The psychology of newsletters
How to get into people's heads and stay there, from our friends over at the Email Marketing Show
Every week, we break down the best tips & hacks to scale your newsletter, in real time and reporting on our fails and wins. Come along…
Sup GG crew!
We hope your holidays have been merry, bright, & mostly just not that weird. We have a special treat for you today! No, Codie won’t be going on one of her world-class rants (that’s next week). Instead, we invited Rob & Kennedy, the geniuses behind The Email Marketing Show (a podcast we had the pleasure of appearing on!) to write a post.
And this won’t be your standard use-Facebook-groups-to-grow-your-audience type of deal. You see, this dynamic duo happen to be a comedy hypnotist and a mind reader (casual). And while we’ve always known that email marketing was a subject of sorcery, today we’re getting into the how of it all. Prepare to have your mind blown. Take it away, boys:
The Psychology of Email Newsletters - Getting Into People’s Heads, And Staying There
Most emails are utterly forgettable.
Do you even remember any of the emails you received today?
Here’s the problem: email marketing is, for the most part, stuck in the newsletter mentality.
Remember paper newsletters like you used to make in MS Publisher at school, print them out and fill them up with horrific Clipart?
Most email newsletters are using those as their basis.
It’s no wonder most emails don’t get into anyone’s heads and instead are just another thing to shrug at before hitting delete.
As a hypnotist and a mentalist, we’ve obsessed over how we can use our skills in our email marketing (to book gigs and then help others to make more sales online too).
Here’s the thing:
Email is no longer E-mail.
These things we send to our mailing list aren’t a replacement for the physical mail any more.
And they’re not replacements for letters from your Gran.
Since a growing percentage of email is read on people’s phones, we’re much better off thinking of email as another app, much more like Insta or TikTok.
Unforgettable Emails
Every day, we receive replies to our emails.
Every. Day.
That’s a pretty good sign that what we’re testing is actually connecting with people emotionally.
Like, these short 175-word, text only emails are stirring something up inside our readers that compels them to hit reply.
And when people emotionally engage, they buy.
We built a 6-fig business in 12 months using this method.
A 6-Figure Business from Scratch in 12 Months
The key to making sales is to create an emotional chemical reaction in your subscribers’ minds.
To do this we tap into the one thing that shuts down the skeptical conscious minds of our readers and goes straight to the accepting, subconscious mind.
See your mind as a club. (Time travel to 2019 for this one.)
On the outside there’s the doorman. He wants to see your ID and look you up and down to check that you meet the dress code.
That’s your conscious mind.
But once you get past the grumpy doorman and you’re in the club, you walk up to the bar and you can order a drink no questions asked.
That there is your subconscious mind.
Your subconscious assumes your conscious mind did its due-dil and it doesn’t need to worry about questioning things.
It is possible to misdirect the conscious mind, (the doorman), and get right past into the club.
The way you do it?
Telling stories.
Imagine walking up to the doorman and reading them a bedtime story so they drift off to sleep, sucking their thumbs.
Since we were young, we have told stories.
Every day, you come in from work or get off a Zoom meeting or chat with your family, you’re sharing and listening to stories.
By writing a story, five key things happen. And these are, coincidentally, the very things that allow you to write better emails that stick in people’s minds:
You bypass the skeptical conscious mind and everything you say is much more easily accepted.
You grab attention, because people love stories.
Readers engage their imaginations and paint pictures of our stories in their minds, which means you can occupy more space in their brains.
They remember much more since stories are much easier to remember than facts.
They emotionally respond to you, instead of just reading.
Your stories can be about funny things, tales of hope, of overcoming obstacles and of everyday things that people can identify with.
Never Eaten an Egg
If you listen to our podcast, The Email Marketing Show, you’ll know that each week Rob and I introduce each other with a fact. One week, Rob intro’d me with “He’s never eaten an egg before, it’s mind-reader Kennedy...”
First of all, that is 100% true.
I eat cake and pie with egg in the mix, but I’ve never eaten an egg. No, not fried or poached, or scrambled or on toast, soft boiled or hard boiled. I’ve never eaten an egg.
Since we’ve first let this fun fact slip, we’ve had hundreds of tweets, Instagram messages and people in our Facebook Group who cannot believe it.
In fact, right now your mind is probably going mad thinking about the fact I’ve never eaten an egg, right?
You probably have all kinds of feelings about that too. Are you feeling like you don’t believe me? Maybe you’re disgusted? Perhaps you’re like, “ock on, Kennedy no eggs 4ever, whoop!’
Why did this happen?
Because you’ve just had an emotional reaction to this information.
And not just to this.
People come up to Rob at events and tell him that they love penguins too, they tell me they can tell the difference between Coke and Pepsi and on and on and on.
People emotionally connect to what you’d classify as the mundane stuff in your life.
Why? Because they are stories.
These stories can be one sentence long if you like: “He has a pair of Bengal kittens called Nova and Ivy, it’s Kennedy” is a story.
Instead of telling people stuff in your emails, paint pictures using stories that cause them to resonate with you, to engage their imaginations. Not only will you get into their minds easier, but you’ll stick in their much longer too.
They remember the stories and how they made them feel long after they’ll remember the email it came in.
-Kennedy
Kennedy is one half of the dynamic duo, Rob and Kennedy. Email Marketing Heroes is on a mission to clean up grubby old email marketing and make small business owners and entrepreneurs the email marketing heroes of their businesses.
Their psychology-based email marketing approach means they give their students the tools they need to use psych-ology so they don’t have to worry about the tech-nology.
Connect with Rob and Kennedy:
Free FB Group: The Email Marketing Show Community
Free Podcast: The Email Marketing Show
Twitter: @robandkennedy
Instagram: @robandkennedy
What have been some stories you’ve told that engaged your readers the most? Let us know in the comments!
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I felt very uncomfortable learning you've never eaten an egg Kennedy. Sure, I know people that stopped eating eggs... but never?! 🤯
Really? Imean..... wooow, but how do know that for sure, have you confirmed my Mum.😃