I have a love-hate relationship with hacks. I feel a squirming inside my stomach when I hear words like ‘quick hack’, ‘growth marketing’, ‘tips and tricks’ and so on. The BS detector in me just won’t shut up…

However, I try to be aware of my biases.

I don’t think tips and tricks are inherently bad. I don’t that tactical advice is always useless. There is always a time and a place for those. 

If I have severe pain in my arm, I do need tactical advice from my doctor.

Yep, you got it right. 

Today’s email is about tactical advice about improving your email writing.

When I started the project of “Email marketing for experts and expert firms”, I subscribed to the email lists of various experts that I know of. I wanted to get an idea of what they are already doing with their Email marketing.

Here is the good news – experts certainly are experts.  They know their stuff. Most of the emails that I got from experts reflected the knowledge and the wisdom that these experts have.

Shouldn’t that result in ‘ka-ching’, the sweet sound of money that we hear when a client signs a contract with us? 

The thing is, great knowledge in itself cannot always earn the trust of the people we seek to serve. 

The experts are sending valuable emails, yes… but most of them are coming out as “Hey this is my opinion.”

It doesn’t mean that the opinion is untrue, or not based on data. But, it’s still an opinion… a point of view.

Initially, when we are creating a relationship with a subscriber, it might not be enough…

How could experts improve their emails?

How could you leverage the knowledge that they have, and earn massive amounts of trust from your audience?

Let’s take some advice from Aristotle.

 

Aristotle spoke about persuasion a long time ago. He deconstructed the elements of persuasion as – 

  1. Ethos
  2. Pathos
  3. Logos

‘Ethos’ here refers to personal credibility and character.

When a subscriber signs up to our email list, the trust level is usually not very high. He has just entered your world. He is trying to assess you.

He is figuring out if you are capable.

He is figuring out if you are trustworthy.

And while, there are different ways of building credibility and trust, one of the easiest ways to do so is by ‘borrowing credibility’.

Now, borrowing credibility does not merely mean quoting a famous person in our emails. It goes a little deeper than that.

If I use a Gary Vaynerchuck quote in my email, I am giving you a signal. It’s like I am whispering in your ear (in a very non-creepy way), “Hey, it’s okay, you can trust me. After all, you like GaryVee, don’t ya? I am on your side.”

The subscriber, who didn’t trust me that much, now trusts me a little bit more, because I ‘lumped’ myself with Garyvee.

Similarly, on the first date, if I say to the girl, “Hey, I love Pink Floyd”, and if the girl likes PF too, then bingo… some trust has already been established! 

Pretty cool, no?

I do feel that this is missing in our emails. There is certainly a lot to be explored here.

Also, did you notice how I borrowed credibility in this article? Reply if you found it. 😉

Intro music credits: Dan O songs.

I have a love-hate relationship with hacks. I feel a squirming inside my stomach when I hear words like ‘quick hack’, ‘growth marketing’, ‘tips and tricks’ and so on. The BS detector in me just won’t shut up…

However, I try to be aware of my biases.

I don’t think tips and tricks are inherently bad. I don’t that tactical advice is always useless. There is always a time and a place for those. 

If I have severe pain in my arm, I do need tactical advice from my doctor.

Yep, you got it right. 

Today’s email is about tactical advice about improving your email writing.

When I started the project of “Email marketing for experts and expert firms”, I subscribed to the email lists of various experts that I know of. I wanted to get an idea of what they are already doing with their Email marketing.

Here is the good news – experts certainly are experts.  They know their stuff. Most of the emails that I got from experts reflected the knowledge and the wisdom that these experts have.

Shouldn’t that result in ‘ka-ching’, the sweet sound of money that we hear when a client signs a contract with us? 

The thing is, great knowledge in itself cannot always earn the trust of the people we seek to serve. 

The experts are sending valuable emails, yes… but most of them are coming out as “Hey this is my opinion.”

It doesn’t mean that the opinion is untrue, or not based on data. But, it’s still an opinion… a point of view.

Initially, when we are creating a relationship with a subscriber, it might not be enough…

How could experts improve their emails?

How could you leverage the knowledge that they have, and earn massive amounts of trust from your audience?

Let’s take some advice from Aristotle.

 

Aristotle spoke about persuasion a long time ago. He deconstructed the elements of persuasion as – 

  1. Ethos
  2. Pathos
  3. Logos

‘Ethos’ here refers to personal credibility and character.

When a subscriber signs up to our email list, the trust level is usually not very high. He has just entered your world. He is trying to assess you.

He is figuring out if you are capable.

He is figuring out if you are trustworthy.

And while, there are different ways of building credibility and trust, one of the easiest ways to do so is by ‘borrowing credibility’.

Now, borrowing credibility does not merely mean quoting a famous person in our emails. It goes a little deeper than that.

If I use a Gary Vaynerchuck quote in my email, I am giving you a signal. It’s like I am whispering in your ear (in a very non-creepy way), “Hey, it’s okay, you can trust me. After all, you like GaryVee, don’t ya? I am on your side.”

The subscriber, who didn’t trust me that much, now trusts me a little bit more, because I ‘lumped’ myself with Garyvee.

Similarly, on the first date, if I say to the girl, “Hey, I love Pink Floyd”, and if the girl likes PF too, then bingo… some trust has already been established! 

Pretty cool, no?

I do feel that this is missing in our emails. There is certainly a lot to be explored here.

Also, did you notice how I borrowed credibility in this article? Reply if you found it. 😉

Intro music credits: Dan O songs.