The story’s going to get a little stinky.
Some may gag.
The farmer types not.
In any case, the lesson in the story is sticky (pun intended), and if you use email, this will greatly increase the effectivity of engaging with your list.
Anyway, here’s what happened.
Last week I’m driving the same ten-minute route I drive every day five days a week. The last five minutes I hit the highway and my mind is on autopilot. I pray through the Lord’s Prayer, as usual, and then typically exit. The lane I’m in goes through the tunnel, but I don’t notice the big red X over my lane. Then it got really bumpy and I even start to slide a little bit. Looks like a truck spilled a lot of dirt. I take my foot off the gas and switch to the left lane out of the “dirt”, and the dung stench blasts me. Crap.
A few hours later, I have the chance to take it to the self-serve car wash. You know how snow gathers up on a car’s underside behind the wheels during the winter? Well that’s exactly what happened with all this cow poop. Cleaning the exterior or the sides of the car is easy, but getting up under, into the underside of the car, is very messy. High pressure water isn’t predictable in how it rebounds off the different objects. And of course, it splatters me with black specks of ickiness.
I spend about ten euros, and though I can’t see any more of the manure, you can still smell my car from fifty meters away.
So here’s the deal.
The subscribers to your email list scroll through their emails on auto pilot.
Your precious email you spent hours on is invisible to them.
Unfortunately, your lack of effort to change things up is the culprit.
Maybe your emails are kinda boring. You’ve been using the exact same formula for years because that’s what the leaders in your industry do.
A typical thing I see newsletters do is that they have 5 different segments in their newsletter with all completely different topics with completely different links pitching completely different things.
The email subscribers are already overwhelmed with their inbox. And then when they open your email, they’re overwhelmed further with having to find a link to click. And when they click the link, they gotta read a long article with tons of other distractions. So by the time they’re done with your content, they’ve subconsciously decided to never open your emails ever again.
Soon your subscribers become blind to your boring emails.
Excriment on the other hand is anything but boring, when it is not where it belongs.
It is one of humanity’s favorite things to talk about.
If you are looking for simple ways to stand out like a stinky mess in the road, subscribe.
Blair
P.S. Strangely, this soiling of my car’s underbelly was an answer to prayer. “Lord, should we sell our car?” Answer: “Not as long as it smells like that.”