the perfect email checklist

The title of this email sounds hyperbole and a bit weird.

Yet, you opened it.

Why?

I ask you that question, but I don’t expect you to know the answer.

You probably didn’t think about it. Your eyes glanced over the email, and in a microsecond, your subconscious made the decision to open it.

Now you’re here. Looking for a reason to leave this email.

Looking for indicators that the subject line was, as you suspected, clickbait, and that this email will not give you the perfect email checklist.

What is perfect, anyway?

But if you paid attention, you’d have noticed that I’ve already started delivering on my promise with the first two lessons -

1/ write a subject line that get readers to click

2/ open the email with an intriguing statement to pull in the reader

I’ll give you the specifics on how to do both in a second… because if I gave it to you right now, you wouldn’t have the attention span to make it through the instructions. You’d just screenshot them, maybe send them to your Marketing Director… and then leave it.

Which brings me to lessons number 3-5:

3/ read the reader’s mind and

4/ give them a strong reason to stay and

5/ take away all their excuses to quit the email

Most founders we speak with understand /4 but underestimate /5.

You need to spell out and disarm the readers’ excuses to leave the email to them as if your life depended on it. Here’s why -

When the reader opens an email… a war breaks out.

I refer to it as a war because it truly is a war of attention. As you read this, you’ll get texts, Slack notifications, WhatsApp messages, and more emails SCREAMING for your attention.

All to say that…

6/ learn how to retain readers when they open the email

Now, we’ve come to the part of the copy where you no longer are reading it with your full attention. We need a visual to give you some dopamine:

We invest in visuals for our clients because…

7/ show what can be shown, only tell what must be told

The attentive reader will recognize that this principle applies not only to visualization, but to writing as well:

So far in this email, I’ve shown you each lesson in practice before I spelled it out for you.

Your readers want the same from you.

They want you to read their mind and give them:

And I’m not going to lie… It’s f**king difficult. 

You can’t read someone’s mind unless you’ve had hundreds of conversations with them. Which is why before we write a word of copy for our clients, we watch at least 10 of their sales calls. 

The soundbite here is:

8/ the best marketing copy isn’t written by you, it’s written by your customer

You’ll notice I haven’t given you a tangible checklist yet, only lessons. The reason is that I know you WANT a checklist, but I know you NEED to know the principles before the checklist to be successful. 

It’s kinda like the sensei in kung fu movies who doesn’t teach his students any kung fu until they’ve gained discipline (usually through cleaning the toilet 20 times)... except I don’t have a beard. Or an Asian farmer’s hat. 

Anyway… 

Now that you’ve made it here, you’re ready for the actual checklist. 

You can copy it by clicking here (and feel free to forward this email to your marketing director, too).

If you have any questions… just hit reply and we’re happy to help.

-Nils Liedlich

P.S. We're building this newsletter for B2B founders who want email to drive revenue. If there's something you're stuck on, hit reply and tell us. We read every response, and the best questions become future editions.