There is a lot of financial and geopolitical uncertainty as I write this.
Markets are flying all over the place.
Inflation’s running hot.
Headlines are screaming, “World War 3!”
These things worry everybody but in different ways.
Your average middle-class person cares about putting food on the table and paying the mortgage. They may be worried about their job and retirement funds.
High-net-worth and high-earning individuals — such as wildly successful business owners or big-time executives — are a bit different.
Losing their job? Paying for their next meal?
Pfft. If they don’t run a bulletproof business or have multiple income streams, they’re a manager at the top of their field and in high demand. Income isn’t that big of a deal.
What they’re worried about is preserving their wealth.
They want their assets to make it through turbulent financial times relatively unscathed. Any growth beyond some low, “safe” amount in good times is just icing on the cake.
In short: The more you have to lose, the safer you play it.
The lesson here?
Different markets within a niche will perceive the same problems differently and use different language to describe their problems.
That also means different solutions will work for different markets facing the same broad problem out in the world.
That’s where this Email Breakdown comes in.
We’re looking at an email from a business that serves people with net worths in the millions and annual incomes in the several hundred thousand range.
About Nomad Capitalist
Nomad Capitalist helps business owners and affluent individuals maximize their finances via international diversification.
Yes, that means incorporating your business in another country for tax/regulatory benefits, changing your tax residency to minimize your tax burden, investing in overseas real estate, opening bank accounts in other countries, precious metals investing, and so on.
Their motto is “go where you’re treated best,” — fitting their services quite well.
Like I said, this is for the affluent. Their entry-level “Action Plan” is for clients that earn $500,000 pretax annual income or have a $1 million+ net worth. Nomad Capitalist charges a $25,000 retainer for this level of service, per the website.
I am nowhere close to being in the target market, lol. A man can dream.
The Email: Fear-Based, Informative, “Current Events” Copy
Geopolitical events make for excellent angles in the financial space. This is especially true for people with a lot of money because, well, they want to preserve that money. Not lose it.
This email touches on this fear.
The overall style feels a bit more like a blog post, given the denser paragraphs.
Nothing wrong with that.
I think this appeals to the target market. The physical appearance of more text makes it feel more “informative” and “advanced” without losing that fear-based sales copy undertone.
Let’s get into each section to see what I mean:
The Subject Line: “Are Your Investments Safe?”
You don’t always need to get creative with the subject line.
Exhibit A:
In a vacuum, this seems generic. But there’s a lot of geopolitical (and domestic political) tension and fear in the news.
Furthermore, the target audience isn’t the middle class. It’s the really wealthy people with lots of assets — potentially spread across the world.
They will be quite concerned about their investments. Not so much about their “paychecks,” so to speak.
I’d personally prefer if the subject line was sentence case. Not a huge deal here, though.
The Body Copy
We start off the body copy by touching on some current events the target market’s jittery over:
Massive bank failures are only the latest events in a series of financial turmoils (if that’s a word).
Good way to bring up the importance of rethinking your personal finance/wealth management strategy.
Next, we bring in the solution that Nomad Capitalist can offer its target market:
They start with social proof (Ray Dalio) to back up their main point — diversifying as much as possible to minimize your vulnerability to various risks.
But then, there are the last three sentences.
Nomad Capitalist engages in some “belief-shifting” by explaining why diversification isn’t enough.
This shifts the customer toward a belief (as the name of the technique implies) that makes them more likely to hire Nomad Capitalist.
It also creates a new “problem” the customer would need solved, described in the last sentence of this section.
Nomad Capitalist follows this idea further:
The reader doesn’t want to lose their money. Furthermore, as a wealthy and well-to-do individual, they don’t want to look dumb or feel lazy.
They want to do something to stay ahead while others fall. So Nomad Capitalist plays on several desires here.
Finally, a slice of a solution to the problem:
They straight up tell you what to do and why it works. You could do this all yourself.
Well, not exactly. Opening a bank or brokerage account alone takes time — let alone several in different countries without breaking any laws by accident.
The target market doesn’t have the time to research, compare accounts, figure out how to open them, and actually open them. They’re the types who pay other people to do that for them.
So “giving away” the solution here and explaining why it works positions Nomad Capitalist as the expert. They don’t have to worry about losing potential customers by telling them what to do — the customers will hire them!
That plants a seed in the reader’s head that’ll sprout over the next few paragraphs:
Nomad Capitalist reiterates the main pain point and why taking action now matters to the reader.
That gives a smooth runway into the CTA:
Nomad Capitalist used an implicit CTA (they linked to the next page without explicitly urging action).
An interesting choice. It fits the blog post-style, but I would have preferred a more explicit “click here” type of CTA.
Takeaways
The big takeaway here is pretty clear:
Know your audience.
The same worldly event can create different problems for distinct markets within a niche. You can’t speak to one market using the language or psychographic information from another.
This comes down to the email style, too. I think the paragraph-ish/blog post style of the email is more befitting of Nomad Capitalist’s audience than a typical direct response email that…
Includes…
Line breaks…
And ellipses…
Like this paragraph.
What to Do Next
- Get on my email list using the signup form below.
- Reach out to me if you want help writing emails like this one.
- Check out Nomad Capitalist for information about offshore finance/tax stuff… and to work with them if you’re at that level.