A little while back I gave you an example of how I’d rewrite a terrible marketing email in my inbox.
Well, by popular demand, we’re back for another round.
Here’s today’s victim, which just landed in my inbox this morning:
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We’d love to hear from you
Hi Daniel,
With so much change and uncertainty in the world right now, we wanted to check in with you.
We’d really appreciate you filling out a short 2 minute survey, so we can make sure what we’re offering is what you actually want and need right now.
[Complete quick survey]
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The sender’s name was ‘Alex from X COMPANY’.
( … no, it didn’t say ‘X COMPANY’, I just changed that. Can you be less literal?)
Anyway, let’s go with the theme of the last email, and picture Alex as a kid at the front of my copy class.
Alex is a short, weedy boy. He has buck teeth and a bit of a lisp.
When he finishes reading out his homework to the class, he stops and looks at me for feedback.
“Alex.”
I speak calmly, with a painfully forced smile on my face.
“Y-yeth, mither Throthell?”
“How long did this email take you to write?”
“A-a-an hour, thir.”
“An hour?”
Still with a fake smile on my face, I stare at Alex for a few seconds.
Then the smile vanishes as I bellow:
“THEN WHY IS IT SO HIDEOUSLY BAD?!?”
Seriously.
Now, I didn’t even remember what X COMPANY actually did.
And as you can see, they didn’t really try to remind me.
So I had to click the survey to refresh my memory:
It’s a company that connects you with tradies (oh wait … what do you guys say in America … handymen?) for jobs you need done.
And they were asking some questions to see if people still needed work done, or whether they were doing more DIY.
But as you can see, there is ZERO context, and ZERO reason to click.
I don’t know what they’re paying their copywriter, but I hope it’s not much.
Because here is how I rewrote that email in a few minutes … no copywriting rulebooks in sight:
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Hey Daniel —
Quick joke for you:
Us: Knock knock.
…
(Psst! This is where you say ‘Who’s there?’)
Us: Nobody.
You: Nobody who?
Us: No, really — nobody.
Get it?
Because of all these coronavirus restrictions, and … the tradies aren’t coming to your house … so there’s nobody at the door … and …
… you aren’t laughing.
Ah, well.
(Humour never was our strong suit.)
Look, things are a bit crazy right now.
It’s no different for us — at X COMPANY all our staff are in lockdown too.
Thankfully, no embarrassing Zoom mishaps yet.
But we’re still sticking to our mission to help you finish those jobs you need done around the home — by connecting you with the tradies who can do them.
We’re keen to make sure that when this blows over, and you do need jobs done, we can hook you up as fast as ever.
So to help us do that — would you answer a super-short survey?
Here’s the link (takes 2 minutes tops)
There’s no free chocolate at the end, but we’ll try put a better joke or two in there …
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There … much better.
Lessons there for all.
Class dismissed — go forth and prosper.
(Alex tries to walk out with the rest of the class. I grab his arm and say: “Not so fast there, buster. You’re off to detention till you learn how to do this right …”)
And if your copywriter — or you — are currently churning out bland copy for your business like X COMPANY did … you might want to bring me on board to help.
Here’s the link for the waitlist for my services.
Daniel