Kyle Milligan runs Copy Squad, where he sells all sorts of little info products designed to turn newbie copywriters into seven-figure copywriting machines.
A good place to start? Email copywriting.
It’s a lot simpler than, say, banging out a 6,000-word sales page (or the VSL equivalent), only to have it bomb harder than a botched bro hug. And that’s assuming you can get someone to pay you for it in the first place – what with tumbleweeds blowing through your portfolio and all – right?
Emails are much easier to write and get hired on for when you have no track record.
Okay, so, with that outta the way, the first thing ya gotta understand about email copywriting, Kyle says, is that email is a traffic driver. It’s not a place to explain things or to try and convince someone to buy.
How does the Copy Squad think about email? Simple. Take people from point A (their inbox) to point B (some sorta sales message), where the actual sales argument is made.
When you start seeing it this way, it changes the whole dynamic – and approach – when you sit down to write your email follow-ups, does it not?
“Now you have a completely different mindset about what it is that you’re about to write,” Kyle schools us.
“When you understand, ‘I’m not here to try and convince you to buy anything, I’m just trying to get you to go find out more information’? It eliminates like 80% of the mistakes people make with their email marketing,” he continues.
“Every email should tie back to one central frame or key thing that they’re supposed to be freaking out about – to build intrigue, to build curiosity. Otherwise, you’re all over the place and the reader gets confused.”
Another big no-no is lack of structure.
If you’ve got no formula, no template, and you’re just shooting from the hip? That’s probably not gonna work out too well, amigo.
Whereas, you can’t go wrong with something like Kyle’s DICU acronym: Disrupt, Intrigue, Click, Urgency.
You just do that over and over and over, and you’re gonna get results. It’s basically a game you’re playing with the reader. You’re always teasing them with this amazing thing but never quite revealing it in the email.
Nope, they gotta click – and do it soon! – in order to find out.
Kyle walks us through an example:
“You’re not gonna believe what just happened in the White House. It’s kinda crazy. If you’re holding energy stocks, you should be worried,” he starts out.
“Old Joe Biden’s done it again. I don’t think you’re gonna like it. It could really mess up your portfolio.”
“I mean, there is a group of stocks that could survive this event. And I actually know a dude who’s a specialist in this sorta thing. I think he has the key to making money during this.”
“If you wanna see what he has to say, click here. Otherwise, I don’t think there’s a lot of time left before what he predicts comes to pass,” he finishes with.
Damn. My man over there puttin’ the DIC in DICU.
If you get that email and you’re holding an energy stock or two, you’re gonna lean in, you’re gonna wonder what the hell the POTUS did now, and how you’ll be affected.
“Never forget the reader,” Kyle emphasizes. “Tell the reader what they wanna hear. The Disrupt has to be something that they care about. Don’t just drop a stick of dynamite at their feet. That’s where you say something outrageous or over the top – just ’cause. Sure, you’ll get attention that way, but it’s not real attention.”
And yes, this methodology will work for info products, it’ll work for ecom – anything. Any niche, too.
Humans are humans.
Build tension, tease it out, have fun with it, ask ’em to click, and give ’em a reason to do so right now – a real reason that makes sense – and watch as your click-through rates soar like a majestic eagle in the sky. Hashtag ‘Merica.
Kyle’s clearly good at this.
He sells a Copy Squad Lite membership for $47 a month if you’d like him to mentor you.
Just watch out for upsells. Copywriters looove upsells.