Emails can sell without actually selling the product and pushing directly to an order form.
In some cases, you want the reader to move up a funnel toward a sales page that does the heavy lifting. You take some of that burden of the email to make it pure curiosity.
Let’s see how Tactical USA sells the click in this Email Breakdown.
About Tactical USA
Tactical USA is an online retailer in what you could call the prepper/tactical niche, to some degree.
The Tactical USA website says the brand sells “superior tactical apparel and gear for law enforcement, first responders, tactical operators and recreational enthusiasts.”
Categories include:
- Home security
- Hunting
- Outdoor safety
- Self-defense
- Survival
- Tactical
Now, for the email.
The Email: A Short Click Seller
This email is a “selling the click” email. The goal is to get you to click through to a sales letter. It’s not meant to persuade you to buy — just make you excited enough to learn more about the offer.
That said, “sell the click” emails can sell the product when done the right way. Never hurts to work in benefits without distracting from the main hook.
You just have to do it right.
I think TacticalUSA pulls that off here. Keep reading to see how.
The Subject Line: Coming On Strong With Curiosity
A lot of good stuff going on in this subject line.
First off…
“Banned in 9 states?” THAT’S some curiosity-stoking material if I ever saw it.
If it’s banned in so many places, you’re not supposed to have it. We’re all little rebels. We want what these authorities say we can’t have.
Also, note how it says “9 states,” not “several states.” This shortens the subject line and adds specificity, drawing the eyes and provoking more curiosity.
Next is the bracketed section. It contains a benefit — a free item (just pay shipping per their sales page) for whatever this dangerous, deadly, and enticing item is.
(NOTE: Free + shipping is a classic tactic for getting email signups and/or segmenting subscribers. For example, you sell a cheap product for “free” and make the customer pay shipping, then sell them more products on the backend.
The brackets offer another way to shorten the subject line while merging two separate ideas without sounding odd. It’s a much punchier way of saying:
Banned In 9 States. Get Yours Shipped For Free
Or something along those lines.
Also, brackets and parentheses in subject lines just draw attention. They break up the letters a bit. That’s why people will put things like (Read) or (Live) or (1) in subject lines.
Building Curiosity and Clicks With Implicit CTAs
This email liberally applies implicit CTAs — CTA links that don’t explicitly urge action.
I think they work pretty well here. The first line’s implicit CTA could take the reader by surprise and make them click to find out what particular weapon the email’s discussing.
But if they don’t, the following line offers them a product benefit without revealing what it is. This is how you slowly build value and anticipation for the product to increase the chance of clicking.
As for the content of this line, I like the language used.
Imagine if the writer said, “it will stop threats effectively.”
*SNORE*
No — it’ll completely paralyze the biggest, meanest S.O.B out there.
THAT gets the blood pumping.
We now arrive at the next implicit CTA. This one’s cool because the entire line is a link, and it’s semi-explicit. By asking the reader if they know what the item is and linking the whole sentence…
The reader wants to click to see if their guess is right (or satisfy their curiosity)…
Especially after reading the previous benefit-driven line.
I reckon this first section drove a fair amount of curiosity-heavy clicks. That is the goal of this email, after all.
“Negative Striplining” to Screen Out Customers That Don’t Fit
Negative striplining is a tactic I learned from Ben Settle’s fantastic Email Players newsletter.
It involves saying who shouldn’t or can’t buy your product. This screens out the “unideal” customers — freebie-seekers, refunders, etc. — so you only get customers that’ll enjoy the product and stay loyal to the brand.
It’s like setting admissions criteria to receive the honor of being a customer.
This email has an interesting take on negative striplining… and it practically writes itself.
Residents of the states listed are legally barred from owning this item. So the copywriter can just say “Live in these states? Too bad.”
That reinforces the whole sexy “governments hate this item” factor and adds some exclusivity to the mix.
Maybe they’ll offend a few people in the states listed, but hey, they aren’t TacticalUSA’s customers for this particular item.
Also, notice how the reader still doesn’t know what the item is. An excellent example of building anticipation for the big reveal. That’s how you “sell the click.”
Segue to the Pitch
Tactical USA sort of reveals the product. They don’t give away the exact model of stun gun, but they tell you that it is a stun gun.
This might sound counterintuitive… but this builds more curiosity. They want to know what “the heavy duty stun gun” is because of the adjectives added.
Now, the reader wants to know what “the heavy duty stun gun” actually is. Making the item a CTA only increases the clicks.
The 2nd line adds some imagery to the email. It would be good enough to just offer the product, but it seems more personal and authentic to say “hey, I’ve got one of these next to me, ya want it?”
Pitching the Product
One more time with some subtle negative striplining. Shows that Tactical USA cares about their customers — they want to be sure their customers don’t order an item they can’t legally buy.
Benefits the business, too, by minimizing refunds and cancellations.
Finally, Tactical USA ends the email with a simple CTA.
Don’t need to get creative here because there are several other CTAs throughout this email. At this point, they’ve told the reader everything. They’re plainly asking the reader to click.
Takeaways
When selling the click, it’s best to be short and sweet. But you also have to build anticipation.
So no word must be wasted.
Laying on the implicit CTAs works well since you’re not asking much of the reader. Early on, you build enough curiosity to drive the click. Toward the end, you pitch an enticing offer without revealing too many details.
Not a bad email for getting products out the door and building a new customer segment within your email service provider.
What to Do Next
- Get on my email list.
- Reach out to me if you want help writing emails like this one.
- Check out Tactical USA for all your tactical gear needs.