“Aw, man.”
I winced a little.
I was reading an email my personal-trainer brother sent to his list.
And — it was great!
I’d coached him on how to do it. And he’d nailed it. He opened with a story … transitioned into the subject matter … gave a useful tip … and then pitched his services.
It was all going well …
… until I saw this line:
”And you know what, FIRSTNAME?”
🤦♂️
Yeah … he forgot to take out the merge tag which would actually replace that with the reader’s name.
I was worried for him. He’s only just started sending emails, and I thought this would freak him out.
But as soon as I saw it, I knew what to do.
And within two minutes, I’d fired off this quick-fix email he could use:
=====
Subject: lol, what an idiot
So Daniel,
Turns out while I am a great personal trainer …
I am a terrible email marketer.
Why?
Because on Monday I sent you a colossal mistake.
Yep.
As soon as I sent you my email, I read through it again …
…and my heart sank.
I left the word “FIRSTNAME” in there where I was supposed to put your name.
D’oh!
I’m an idiot.
But you know what?
We all are in a way.
When it comes to losing weight, we all stuff up.
Maybe we break our diet by bingeing on a whole block of Dairy Milk.
Or we decide we don’t really ‘feel’ like that bike ride … after all it’s rainy outside … and Netflix is right there …
But the people who succeed have one thing in common:
They get back up.
They don’t let failure take them off the rails.
They accept their mistake, and keep moving.
So yeah, I messed up, lol.
Ah well.
Gotta keep moving.
And if you’re feeling guilty about screwing up in your weight loss journey, don’t beat yourself up.
Tomorrow is a new day.
And if you want help making the most of it …
…click here to book a free consultation with me.
I’ll set you up with a diet + exercise plan that will help you get through even on the days you screw up.
=====
Maybe I’d edit that a bit more before sending, but that was literally a 2-minute job — and it would be good enough.
You could send that out immediately after, but I told him I’d wait a day to give him a second chance at a sales pitch.
(For ninja bonus points: notice how I just used his mistake to get a sales email for MYSELF as well as him.)
See how easy that is?
In fact, it’s so easy, I don’t even know if I can use it to pitch my own services, because I just showed you everything you need to know to do it yourself.
But if you’d like my help on any other aspects of email marketing strategy …
Join my client waitlist (you’ll need to sign up for my emails first).
Daniel Throssell
P.S. Advanced tip for big businesses only:
There are times when the above is the WRONG strategy for responding to a mistake.
Once I remember a client making this exact mistake in a HUGE campaign … and we approached the solution in a totally different way.
It’s all dependent on the size of the business, the campaign you’re running, and your list itself.
In my brother’s case, though, it made perfect sense to do this kind of email. And for most people it’s fine.
However, if you’re running a larger operation, don’t blindly follow the above. Get in touch with me instead, and I’ll help you design your next launch (and create contingency plans if things do go wrong).