The single most important thing in email marketing
Let me tell you a story:
In 1981, the police department of Atlanta had a big problem.
There was a mysterious serial killer murdering children. Panicked citizens were demanding answers. And there were no leads.
Their investigation had hit a dead end.
Enter John Douglas, FBI.
He'd been flown in to help the local police crack the case. And the very first thing Douglas did?
He carefully examined all the evidence from the murders. Then, combining that with everything he already knew about serial killers, he carefully created a "target profile" of the suspect.
Douglas believed the serial killer was male, black, single, in his late 20s, of above-average intelligence, a failure in both his career and personal life, liked to impersonate law enforcement, and was closely following the local media coverage of his killings.
So later when the press reported that police had found tiny fibres as evidence on several of the victim's bodies, Douglas felt certain that the killer would (1) read about it in the newspapers, and (2) be smart enough to adapt and start dumping his victims in water, to get rid of any pesky fibre evidence in the future.
Which was why - purely on a hunch - he ordered police units to start staking out all large bodies of water in the local area. And a little while later, 'The Atlanta Monster' (AKA Wayne Williams) was finally caught - while dumping the body of his latest victim off a bridge. He was given two life sentences, and is still in prison to this day.
What’s strange is how Douglas’s “target profile” of the killer turned out to be scarily accurate on all points - apart from Williams being 23, instead of in his late 20s.)
And that target profile is what let him crawl into the killer's mind, "read" his thoughts, and accurately predict his next move to catch him. The Atlanta police were thinking like police, and they were getting nowhere. John Douglas thought like a serial killer, and he cracked the case.
But what does any of this have to do with you and your pet business?
Well, ask yourself this:
When you write marketing emails for your pet business, are you thinking like a marketer... or are you thinking like an email subscriber?
By doing deep research on your target audience and building a comprehensive “target profile” of them, you too will be able to crawl into their mind, "read" their thoughts, and figure out the best way to get them to buy from you.
Doing better research and knowing your audience on a deeper level is the single most important thing in sales emails.
Literally everything else you do in your marketing is affected by and tailored to what you find in your research. And doing it well makes writing emails 10x easier.
And if you think market research is “too hard”?
Then spare a thought for John Douglas.
Douglas actually sat down 36 of the most depraved, twisted killers in America and interviewed them about their crimes. He laughed and joked around with the likes of John Wayne Gacy and Charles Manson - pretending to be their friend so they'd open up to him. And through this painstaking research, he slowly learned about their motives, how they prepared for their crimes, how they chose their victims, how they disposed of the evidence, and so on.
That’s what helped him get into the head of the "typical" serial killer.
By comparison, your market research can be as simple as reading internet forums, social media, Amazon book reviews, YouTube video comments, etc.
Basically you go to any place where your target audience congregates online, and you cyberstalk them. You watch how they talk to each other, interact with each other, what they complain about, what stories they tell each other, the language they use, etc.
And every little tidbit you learn will make writing your emails easier.
Alright, that’s about enough for today. For more, head here: