A Rubbish Email

Dear Name.

This was how a recent email was addressed to me.

Despite the clunky opening, it grabbed me. This was a newsletter I was subscribed to.

Or was it???

Was it an elaborate hoax? Was it a typo designed to pique my interest? Was I Name? Was Name me? Had I somehow found myself inside the inbox of someone else (someone else called Name)?

Many, many hours later - having done my best Pepe Silvia impression - I scrolled down to read the rest of the email.

I skimmed. I sighed. It was meant for me but it wasn’t for me. I deleted it. The end.

And that’s it, isn’t it? It’s the same sad story for many of us when a new email graces us with its presence.

This is hardly a revolutionary observation:

what’sthedealwithjunkemailsaboutsizepillsformyjunk?

Someone reading an email, probably. And it’s probably crap.

The difference in my case was that this was a newsletter that I had signed up for. I was already interested. But I wanted to be wooed. Wined and dined with words. Made a fuss of. Treated like a person, with a name. Not just Name.

It’s a skill because our attention spans are so short. I mean, if you made it past that long bit in italics then good for you.

Or…good for me.

Because whatever you’re writing - emails, blogs, that first message in “the big group chat” to a bunch of strangers that have no frame of reference beyond your picture, which happens to be a blurry image of you in a rubber ring on a lazy river in a Greek water-park, and that must mean you’re either a freewheeling entrepreneur who owns a chain of amusement parks across the Mediterranean, trying to appear humble or a bit of a prat - it has to be interesting.

In fact, let’s stick true to form and stretch out that water-park metaphor.

You want your writing to take your reader on a journey.

In emails, a lazy river might not be the best method given the deluge of competition for our eyeballs.

But hold on - there’s a ride called THE DOMIN8R that’s higher than Olympus and promises to send you searing into the water below in record time. Could that be the way to go?

The first result in an image library for ‘waterslide’ or a visual representation of a crap email? You decide.

Well, maybe. Or maybe the email equivalent of that would be a subject title that’s packed with emojis and says “CONGRADULASHUNS”. In other words, likely to fall foul of the savvy reader’s risk assessment.

Your content needs to be guided by your reader.

It applies to all of your content but in those precious moments where a corporate entity reaches out to the wider world and says ‘hey’, it really matters to have a coherent strategy and a consistent tone of voice.

Some people will want a lazy river, some will want a thrill ride, and most will probably want something between these two extremes.

Surprise, interest, intrigue.

These elements are easy to generate but harder to kindle and maintain. Heck, I found ‘Dear Name’ jarring enough that it made me read on, but then I stopped, deleted, and continued to thrive.

Email marketing is a crucial touchpoint for your business. If you bombard your customers with words they don’t want to read, then you’re wasting time and money and potentially damaging your brand. If you don’t say anything, you’re missing out on all the fun (see image below).

This person is enjoying their email so much that they are taking a picture of it to share with loved ones! Now that’s an email.

If you made it this far down the page and want me to write something just as gripping for you, let’s talk.

Your faithful wordsmith,

Name.

How To Sound Like You Know What You’re Talking About

You are an engineer offering a unique solution to a problem the world doesn’t even know existed.

You are a fitness instructor that I should almost certainly get in touch with.

You are an ice cream maker and you call it gelato and that’s fine.

You are an EdTech entrepreneur. You have developed an AI learning system that will ensure that future generations don’t waste their teenage years in a band called The Fuglies. At least I think that’s what we were called.

You get the idea. Or do you?

An engineer, a fitness instructor, an ice cream maker and an entrepreneur. They all walk into a bar and, after deciding that there was one too many of them for a decent joke, agree that they are experts in their respective fields. Their consumers, however, are probably not.

Your idea might be brilliant. It might challenge the norm and be on course to disrupt your industry of choice, it might kickstart a meteoric rise to world domination. Or it might get lost along the way.

Why?

Because you might be an expert in your field, but you might not be an expert communicator.

So much of the hard work has been done - the lost hours to endless product testing, the money thrown at merchandise, the stress and strain of building a business…but that doesn’t always mean you know how to spell it out. You fool.

We’ve seen what Dragon’s Den can do to the darers and the dreamers. We’ve seen forehead sweat glisten in glorious 4K.

Some people are great at communicating their ideas. That elevator pitch? A cinch. They know their product, they know who wants it and they know how they want it to be heard.

But even those confident few cannot always put their point across on the page.

It’s a different, delicate process that requires the same careful balance as the flavours in one of those tasty tubs of artisan ice cream.

You don’t want to come across as vanilla if you’re trying to excite and invigorate your potential new customers.

You also don’t want to throw a (Mc)flurry of toppings that confuse your consumers.

Now we all know where this is leading. You need an expert, someone good with words. You need impactful copy for your website, you needed newsletters written yesterday, you would literally crawl over broken glass for…hang on a minute, I’m still reading this brilliant blog, maybe this is the person I need.

Here’s the twist:

I’m not an expert. Yet.

I’m getting there, the same way that many of you folk might not be quite the finished article.

[That’s right, it’s the classic selling technique: forcing someone to listen to you for ages, pulling the rug from under their feet and then ending with an insult. The ol’ triple threat.]

Besides how to stumble over making a point, here’s what I do know.

I do know how to make you sound like you know what you’re talking about. And I do know how how to get your point across in the way that’s right for you and your brand. Especially if there’s ice cream for motivation.

Get in touch if you think that we can grow older and wiser together.