What if you straight-up told your email subscribers that you were selling them?
No persuasion tricks… No crafty psychological tactics…
Just “Hey, I’m selling you something. You interested?”
This could be one of the most lucrative emails you write… if you have the proper bond with your readers and qualify your customers in the email.
If you’re a bit confused about how this would work, you’ll want to read this full email breakdown:
About Kevin Stock
Kevin Stock is a dentist who, in his words, “has been on a lifelong mission to discover how to bring about the highest levels of health and fitness.”
A big part of that was pursuing and sharing his experiences with the carnivore diet, along with reading all the research on meat and nutrition.
A lot led him up to the carnivore diet. Too much to discuss here. You can check out his About section for more information here (it’s at the bottom of the page I linked).
However, Dr. Stock’s website isn’t just a “carnivore” site. It’s more of a personal brand website with a broader “self-improvement” theme. It covers other topics to smaller degrees, like maximizing your career, enhancing creativity, and even Bitcoin.
But his main focus appears to be health and fitness (and meat).
The Email: A Transparent Sales Email
Hard to see the exact copy in that image above, but you can at least make out that there are clear sections.
Let’s get into each of those below.
The Subject Line: “This is a sales email :)”
Sometimes, you just gotta tell the reader exactly what they’re getting:
Dr. Stock builds a personal relationship with readers since it’s just him, not a corporate marketing department. He also uses a personal tone in his copy.
So the radical transparency here works. (Oh, and the 🙂 adds more personality.)
Furthermore, I think this subject line prompts some curiosity.
What exactly is he selling? Since the reader trusts Kevin, they’re not clicking away. They want to see if whatever he’s selling can help them solve some problem.
And so they open the email and get to the body copy…
The Body Copy
Dr. Stock continues with that innocent, transparent, friendly tone and establishes continuity between the subject line and email body:
He reiterates that he rarely sells (so you’ll want to pay attention)…
Then gets right into the offer.
No fluff detected.
Notice how he tells you what the offer will provide and introduces the offer itself only after that.
Subtle, but it gets the reader thinking about benefits ASAP. And it qualifies customers early.
Those interested are now hooked. The uninterested click away, and that’s fine because we don’t want to enroll uninterested people.
Wasting no time, Dr. Stock moves into the offer details in nice and neat bulleted lists:
Feature-heavy, but the sheer volume of stuff + an audience of loyal followers means you don’t have to do a lot of selling.
The brief explanatory bullets are enough to get the selling going, most likely. They clear up any confusion the reader might have and give them a better picture of what exactly they get as a customer.
No big offer would be complete without a few bonuses, though:
Once again, he’s pretty clear about what you get. Persuasion by volume — in other words, customers want to buy because they see the sheer amount of helpful stuff they’ll receive.
I like how Fat Loss Lock-In and Fat Loss Secrets Series are bolded. Those are catchy, s3xy titles. May as well reinforce them with bolding.
Now, Dr. Stock has to qualify his customers more. So he lays out the “requirements”:
This section is vital. Yes, it might weed out people… but that’s the point.
You only want people who fit exactly what you’re offering. Reduces dissatisfaction and refunds because you’re only helping people who are ready and willing to get your help…
People who will most likely see results.
People with goals as silly as losing fat overnight (impossible) or as reasonable as building muscle are screened out because they aren’t good fits.
It also gets the most qualified customers excited to join by appealing a bit to exclusivity.
Now that Dr. Stock whittled down his readers to those 99% ready to buy…
They simply need the details on how to buy.
Here they are, right on schedule:
He’s quite specific. Easy to see why: You want to be as clear as possible on how to buy. Eliminate those friction points.
Believe it or not, you can lose customers who want to buy if they aren’t sure how to buy.
Notice all the important information is underlined. And the key piece of urgency is bolded.
Always draw attention to the important stuff. It also adds readability when you break up the monotony of the text like so.
Also, I like how there’s an implicit CTA there. More CTAs in something like this never hurts. Scoop up sales along the way.
And finally, the explicit CTA at the end:
He calls the reader to action while keeping it casual and conversational. I like it.
BUT WAIT! THERE’S MORE!
(NOTE: The scratched out section is a phone number. Felt like that was important to redact, even though he shares his phone number in his emails.)
The PS asks the reader to reach out with questions. This helps close more sales, of course.
But furthermore, replies to your emails enhance deliverability. Shows Gmail (or whoever else) that people read what you send and don’t want it tossed into Spam.
Takeaways
Straight-up sales emails — to the point where you tell customers you’re selling them — can work when you cultivate a particular brand image and build good customer bonds.
You almost feel like a friend to your readers. Transparent sales emails don’t turn them off. They’re curious enough to open it and see if it’s something they want.
Similarly, you don’t have to weave crafty persuasion tricks into the body copy — even with what is likely a high-ticket program such as this.
Just qualify your audience to hone in on that small sliver who needs your offer and will pay for it…
Provide the details and be extra clear about it…
And tell them how to sign up.
Work in an implicit CTA to scoop up the more eager, then finish with an explicit CTA, and you’re good to go.
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 Kevin Stock’s website for information about Carnivore and the many other topics he discusses.