Brand positioning is the “angle” your brand takes vs. other brands in your niche’s market. Another way to think about it is the “place” in the customer’s mind a brand occupies.
All brand assets, from the logo to your blog’s writing style and many more, influence how your brand is positioned in the customer’s mind… whether you intentionally position yourself a certain way or not.
Email, of course, is one of your brand assets. You can use your email to establish your positioning early in your relationship with a new customer.
The email can leave a solid first impression and help the customer decide if this brand is for them or if they should look elsewhere. It keeps those “good-fit” customers around for a long time while turning away the “not-so-good-fit” customers.
I recently received an excellent example of a “brand positioning” email. So good, in fact, I had to dissect it for you.
Let’s take a look…
About RY Outfitters
RY Outfitters is, per its website, “an outdoor hub dedicated to supporting outdoor organizations who are making phenomenal gear, engaging in environmentally conscious manufacturing, and/or dedicated to social action to push the outdoor sports we know and love forward”.
RY repeatedly states that it’s not a marketing agency, digital publication, or even an eCommerce site (although it looks a bit like the latter).
It instead is a digital hub for all things outdoors. It runs giveaways, reviews outdoor-related products, and hosts a podcast.
It was founded (or at least co-founded) by Josh Salvo… who also, according to LinkedIn, is their email marketing specialist. Josh himself, again, according to LinkedIn, looks to be an email marketing specialist like me.
I got on their list via a giveaway they did through another brand (Lesson in there). I enjoy the outdoors, but I wouldn’t say I’m an outdoorsman.
Still, I appreciate brands that do email well, and you’re about to see just how awesome this brand’s email is…
The Email: Positioning Done Right
This email is the second email I ever received from RY Outfitters. The first was a confirmation email that I had entered their giveaway (via another company’s email list).
I will cover that email in next week’s post. Yes, I know, I’m doing that out of order.
Anyways, here’s the email, likely written by Josh (since he’s RY’s email marketing specialist):
This email is all about positioning. RY is framing itself as real/authentic/not-a-sleazy-salesman.
It aims to give you the impression that they love what they do… to push away all but those customers who will be loyal fans.
So, let’s see how they start off this email…
The Subject Line and Preview Text
This subject line is one of the few that got me to open immediately.
All lower-case + curiosity/ambiguity + a personal subject line addressed to me = I will probably open this.
It also came from Josh Salvo, the founder. I genuinely was not sure who that was. Could have been someone who works for one of my clients, someone in my network, a new lead, some petition I signed 8 years ago, etc.
The target audience would likely open simply because it’s coming from a human. Josh Salvo is a person — more interesting than a faceless company.
The preview text only adds to the subject line:
Cryptic. After a deep subject line, this simple “(see inside)” (along with the parenthesis and all-lower-case) gets the curiosity firing on all cylinders.
What exactly is this email about? Did something bad happen? Is RY taking a controversial stance on something? Are they “trashing” another brand?
You have to open the email.
The Body Copy
Continuing with the “highly personal” theme, we have the email’s salutation and opening line:
This is a fantastic way to start the email. He doesn’t just use my name but urges me to “come in closer for a sec…” and italicizes that phrase for emphasis.
This psychologically primes the reader to listen. I mean, I noticed myself moving my head closer to the screen to pay attention. It’s just like a real conversation.
Now comes the positioning theme of the email. First, starting with the “apophatic” (defined in a second) side of positioning:
Apophatic is a theological term describing an approach to knowing God by explaining what God is NOT. It’s a fun and fancy word I’m appropriating here to describe RY’s positioning copy. They are telling you what they (and the email) are not. See? Same concept.
This establishes a bond with the reader. It gets them grinning and nodding in agreement. Many readers in this niche likely receive barrages of “SUMMER DISCOUNT!!!!!” emails. So it’s refreshing to hear such honesty — with a dash of humor by making fun of the “SUMMER DISCOUNT!!!!!” emails.
The opposite of the apophatic is cataphatic (you’re gettin’ a Greek lesson today!). In theology, it’s the approach of describing what God is. In marketing, the way I’m using it…
It’s the approach of describing who you (the brand) are. Instead of who you aren’t. So here’s RY’s “cataphatic copy”:
We now have the “apophatic” and “cataphatic” sides of RY’s marketing. We know who they are and who they are not.
That sets up the 2nd line of copy in this section well. There’s a reason their mission is what it is.
And the last line in this section closes that loop the subject line opens. Great stuff, but we’re not done yet:
A little more copy to concretize what their mission looks like and turn their mission into a benefit for the reader.
I like the *Fist bump* bit at the end. It helps RY hold that “conversational” framing. Psychologically involves the reader a bit more.
Also, the parenthesis is a nice touch. You may notice I liberally apply parenthesis myself (such as here and in this very post).
RY’s CTA is for its podcast, and talking about the mission really helps them tie the body of the email to it:
If you’re on my email list, you’d know including the reader’s name throughout the email is a favorite tactic of mine. It keeps the reader engaged since the reader’s name sticks out to, well, the reader. RY did that here.
But do you notice something about this CTA? Perhaps a mistake? The CTA is there twice, yet the 2nd one is unfinished.
The great thing about this type of email is that the average reader won’t care, most likely. I didn’t even notice it until the screenshots were in my Google Doc lol. This email, after all, should look like it was “dashed off” to the reader… not hyper-polished by a 30-man marketing department.
Oh, and it segues nicely enough to the signoff to almost look intentional.
Finally, a quick PS:
Making yourself available to the reader and reassuring them that you read every email will set you apart from the big brands who don’t do this. You’re writing to the founder himself.
Plus, as I harp on constantly, replies = better deliverability. Better deliverability = more opens = more clicks = more sales. And, of course, they may get some more giveaway entries which = more subscribers to write these emails to.
Takeaways
Here are some big takeaways:
1. The Copy Mechanics
The subject line and preview text both create a lot of curiosity by being somewhat ambiguous and implying some sort of controversy. The use of lower-case and parentheses only adds to this.
The body copy makes liberal use of bold, italics, ellipses, and line breaks. It also flaunts plenty of formal grammar rules and stuff.
This keeps the email conversational so the reader doesn’t get bored. It pulls them down the page, increasing conversions.
2. The Email Structure
The bulk of the email copy is the positioning aspect. That doesn’t mean there’s too much copy in the email — RY Outfitters needs both the “apophatic” (“we aren’t…”) and “cataphatic” (“we are…”) copy to position themselves properly. They spend just enough time on each to keep the reader’s attention. No fluff, in my opinion.
Then, the mission statement offers an excellent bridge to the CTA… urging readers to listen to the podcast.
3. The Overall Strategy
I don’t work for RY, so I don’t know for sure… but this could be either their welcome sequence or just one of many welcome sequences tailored to this particular lead source.
Like I said several times, this email is all about positioning. It tells you early on who RY is, what makes them different from other brands, and gets the reader into their business immediately via the CTA to the podcast.
This builds a bond with the smaller but more engaged market segment. You know, those people that are best fit for their brand. As a result, RY gets a smaller number of site visitors/podcast listeners…
But they stick around for the long haul.
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 RY Outfitters for all your outdoor gear needs!