What to say in emails to get more clicks and replies

Good morning. Okay, a little overcast day here in Winter Haven today, but we're going to talk about something bright and sunny, and that is how to get more clicks and replies to the emails that you sent. And I think what really stimulated this thought for me is thinking about. I was rereading the Gary Halbert Swipe Files, Volume one that arrived the other day. And I was thinking about how pivotal the things that I was learning from Gary back in, you know, in the mid-90s about learning how to write as if I was talking to one person, how that carried through as we're making the transition to emails.

Email was just barely getting started started. And in the mid, you know, late 90s, and I really started thinking and taking this idea of one person very seriously. And I don't know, like, it seems like it could be a little, like, obsessive, but my, my provocation, like that idea that Gary shared about, what would you do if you could only mail one letter and you had to get an order or you were going to be beheaded? I would take that approach of making every communication that I was sending as if it was the only one. And I think that that sort of exercise is really a valuable thing.

So I really started looking at the journey. If you think about it, one of the advantages that we have with email is that you get immediate feedback and you don't have to get the whole story into one communication. I remember distinctly when I was reading My Life in Advertising and the Robert Collier letter book and about all these guys in the early 1900s that were sending letters for a penny. And I remember thinking to myself, if I could send letters for a penny, I would be rich. And, you know, it just felt like, oh, they had such an advantage. Little did I know that we would get to a point where literally we could send thousands of, of emails at one time and people could reply back to us and it doesn't cost a thing.

So I really took that to heart and started measuring the steps in the journey. Like, I'm a very, like, first principles guy. I look at this, what is the purpose? When I shared yesterday about the only purpose of, of the subject line is to get the email open. Very similar to Gary's approach to the envelope being. The most important thing is has to get delivered and it has to get opened. That's the only jobs, right? So I look at it with email. That's why I use those little label maker subject lines or make it, you know, overtly clear what this is about contextually so that people open it and then I started thinking about what is the objective?

Like let's begin with the end in mind. The most valuable thing that you could get somebody to do with an email is you could get them to click on a link and go somewhere else or you could get them to reply to the email that you send. That's it. That's really the two primary objectives there. And if you think about which would be more useful, it's almost like you get to build somebody's own adventure in a way that is, you know, you're revealing only what needs to be revealed next and focusing only on the first step. So if you look at how. Well, let me back up and tell you how I, how I came to that conclusion.

I mentioned that we were starting to use email to fill our workshops for real estate. So we were doing big half day free workshops in a hotel where we would bring hundreds of people at one time to sit and deliver a message. Remember this is before, this is the equivalent of a live theater VSL, let's call it right. We get them to come to a ballroom and get them to, to hear a transformational message and invite them to come to our three-day main event. Now the purpose of sending the email was to get people to register for the, the workshop. We would, you know, have a database of tens of thousands, 50,000 realtors that we would be inviting in a two mile or two hour radius of Denver, Colorado, let's say if we're going to Denver.

And so the, the most important thing, you know, I started engineering, reverse engineering the process. Our ultimate goal is that we want people in the main event where they're going to buy a thousand dollar ticket to the main event so that they're there for three days and we get the opportunity to introduce them to our coaching person program. So in order for them to get a ticket to the main event, our vehicle for doing that was the free half day workshops. So it was important that we had people attend the workshop. And the vehicle for getting people to attend the workshop. One of the vehicles we were using was email.

And so I started, started looking at it that the, if I used what we talked about yesterday on how to get your email opened, the thing that I did, the winning email and we would test and compare and sometime have contests among the marketing team to see who could get the winning email. And the most winningest email subject line ever was the Orlando Real Estate Marketing Workshop. That's it. Now when we would, when they would open the email, the only purpose, the thing that we wanted Somebody to do. I realized the most important thing was to go to the page where they could register for the, for the workshop.

Now I could in the email tell the whole story and try and convince people to come to the half day workshop and click to register. But I wouldn't know who was considering it. So we, I realized that the best thing I could do is, is only use the email to get people to click to the page. So when I evaluated that, it's like what's the least amount of words that I could use to get that action? I would imagine, and this is funny because you're going to see it in my journal here. I would imagine that I was a wizard. I'd say if I were a wizard and I had the power to command people to do whatever I wanted them to do, what would I say in this email?

So you know, I went through that process of subject line would say open this email. And then when they go to, I would say click here. That's it. That's all we had to do, right? So what would be the least amount of words that I could add to that command that I'm looking to get somebody to do that would compel them to click on that link? And curiosity is a, is a big piece. What's the most compelling thing? So we would send and say we would have the thing. Joe Stumpf and Dean Jackson are doing a real estate marketing workshop in Orlando next month. Would you like to join us or can you make it to this?

And the link was can you make it to this? And the details were on the other side of the click. That was it. Now I've used that same. I've carried that through 30 years later. To this day that's still how I fill my events. I just have Orlando Marketing Workshop and the only thing in the email is hey, I'm doing a three day Breakthrough Blueprint in Orlando. We're going to spend three days in the boardroom applying the eight profit activators to your business. Would you like to join us? That's it. And that gets the people who are interested or curious part but not committed to get them to identify themselves.

Right. And if we use a click, we use intelligent links now to be able to see who clicks on something so we get a sense of whether the message is working. Now when people would click on the workshop email to go and see if they can make it to, to this, they don't have enough details to make a decision about it. So they would go and learn about it. And we had a wonderful One of the best sales letters I've ever written. The headline was, would you trade three and a half hours for three extra transactions in the next 60 days? That was the subject line.

And then we would unpack that whole story. And the idea was that you could register for free to come to the workshop. And now they had a expected outcome to measure this towards. Would I trade three and a half hours for three extra transactions? Yeah. I'm curious enough about that to go and see it. And it was a. It was a rocket ship for us. I mean, that would. That language was really a unlock. It got the most people to come to the workshops, but it all was engineered behind the process of what is it that I want people to do? And what are the least words that I could use to compel them to do that thing.

I'm not trying to convince them, I'm not trying to, you know, you know, make the final decision. I'm just trying to keep advancing people closer and closer to the next step. That's the key to getting the most responses. And that way you get to modularly observe and see what the big. Where the big opportunity is for you. So try it out. Let me know what you think. Watch your inbox because I'll send you emails just like that and be super if you replied.

Every idea that I've had, every dollar that I've made over the last 30 years has gone through my brain, through my pen, onto a piece of paper in my journal before it went out into the real world. And if I can turn people onto that activity as a driver for what to do, what to think about, what to ask yourself to draw out, what the next most valuable action is for you and how to find the most profitable things that you can install in your business, I'm all for it.

So this Friday at 1pm, I'm going to do for the first time a 50 minute profit finder workshop. And you're going to join me live on Zoom. And we're going to go through a 50 minute exercise. Bring your pen, bring a notebook or piece of paper and I'm going to guide you through a thinking process that will help you identify where the lowest hanging fruit is in your business and maybe some fruit that you didn't even know was there.

But I'm going to show you where to look for it. So it's free. It's for you. It's Friday. At 1pm this Friday. Just watch.

Just go to 50minuteprofitfinder.com and I'll get you all the details and hopefully you can join us then. Friday 1:00pm.