Adam Sandler’s secret to getting rich from email marketing

You may be wondering… what the heck does Adam Sandler have to do with email marketing?

Well my Faintly Freckled Ferret, ‘tis a fine question indeed. 

See, the thing is that this world isn’t so separate as it might seem. There’s a lot more in common between things than meets the eye. 

For example, entertainment, politics, and marketing all have a ton to do with one another. This can easily be seen by how US Presidents become celebrities (think JFK and how enmeshed in celebrity culture he was, especially with Marilyn Monroe). Or how entertainment has a political bent. Or how advertising seems to mesh it’s way into all walks of life (think: ‘Tostitos Halftime Show’).

It reminds me of what a Zen teacher I like always says:

“Not separate”

So when you pay attention, you can learn a lot from one discipline and apply it to another. It’s why entertainment is such a big part of my email system. It’s also why I study great podcasters, authors, and entertainers (like Johnny Carson… many power lessons from The King of Latenight).

And one thing that Hollywoo does so well that can be immediately applied to all your business communications is the art of the ‘disguised pitch’. 

Now if you’re not subscribed to my daily emails and haven’t read my book, then this might be brand spankin’ new to you. But the basic idea is to mix content with your sales pitches so people enjoy and value your sales messages… making them more likely to read and ultimately buy from you. 

I’ll explain how to do this at the end of the article. But first understand that yes, Adam Sandler does this too. 

There’s Subway in “Happy Gilmore”… Hooters in “Big Daddy”... Gatorade in “The Water Boy”... Popeyes in “Little Nicky”... and a whole host of Hostess baked goods in “Click”... 

The reason this works so well is because it effectively ‘disables’ our BS detectors. Instead of thinking “this is an ad, I need to put my ad shield up,” we think, “this is entertainment… and my does a Ding-Dong sound good.” 

Of course, don’t abuse this and sell crap products this way. It may work for Adam Sandler, but for most of us, we have to sell quality products to run a successful business over time. 

But if you’d like to add some ‘disguised pitches’ to your repertoire (they’re especially powerful for email), here are  two ways to do them:

1) The Advertorial -- If you’ve been in the marketing world for any amount of time, you’ll know what I mean by advertorial. It’s basically an ‘Ad’ that reads like an ‘Editorial’. So it seems like you’re simply reading an article… but at the end there’s the opportunity to buy something (or in other cases subscribe to a list or whatever other action the author wants you to take). This is an extremely simple and straightforward way to mix content and promotion. Simply write something that your target market is intersted in… and at the end plug whatever you’d like. Obviously there’s an art to this and the devil is in the details, which is why my book goes into this so deeply. But this is enough to get started. 
2) The ‘Embedded Pitch’ — This is a bit more ‘sneaky’ then The Advertorial. The Embedded Pitch is where you subtly talk about your products or services, but it’s much more informational than sales-driven. For example, if I was explaining the benefits of increasing how often you mail, I could talk about one of my clients. Like a recent client I had who was emailing around once or twice a month. When she started working with me we bumped that up to three times a week, which resulted in a giant bump to her traffic (somewhere in the 60-70% range). But I’m not telling you this to ‘sell’ you… there’s no link to click… I’m simply giving it as an example. At the same time, you probably can’t help but think “I’d like a giant bump in traffic” and then it’s up to you to decide whether or not to take the next step.

And humans love to decide. 

At least they love feeling like they made a decision. 

The truth is that humans are much more emotion-driven than we’d like to think. And using these two types of ‘disguised pitches’ are wonderful ways to let people feel in charge while still showing strong sales points. 

And no this isn’t ‘sleazy’. In fact, it’s the opposite. 

It’s selling to people in ways they enjoy being sold to. Which is actually just kind. 

Anyway, my book, “Email Emperor” goes way deeper into this topic. It also shares 10 types of emails and 15 subject line templates you can begin sending to your list right away. 

To get a free copy of my book and unlock my daily email tips, go here:

www.copybymccune.com

Tyler McCune

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