce, people are going to sit on it. They're going to, you know, contemplate whether I buy from you or competitor. Maybe I don't need it at all, right? So you basically want to use this type of copy to take someone having a want and turning it into a need. Right. A lot of people want things, but without the urgency and the scarcity, it never becomes strong enough of a desire for someone to actually take that leap of faith and make that purchase of, you know, ideally your product. And, you know, potentially this is applicable to your service, right? So leveraging things like hurry, you know, limited quantities, you know, we're selling fast and this sold out previously in the past and now it's back in stock. Don't miss it again. Again, you want to make sure that like when you tap into this FOMO, that is legitimate. You don't want to manufacture these types of things. It has to be legitimate.
No, absolutely. You got to be legitimate with these things. But, you know, I always say to tell people all the time, like, make sure there's an end date to your sale because, well, if you don't put an end date, why would they wanna make the purchase now, right? So even if it's like an opt-in, you know, a coupon opt-in, I tell people, don't just give a coupon opt-in, tell them they got 7 days to use that coupon before it expires. That little twist is a conversion booster sometimes. And if you can add that to your copy, yeah, that's strong. All right, next one I've got for you to continue to dive into a little bit of that conversation piece. How about educational copy? I'm talking about content people call this all the time. So we're talking about teaching people something valuable that can position the brand as an authority Like a tip, a guide, an explainer that relates to like a product or an industry and giving value. So example, like, all right, we go like 3 tips to make your coffee taste amazing at home, right? Think like that, right? Discover how our French press can help you brew a perfect cup of coffee. Well, the French press is what I'm selling. I'm telling you about making coffee taste amazing. I'm making it educational content related, but I'm really just selling myself indirectly because after they go through that, hopefully they're like, okay, well, how do I make coffee? I must need this French press. So I love a good educational content. People think content needs to be boring. Or like so like out of the world. All you got to do is show them another way to ultimately use the product ultimately, or service, right? What about you, Chase? What's another one for us?
Yeah, I love that. I'd say the next one is like playful, kind of fun, witty, humorous copy. I was talking with a buddy the other day about how like I'm obsessed with like the car ads from like the '70s, '80s, '90s, you know, the Porsche, the Volkswagen, you know, some of those types of companies that just did really great jobs with like the old school kind of print ads. They were so fun and funny and people loved reading them and people loved sharing them and people ultimately converted Converted off of them, right? They really built like that brand loyalty and affinity, where I think brands today are so vanilla, they're so boring, they're playing it way too safe. I don't know if everyone's afraid of getting canceled or if like people just corporatize kind of like copy and tone and voice exercises that like there's just no life in them. So again, like if you can, when you're not like some serious company that's being corporate or regulated, have fun, be playful. This is the best way to be memorable and kind of create that like you know response within someone that's like that emotional thing. So a lot of these things we're talking about, these types of They build upon each other, but just have fun, right? So for example, maybe if you're a shoe company, you can talk about how the shoes are so comfortable and so nice to wear that sometimes you forget you're even wearing the shoes, right? And that you maybe you end up even sleeping in them. They're so comfortable, right? Don't tell them that we didn't warn you. Like these are shoes that are just gonna make your feet melt in the best way possible. So just incorporating things like that allow people at the very least to get a chuckle, and the more chuckles you get over time. You know, they're going to feel a certain type of way about your product when it comes time to make a purchase.
Yeah, that friendly feeling of a human or authentic experience. There's no way to replace that. And you can definitely do it through the power of copy without being too cheesy or too out of brand. I think that you can show people that you're real and that's really what it comes down to. Talk about real, Chase. Number 8 for me is social proof copy. So we're talking about a copy that's related around building trust through testimonials or reviews and stories ultimately, right? All these people, and it can be as simple as like, here's, you know, a bunch of people who left reviews or the number of people who've made a purchase, like over 10,000 people have made a purchase or agree this is whatever it might be or whatever it might be, or other user-generated content. I mean, I know with social media these days, Chase, like if you have a good product and you just scroll TikTok, someone's making a review about you and that's free content you can put anywhere and you can kind of link it back to them. Not only does the customer feel good, but it's a really good way to create that authentic social proof. So I highly, and I know everybody already thinks about it, but it definitely is a call out and a standout in What do you think about that?
Yeah, I love that. Completely agreed, right? Like now with TikTok Shop and some of these other things, people are incentivized to make content about your brand because they're actually monetizing it. So the more that you kind of show that flywheel and the more that you reciprocate and they reciprocate, more people are going to get behind that. So I completely agree. I mean, with that, right, like every tip we're sharing and every tip we're going to share, they're really building blocks, right? So leveraging one or more of these things can go a long way. It's not like they're not an or. You can combine them as an and. And with that, the next one is personalized copy. And this is the copy that everyone should be aiming for, regardless of whether it's direct response or social proof copy or playful or humorous. You need it to be personal, right? And we've talked in the past about how to build segments and how segmentation allows you to get really personalized message and copy. But with that, right, like personalized copy is when you're speaking directly to the person on the receiving end, right? Making the message feel like it was specifically for them. And the goal, right, it's like you're going to do that at scale. So you might send to 1,000 people that are hopefully going to feel like more or less that was for them. That was one of one. So when you address them by their name, you know, when you can make recommendations about their purchase behavior and kind of the things they looked at. When you can leverage some of the other things we talked about, like around their demographics and even their geography, you kind of create this touch that's really personal and that someone is creating and looking out for you, right? Yeah. So leveraging someone by name, going back to the kind of the sneaker company, you know, it might be like, hey Jimmy, now I think you're gonna love these sneakers. You know, I personally bought a pair recently. They were fantastic. You know, based on the things that, you know, you've looked at kind of match my interests as well. I think they'll go great with the jacket you purchased us a couple of weeks ago. I've got one in a similar color, like, you know, just tying in like, you know, what they've purchased with things they should pair it with, with their name. And maybe even, you know, if it's true, incorporating certain things around like the customer support people or the founder, this being one of their favorite items and this really being a staple of the wardrobe. Those really go a long way in kind of allowing people to be like, wow, okay, this is great. Like most companies aren't doing this. Those that do really do stand out.
I love that, Chase. And I know we got so deep before we even brought that up. That should have been probably number one. Just it's pretty basic, but it's also very true. So it's definitely a copy style that we should be thinking about.
100%.
All right, all right. Our number 10, I got one. All right, so this one I really like. So one of my, you know, brands that I really like, one of our brands that I like, a cookie company called Milk Bar, right? And they do a good job doing this, but I call this sensory copy because I noticed that, you know, with ASMR and all these things that the young Generation Z is looking for, you can still do that even in the written word ultimately. So creating like a vivid image that draws the reader in. So I'm talking about like, oh, imagine a warm buttery cookie fresh out of the oven melting in your mouth. That's what every morning can feel like with this brand new breakfast cookie, basically, right? Like getting people to use that like sensory copy and being extra descriptive. In the past, they call that filler sometimes, but there's a world where if you're really describing the experience or the taste or something and people want that, that really works really well. And I think that kind of lines up with a little bit of the other parts of what we've kind of shared. But ultimately, again, making sure you're trying to tap into more emotions because people still like to read. And when they're reading your product or your email, you want them to be able to kind of imagine the things that are happening. So that's a good one that I like. Chase, close us out with the last 2. I know you've got some really good ones here, so let's close this out with 2 more here and then we'll wrap into the next part of the funnel as we think down around copy.
Awesome. Number 11, I guess this is more like a copywriting framework. It's called PAS. The P stands for problem, the A stands for agitate, and then the last one, the S stands for solution. And essentially, right, this is identifying and calling out the problem. It's basically making the problem feel super painful that someone's like, oh yeah, I really need to get a solution. I really need to solve for this problem. And then kind of, you know, entering And then the solution. So it could be something around like, I know a lot of people can't sleep. Most people aren't getting enough sleep. It's affecting them throughout their day. It's affecting their health. I've been there as well. Countless nights of not getting enough sleep, feeling groggy in the morning, right? Like really making like the lack of sleep feel really painful and talking about studies where if you aren't sleeping, it's gonna lead to potentially X, Y, and Z health concerns, right? And then talking about, by the way, I tried this solution and I actually have now commoditized this solution and it's available for you as well, where it might be as simple as getting a better mattress, right? Maybe your mattress is old, maybe it's not doing the job, maybe you're feeling kind of achy in the morning when you wake up with your back. You know, the memory foam mattress that we sell, it's really designed to support you all throughout the night and really give you the best sleep of your life. I know I personally have been sleeping way better as a result, right? So something like that would basically be kind of this past kind of type copy. And then the last one, number 12, to kind of round this out would be seasonal and event-based copy. So, you know, tonight when we're recording this, there's so many different sporting events live, right? Everything from World Series to to football, to basketball, right? You name it. So leveraging some of like these sporting events within your guys' copy and within your guys' messaging to drive sales is a really big one. So tie the seasonal kind of event-based messaging with the direct response that we talked about earlier and be able to take advantage of people really thinking about it and it being top of mind and being timely, right? People are gonna have to go turn the TV on after work and go kind of consume the content, whether it's this sport or that sport or another sport. So if you can fit into the mold of something that's just super timely and relevant, It's gonna feel like to them like this light bulb moment of, ah, like I need to get this. And that ultimately makes it urgent and time sensitive and scarce, right? So when something's tied to a specific moment in time, that adds inherent kind of subconscious psychology around I need to act fast because this thing isn't gonna be here forever.
No, that makes total sense. Those are great. I mean, I love the past structure of copy because that's what people, again, it goes back to the benefit or problem solution. I mean, again, why do people buy things? They don't just buy things. Well, they do sometimes outta just pure joy and impulse, but oftentimes when people purchase, like a responsible human being. I don't know about you, but well, sometimes I go a little impulsive, but we buy things 'cause we need something. Like I need to buy a car because I need to get to point A to point B, whatever it might be. I need to buy the toothpaste or the vitamins or whatever it might be. So the benefits of a pass is awesome. And of course, you know, event stuff. I love event marketing. So the event copy, like having a centralized time, location, place, relevance, whatever that event key is, like the World Series is happening and I don't know anything about baseball, but because of social media enough, I know that the Dodgers and the Yankees are playing. And it's closing out, it seems like pretty fast, right? Is what I'm taking back from everything. So having the email ready the next morning saying Yankees or the Dodgers are the World Series championships, I have no idea who is, but whoever is the World Series champion and being able to have that ready, even deployed in the morning is still hyper event personalized. And that will get attention because it feels relevant and feels new and fresh. All right, Chase, I wanna continue on, man. So we kind of talked about the styles of what we were talking about, but now let's talk into the rules. And you've posted this cool-ass infographic. I'm gonna share it on the screen here so we can walk us through it together. But basically you've said this is based on $200 million of revenue generated. These are insights basically around the rules and the fundamental rules of copywriting. I felt like this was such a good infographic. It's so timely to have in this pod here today. So Chase, why don't you kick this off and we'll just kind of go left to right. So we'll start on the first one, which is big idea. So tell us about a little bit more about that big idea. Explain that a little bit more.
Yeah, for sure. The big idea, right? Like this is basically where your copy's gonna stem from. This is something that you have to get people kind of excited about. This is something that should be, as we've talked about, Interesting, relevant, and timeless. I think that people don't buy products, they buy ideas. So you have to get someone behind the notion that A, they need this thing, and B, you know, here's the reasons why they need it, right? So talking about kind of how it's helped you, kind of talking about, you know, why it was invented or started in the first place, like getting people excited is not just possible. People don't just say, oh, I'm gonna go buy shoes. It's like, what's the idea of shoes? It allows you to explore the world without getting hurt, right? Without basically hurting your feet. You know, you can go on hikes and you can go travel and you can do all of these things. So getting people just excited about the big idea allows to kind of add the emotion and the character to products. Otherwise they're just these things, right? They're just these things that have no sense of being and they have no differentiation. So when you can get people excited about your big idea, which should be different than your competitors, right? When you think about shoes, for example, with like Nike versus Adidas versus Reebok versus, you know, you name the other shoe, right? Vans. They're all kind of selling you this different idea. The shoes are for different things and the branding and the marketing and the copy is what ties you. And that's why Nike for example, has so much affinity and they tie their big idea around even like athletes, right? So their big idea might be specific to this is the shoe for Michael Jordan, right? And then the big idea is all the stuff that he's been able to accomplish. So I can go on and on and on for this, but a long time. But you have to have a big idea to get people excited about what you're selling above and beyond. Cool. I know I need a pair of shoes.
No, it makes total sense. People want to believe in something bigger. And that's basically what you're saying is like, show them there's a bigger reason behind just the fact that they're shoes ultimately.
Yes.
All right, so rule number 2, let's go to this one. I love this one, man, the rule of one. I mean, that's something I love talking about online, but focusing on one thing in your copy. So sell one thing, present one idea, explore one topic, solve one problem, share one solution. I mean, if you think about it, the focus, you should ensure that the focus is so clear and impactful. And I don't have too much more to say, but just make sure you've got a single focus and that's it. That's, I love that rule. Rule number 2 is excellent. I 100% agree with that. Let's go to rule number 3.
Yeah, number 3 is this concept of an irresistible offer. Offer, right? And, you know, when you think about it, it's quite simple. So what is an irresistible offer? It's something where you can basically align the value or quote unquote the perceived value, right? The goal of copywriting marketing is maybe if the product value isn't entirely there, making the perceived value there, right? We're kind of magicians with words a little bit and feelings where you want that value that someone's going to receive be greater than the price that they're going to pay, right? Everyone wants to feel like they're getting a great smoking deal, right? So if I'm able to position as a copywriter or marketer that this thing over here Right? This thing that you're going to buy from me is going to be a trade in which you feel like you had the upper hand. That is an irresistible offer. You want the customers to feel like they are the mastermind and they are geniuses and they are the ones controlling the shot. And when the power's in their hand and they feel those types of things and the value transfer is there, you get money as a brand and they get the product as the consumer. It's pretty easy to say yes versus no. Do you want them ultimately to feel like they cannot refuse what you have? Because otherwise it would make them feel quite frankly dumb, right? Like, why would I pass up on this thing that just seems to be so great if it could help do X, Y, and Z?
Yeah, it's so easy sounding on paper, I know, but when you actually go to implement it, it's so much harder to create that experience. But you're right, Chase, like you just have to continue to drive to say, how do I make this thing exciting, right? And that leads to rule number 4 here you've got, which is headline plus lead, which I think is the most important part of your copy because it's what you see. It's the attention grabber ultimately. And right here on the headline you wrote interesting, intriguing, and specific. You know what I say? I'll talk about it a little bit later, but I call it excite, educate, and edify, right? It's like very similar in the thought process. But basically what you're saying is you've gotta be compelling and entertaining. You've gotta grab the attention. You've gotta get them to look at it and make it a reason why that they wanna open and go into your email. Because it's like a multiple step. One, you gotta inbox them. Then you gotta get them to look at it in that inbox and open it. Then you gotta get them to read it and click on it and then take an action, right? So many of those steps are out of your control and your only job you can do is get them in faster. And the more mass you can get, because it's a quantity game, the better your conversion in dollars and cents and revenue that comes out on the other end. So sometimes you just have to get people to the next step, and a great headline and lead or a preview line is going to really get you going. In fact, this leads us to the next one. I love this next one, Chase. Rule number 5.
Yeah, your USP. So that's short for basically your unique selling point or your unique selling proposition, right? So we have to be kind of aware that when we're selling something, frankly, we're not the only person selling it, especially within e-commerce where things are commoditized, right? Every single person is selling a Every single person selling a shoe, everyone selling apparel, right? We're all selling more or less the same thing, quote unquote. Again, obviously, right? Like you know, I know there's differentiations and whatnot, and that's exactly what this is for. What sets you apart from the competitors? You know, what makes this t-shirt from Built versus this t-shirt from Cut versus this t-shirt from you know Viore? What makes them different, right? They all have some kind of blend of cotton and wool, and you know whatever it's in it. What makes you different? You know why is one of those companies doing better than the other, right? Right. It's marketing. Maybe it's time and market some of these things, but it's really the ability to differentiate one product from another and make it so people can't compare them. You don't want people to be able to go down the line and be like, okay, this shirt from company 1, 2, and 3 are exactly the same. I'm gonna go eeny meeny miny moe, close my eyes, and pick one, right? You don't want the customer to do that. If they're doing that, then you're basically rolling the dice, and then you have a fraction of a chance of actually converting. Whereas if you can differentiate the lifestyle, what your brand stands for, you know, what you have that other Others don't, and again, it could be a whole host of things. Like when you think about even like companies like Amazon or Zappos or Costco, you know what do you think about? Right? You think about like they are for the consumer, right? If you don't like something, you're going to be able to return it. They have probably the best prices on the internet, right? Like Costco makes their money from memberships, not from food. Right? People are diehard Costco fanatics. So if you just think about right, Costco in my mind is way bigger than Sam's Club or anyone else. And why are they different? It's because of the selling propositions that they've made you aware of. So this is so important. And again, on there, it's like the kind of the fingerprint. Like this is your finger. This is what makes you one of one, not one of many.
No, I love that. I call that me too. You know, a lot of brand exercises I'll do when I'm talking to brands is, okay, pull up your other 3 competitors and let's look at your headlines and your hero message. Do you guys all sound the same? And the answer often is yes. And you're like, well, that's your problem. If you sound the same to everybody else, why would they really care? It's the same thing when it comes to email principle. You've got to have an angle almost. I mean, it's a lot of the same things that we've been talking about. And a lot of copy is really just getting it positioned right, talking about the right thing, delivering the right thing. And rule number 6 here is write Writing it like you speak, right? I think crafting copy is really important, and this is where like AI, and this is where the hot take of like AI can't solve for that tone and personality, and sometimes even a little bit of that grammatical error that can occur when you have humans behind it. But people like that because sometimes AI can't do the human talking that you want to kind of get over into the world, right? So that conversational approach that you were talking about earlier, that only resonates with readers when you can actually have a human behind the thing, and that creates that like Trust engagement. So I like that one. Rule number 6, write like you speak. What about number 7? I like this one too. This is good.
Yeah, and I think we kind of talked about this a little bit before, but the whole benefits over the product or kind of the benefits over the features. Like, again, a couple examples is like, don't just sell a camera, right? Like, you know, camera does what a camera does, but talk about, you know, how your camera has the best photos on the entire market, right? When you can talk about like the actual tangible thing that people are going to get from the product, that is really important, especially in the world that we live in now. If you sell cameras, like people are using cameras for social media, put your best foot forward with our state-of-the-art, best-in-class, you know, ultra-clear camera, right? Our camera is going to get you the highest definition, the best product possible for the best photo for your Instagram, for the best video for your TikTok, for the best X, Y, and Z for whatever it might be, right? And same thing with a watch, right? Instead of a watch just telling time, focus on like the style and kind of the identity, right, that someone one's going to get. You know, this watch is for people that want to be luxurious. These are the people that want to go down the street and have people taking notes, right? These are the flashy kind of luxurious ones. Or maybe this is the minimal watch. These are for people that want to be able to tell time, that want to be able to have something on their arm to accessorize, but don't want to be in your face. So when you talk about what the customer gets and what the product does for them and how it's going to improve their life or how it's going to help them make a statement or help— it's going to make them connect to other people that maybe they want to connect with. And then maybe there's this community on this product, this will help them solve their problems and ultimately get you kind of the transaction that you're looking for above and beyond just saying we're selling a camera.
That's great. I love that. I mean, we kind of talked about it above too. I think it's just something you gotta keep reiterating because, you know, it's not just e-commerce email or whatever. It's in SaaS, it's in business. This problem persists everywhere. Everyone wants to sell the product, but people don't realize that you can't sell the product because all the products do the same thing. You gotta sell the reason why, the benefits of why, you know, the things that really make the emotional triggers occur, in fact.
So number 8, Yeah.
And then finally here, as we're wrapping this thing down here, I like this one because I do this all the time. I call it write then trim. I love this because what you should be doing is you should write your first one and then you should probably go back and let your creativity flow and let it all kind of come out and then start trimming back and start multiple edits and redundancies. And what you understand really is like you add this extra too, or this also, or you add all these unnecessary words. And once you shorten it back out, you kind of deliver that really great tight message because look, we all wanna say a lot of things. I know Chase, you and I both have this problem sometimes. Tell them all the details and all that stuff, but really, did it really matter? And oftentimes when you write it out and then you're like reading it, you're like, well, I already said it was really clear here, but why do I have to tell them again that this is really easy to see through? Like I keep saying the same thing over and over in different words. And often that just means I'm mumbling, I'm gibberish. I don't know what you call it, but it's when you talk too much on email and you know that you only have a concise amount of time to talk to. In fact, that probably leads to number 9 because I like 9, talk to the person, not the crowd. Tell us about that one, man.
Yeah, this one really is kind of what we talked about before around like personalization, making the message resonate and feel like it was for a specific person, right? Making them feel like they're the only person on the receiving end of that email. Chase and Jimmy took so much time to, you know, write this email for me. It was for me. It's not for anyone else. And really allowed people to have like that pride of like feeling like it was just for them. When you use kind of like the, the you language, right? When you— that allows them to see themselves kind of in the shoes versus kind of like generalizing, like, hey everyone, hey all, today we're going to be covering You know, this type of thing where it's like, you know, hey Jimmy, I wanted to let you know about you know what's happening and here's how I think it can help you, right? So I actually have a hack for this. The best hack I have is a lot of times when you open up an ESP, right? When you open up Sendlane or you open up Klaviyo or Omnisend or whatever platform it is, it gets really intimidating. And when you select the segment and it's a thousand people or ten thousand or hundred thousand people, you know inherently in your mind that this isn't just going to one person. So you start writing for the general crowd. Or what I like to do is I like to open up my Gmail window and I'm. I might type in, Jimmy, if you're my ICP, I might type in Jimmy and I might put your email and I'll put something like, hey Jimmy, you know, I wanted to let you know about this type of thing. You know, based on what I know about you, right? I know where you live. You live in Texas. You know, I know you like cars, right? So if I sell something on cars, I'm gonna be like, new cars specific for Audi owners, right? I know you have an Audi, right? So, hey Jimmy, wanted to let you know about our newest product specifically for Audi owners like yourself. We think you're gonna like it for X, Y, and Z reason. Here's what it's gonna do for you. And if you have any questions, hit me back. I'd love to chat with you. Because I have these attributes I know about you and because I'm writing within a window I'm used to writing. We're all writing friends and family emails and coworkers' emails within Gmail. It allows me to write a message that's very personal for you. And then I'd go into the ESP and I might then just switch the, hey Jimmy, to, hey, you know, insert first name, right? And then it would insert the first name. And then I would check the segment of people that have indicated that they have an Audi or they have this car. So I like to do that. I like to just write within a window that's very comfortable and familiar, that's specifically going to one person versus writing in the platform that you know is going to everyone.
That mindset and that hack has been That makes sense, 'cause most of your customers, if you're doing a good job over time, is gonna look like the same type of customer over time. And that means that that person should resonate in most, like an 80% capacity, should resonate to that message that you might be sending. Okay, that's a good one. I like that. All right, that was really cool. I'm gonna go ahead and kill this thing, but that was really cool. You know, that was a really helpful thing. You should definitely check it out. We'll have it posted on the video. If you're watching us on video, we'll throw it in the newsletter so you can continue to spread this. But man, just having this when you're thinking about writing copy, because it's so easy to say, I'm just going to write some words and I'm going to write a design or I'm going to take a template from somewhere and just make it happen. But the reality is, and I know you agree with this, Chase, but like these words are such valuable money and conversion drivers with email. Your email doesn't stop with just being able to create an audience and being able to hit send. That middle piece, this bread, this is the thing that makes it actually work. And I really think having effective copy is really hard if you're not thinking about the art of copywriting. It's actually where I see brands often not invest enough money. What do you think about that?
Yeah, most people I think just like string things together, don't put too much thought or care into it, don't really review their work, don't really think about it properly, don't put themselves in the customer's shoes, and a lot of people are falling short in this regard. So I think this was a great episode on the copy, but I know, did you have one or two more things you wanted to run through?
Yeah, oh, I did mention this earlier, might as well bring it up. So one of the things I like to talk about on social media, and this is like my quick hack or the quick trick, right? So whenever you're sending an email out, I think about I talk about the 3 E's: excite, educate, and edify. Excite meaning, is it exciting? Educate meaning, is there logic and information? Edify means, are you asking them to make a purchase? And those 3 E's are really easy to identify. So anytime you create an email, this is my tip on the end of the day, 'cause this is my favorite thing that I do for myself. I sit back before I hit that send button and I look at it and said, did it excite me? Did it educate me? And did I ask for the click? Ultimately, the excite, educate, edify. That is my little tip of the day that I use. 'Cause you had this great 9-rule tip. I wanted to kind of put my input on it, but this was excellent, man. Thank you. I really enjoyed this. All right, cool. Well, that's a wrap for this episode. If you enjoyed this podcast, please make sure you like, subscribe, follow us, or leave us a rating on your favorite podcast listening platform. You can follow us on X, LinkedIn, YouTube, IG, et cetera. And there's a few ways to connect with us. So first and foremost, if you enjoy what we talk about, you enjoy retention marketing, and you've listened this far, most likely you'll be a perfect fit for our newsletter. You can join our newsletter at ecomemailmarketer.com. We'll drop the link inside the comments or the show notes or whatever. whatever, if you can't figure out where we are. But come check us out. We will kind of send things that we talk about on the pod into the newsletter, so they work together. So come check us out. And then secondly, you can find us on social. Chase, how do they find you?
Yeah, I'm gonna say it every time. Chase Diamond, no A in Diamond. Find me anywhere and everywhere.
Yeah, you can find the man on LinkedIn, X, Instagram, YouTube, Threads even. You really can find this man everywhere. And you can find me on LinkedIn and X today. All right, next week, Chase, we're gonna continue talk about that personalization word. It's called Personalization at Scale: How to Automate Without Losing a Human Touch. I wanted to get into this because I believe that personalization has been a bit abused in the market and people don't really know what it really means, really. So we'll dive into that next week and continue to dive into all the important pieces of, I guess, copy a little bit when you're thinking about this stuff. So another pod on copy. Hope you guys enjoyed. Thank you for listening. We'll see you on the next one.
Cheers.
Click, they're the masters of the flow. Just watch your list grow and your leads turn to go. Did we retain you so far, or do we have to extend it? If you want results, you know you gotta send it. Yeah, you know you gotta send it. Yeah, you know you gotta send it. Yeah, you know you gotta send it.
