Michael: Hello everyone and welcome to HaBO Village Podcast. I'm Michael Redman.
Kathryn: And I'm Kathryn Redman.
Michael: If you're visiting us for the first time, welcome. We hope you enjoy this show. If you're coming back. Hey old friends, how you doing? Thank you.
Kathryn: We're so glad to have you.
Michael: Thank you for coming back. We appreciate it. Today we're going to talk about something I think that'll be fairly useful for you and that is going to be how to get your emails read, subheading 10 human behavior hacks and we have Nancy Harhut to thank for this list that gave it at one of the conferences we went to and we just thought it was good enough. We would pass it along.
Kathryn: Yeah, super fun, really practical information about how to use good subject lines and and create the possibility of folks opening your email. So if you've created an email list and you're trying to attract attention, you're trying to generate customers, then these tips will help you think through how you're positioning your emails in a way that hopefully will get them more reads and more opens.
Michael: Well, and I think they're also really good for sales. This is just, I mean when you're trying to get emails open, what you're trying to do is you're trying to get people to pay attention and in sales you're trying to get people to pay attention and be more receptive to your message. And we use these all the time. I mean one of the reasons we thought this was good was this is just a good refresher course for us, a couple of extra little factoids in the middle of it I think that might've been new for us, but we study this stuff a lot. We talk about it, we teach our clients, teach our staff. So let's just jump right in. Number one, Kathryn.
Kathryn: So number one is there are certain words that work like magic in subject lines.
Michael: Magic.
Kathryn: Magic. And if you think about it, your subject line is really the biggest component to drive an open rate, right? Because the reality is, you know, you got 35 characters to put something on a subject line before it gets cut off that hopefully is engaging enough for someone to think, "Hey, I want to read that." Especially in the world where we get lots and lots of email that many people just go through and delete. I don't know about you but I delete lots of emails. So the thing that causes me to want to open an email that's not from a business associate, a friend, or someone I know is something that is in the subject line that compels me to want to open that.
Michael: Now I think it's important to say, because I'm already thinking about it, so let's just say it out there is what we're not advocating for is that you are spamming anybody with email.
Kathryn: No.
Michael: The most useful tool you can get to get people to open the email is the fact that they are aware of your brand and they've actually asked at some point or given you their information and opted into your email list. That is your number one best chance to get them to open your email. But what we know is that people are on a list with statistics that we see over and over again in our office is if we can get a 20% open rate in emails ... So we have an email list of people that know us, are our clients, and we send it out, we're watching the statistics and we are very happy when we see 20% of the people who we sent the email to open it up. So what we're trying to do is we're trying to get you to a place where 20% are opening it up, or maybe even more, or assuming that you, this is a list that's you're just not cold spamming people or anything like that. Okay.
Kathryn: So there are what is called eye magnet words. They're words that attract the human eye because we tend to skim. And so what's going to jump out? What's going to attract us? So one of those words is new. So the human brain craves novelty. Novelty is something that activates the pleasure center of our brain. It's just so when we see something new, we're intrigued by it. So, new is one of those words.
Michael: And you're not saying ... Are you saying the word new or are you saying something new that's like we haven't seen before?
Kathryn: No, I'm saying the word new.
Michael: The word new.
Kathryn: The word new.
Michael: Oh, I like new.
Kathryn: I love new.
Michael: I like free better.
Kathryn: And then free. Yes, free is also an incredibly good word. If you can do something and say free, you know, free advice, free product, free whatever. I mean the word free tends to draw people in. You know, it does. Free food. Come on. We all love it.
Michael: I mean when I was in college I loved free food, free anything and I went through a phase where I thought, "No I don't need free." I still love free.
Kathryn: Everybody loves free.
Michael: Free Pizza is like some of the best pizza ever. I think quite frankly. I think it tastes better.
Kathryn: It does. Free beer.
Michael: Yeah.
Kathryn: Absolutely.
Michael: So the third one here is the one I like a lot. I think it's really powerful and it's over and over again in sales and everything else. And sometimes it's the hardest to do when you're face to face because you got to remember this, but it is somebody's name. Remembering and using somebody's name. They say that psychologists say that there is no other more flattering word to a person's ear than their own name.
Kathryn: We're just a bunch of narcissist, aren't we?
Michael: Well, no, well it sounds like we're a bunch of narcissist but I don't think that's the case. I think the case is that we have been trained to listen, to sift out all the noise of going on in the world. If somebody calls our name, it draws our attention. If somebody calls Michael in the grocery store, if a woman, says "Michael" in a motherly tone, I flip around, I am 49 years old and I still spin on a dime to see, invariably, a four or five or seven year old Michael being called by his mother.
Kathryn: Okay, well and strangely enough, if you're a parent and you're in a grocery store and your child has grown up and gone off like mine and you hear, "Mom" in a tone that sounds anything like what your kid sounds like, you do the same thing. You flip around, it's a title, it's a name. It's something that is identified with who you are.
Michael: So when you're writing it in an email, if you can put it somebody's name, it sounds silly. It sounds small. It sounds slight, but it actually, and it's something and nobody's going to go, "Oh, they used my name. That's so awesome." Unless you're a total stranger, a to them or, or you've only met once or twice and they actually remember your name. That's impressive. But other than that, I don't think it's impressive consciously, but I think it denotes something a little bit more, especially if I know they've met me or know who I am.
Kathryn: Yeah, well, when you're dealing with an email, interestingly experience says that if you are able to personalize the subject line, the open rate actually increases 29.3%.
Michael: 29.3%?
Kathryn: 29.3% and I will warn you, if you're doing this and you're automating your software, your email delivery system to personalize, just make sure you got it right because there's nothing to damage your email open rate more than when I get an email that says, Dear, Ginger and by golly, my name isn't Ginger. So that just makes me start laughing but not open it because I know that they tried but failed, which makes me question their competence. So that's my warning to you is if you're going to personalize it. Just makes sure you got it right. Okay. Test that thing before you mess it all up.
Michael: Another word that people like is secret or secrets.
Kathryn: Definitely.
Michael: You know that that, and here's the thing, here's a stat, 11% uplift, which means 11% more potential for them to open your email or even for them to listen to you. I mean, whether you're writing it in the copy, the main body of the email, or you're talking to somebody here let me let you in on a secret and we all go, "Okay, I'm going to perk it up. I'll evaluate whether it's a good secret in a minute or if it's legit, but I'm going to at least pay attention for a moment."
Kathryn: Yes, and other forms of that would be things like sneak peek because it implies that other people aren't getting to see what you're seeing or confessions of ... Right? Now you're being told a secret where somebody is actually telling you something that, oh, I don't know, it's a little vulnerable. So if there's a way to utilize that in a subject line, that's another way of doing it.
Michael: I feel guilty sometimes wanting to hear people's confessions. I don't know.
Kathryn: I don't know.
Michael: Okay. And then alert, you know, wow, this person says 33% uplift if we're using the word alert. You can't, that's like the boy who cried wolf. You can't use that too often. But if you're careful with how you write these things and stuff like this and or again, when you're communicating to people face-to-face, those are good ones. Okay. The second one we have is-
Kathryn: Wait, wait. Something really important though, this is a really important tip. If you're going to be using these eye magnet words, these words that work like magic. Just make sure you front load them.
Michael: What do you mean by that?
Kathryn: So you only get 35 characters in an email subject line. Okay. So it's no good if you say "The world according to blah-di-blah-di-blah" and what you think is going to be your magic word gets cut off before you get to it because you've used up your characters.
Michael: Yes.
Kathryn: So you've seen, and kind of test it because emails get cut off in really weird places. So you've probably seen an email that, you know, somebody used the word assumption and it got cut off where it shouldn't have. And so what comes through to your visual eye definitely attracts attention, but maybe not the kind that you intend it to.
Michael: What do you mean? I don't know what you're talking about.
Kathryn: So just make sure you're paying attention and paying attention to where your email subject line cuts off. That's all I'm saying. Front load your eye magnet words.
Michael: Well, front load your eye magnet words new, free, your target's name, secret, secrets.
Kathryn: Confessions of, alert,
Michael: Alert, alert.
Kathryn: Alert, danger.
Michael: Okay, number two.
Kathryn: Number two. So there's two ways to position your message for fast response. And those two which come into this are urgency or exclusivity, urgency or exclusivity. So there's this thing called the principle of scarcity.
Michael: This is a big deal because we use this a lot and we talk to our staff a lot about it.
Kathryn: It is. So if you can encourage and allow people to feel special or time-pressed, so this is things like presale countdown clocks or while supplies last, or there's only 15 seats and I'm holding one for you. It's that kind of writing style that says this is exclusive and there's a scarcity and if you can, if you can create an urgency, then they're not just going to let it scroll down their email list and be forgotten about because you've created an urgency that says you need to pay attention to this now if you want to take advantage of this.
Michael: All right, it's worthy of saying right now, this is super, super, super powerful. Scarcity is just ... Human beings just respond differently. It's actually, if we think we have unlimited amount of time, it's amazing how often it's like I meant to go down to the store and get that, but, and even though some people who wanted to get it and it's no longer there, if there's scarcity and it runs out or you take it away. Here's the important part. We're not suggesting at all that you do this unethically ethic. Be ethical and all this. There are people out there who lie and make this crap up and they invent scarcity, but if you're going to use scarcity, deliver on it.
Kathryn: Yup.
Michael: Super, super important.
Kathryn: Super important. Yeah. You don't want to send out an email that says there's 10 seats left and then send another email. It says there's 25. It's a bad thing to do.
Michael: Yeah. Bad.
Kathryn: The other piece in the middle of this is if you can make people feel special, so you've been selected, that kind of an email, you know, we want you to be a founding member. Anything that allows people to feel exclusive or special that it isn't just for anybody, it's actually for you uniquely.
Michael: Okay. Those are good. That's good. All right. Number three. What's the third magic behavior hack?
Kathryn: The ripple effect of the consistency principle. [crosstalk 00:11:41] The ripple effect of the consistency principle.
Michael: Marketers. They make these crazy-
Kathryn: Crazy titles.
Michael: ... titles.
Kathryn: It's really basic. If you can get someone to say yes once, they're probably going to say yes again and if you can remind them that they said yes once, then you can increase the chances that they're going to say yes again.
Michael: And every child knows this.
Kathryn: Yeah. Absolutely.
Michael: If they can get you to yes once then and then, okay, then they're going to just start stringing you along.
Kathryn: That's right.
Michael: Children, by the way to 11th bio human behavior hack.
Kathryn: Just listen to how children manipulate you.
Michael: Copy children.
Kathryn: Absolutely.
Michael: They're really good at this stuff. Really good. They get it and and somehow socially we drill it out of them, but I haven't met a kid yet who wasn't a good salesperson.
Kathryn: Yup.
Michael: Or a cookie eater.
Kathryn: So true.
Michael: Treat or a little extra few minutes.
Kathryn: Yup.
Michael: They're a little unethical at times though.
Kathryn: They are.
Michael: Those kids, those kids.
Kathryn: But this goes something like, thanks for your ongoing support, want to help out again? You've registered, now we're in double. It's this kind of a thing like you've already done this, you have done this activity, you've opted in to something small or whatever. Then we want to encourage you to opt in again.
Michael: It's a huge principle folks and this is really one, if you're taking notes or you're going to take notes, these are good to go back and write down. You'll see some of them on our podcast page, but we don't want to give it all the way on the, on the show page. This whole idea right here, we just talked about, this consistency. We use it all the time and sales. So for instance, when somebody says yes to a sale, even the principle, the way the brain works, the mind works is just crazy. So I'm going to give you an example of a supplement company that I heard a story about. And that supplement company does like millions of dollars a year in sales online. And literally when you go through their sales funnel and sales funnel being the different stages that you can go through from, hi, I'm interested in learning about your product to the first sale.
Michael: What they always do is if you buy a bottle of their supplements, the very on the thank you page after they do it, the very next page, they offer the same exact bottle that you bought, but they offer three of them. And then sometimes they'll actually offer on the very next page even more. The crazy part is that people buy. They buy all the time. And we use a concept called, now, it sounds crazy, but just, and there's no way any marketer has ever been able to explain this to where it makes sense logically, it's super counterintuitive. But what's interesting is a huge chunk of human behavior is counterintuitive.
Kathryn: That's true.
Michael: And so one of the things that we do on a regular basis is we offer an opportunity for people to invest money or time by giving them something at a super, super, super low price. So what we want to do is whatever it's valued at, we want to drop the price. If we can drop the price 50%, 75%, 80% then it's huge. If something's worth 30 bucks and we can give it to them for seven bucks, then it's like, "Oh, how can I say no to this?" If your hourly rate is $200 an hour and you're doing service work and you say, we charge $200 an hour, but we'd like to give you one hour of free service or a one hour free consultation, when you start framing it like that, then what you get is this opportunity that somebody is stepping in and saying yes, they're more likely to say yes a second time to a real purchase.
Kathryn: Yeah, and I mean another way, another example of how this works is that when Obama was running his campaign, there was a big email campaign that went out and it was a single line that basically said, fill out this one question survey and let's get to work. So he offered a one question survey. So people who opted in and said, I'm going to take this one question survey, the question was, what do you want to work on? And then they would fill that out and as soon as they hit submit, they be given an opportunity to donate because they'd already invested some time, a little bit of feedback, a little bit of a sense of he's actually asking my opinion, therefore I'm perhaps more willing to invest my dollars. So that's another, just an example of how something like this might work.
Michael: Yeah. And Obama, now we're in, what, well, we're not even a year into to the new administration, but Obama ran eight, nine years ago. He was a, especially in his first campaign, there wasn't a soul on the planet who, no matter what the politics were, who didn't know something about social media and email marketing and online marketing that wasn't impressed. They killed it with that kind of stuff. What was strange is the political parties didn't really learn from that as well. When Hillary and Trump ran against each other because they just didn't do it the same at all. There's other things instead of using the tools, but they were really brilliant at it, using it. Okay. As we move on.
Kathryn: Number four is when you can use social proof, you tend to get better open rates, so we-
Michael: Okay. Social proof's a buzz word in our arena, so what do we mean by social proof?
Kathryn: It's the idea that we want to do what other people are doing. We tend to be a bit tribal in our thinking, so it's like if other people have already committed, if folks in my neighborhood are doing it. If I'm all of these interesting people are doing it that I want to be a part of, then I am more inclined to want to participate.
Michael: So when we talk about social proof in our industry on websites, everything else, what we're talking about is actually showing some form of testimonial behavior. Somebody saying yes in a social context or your social network, other people are saying, yes, I opted in. Yes I used this company. Yes they were great. That is what we call social proof.
Kathryn: Yup. And if you can be specific, you know, 347 people in your area have already committed or we've changed 292 lives thus far, things like that where there's just a sense that what you're asking them to participate in others have already done.
Michael: So I would call that a stack. So I think that's an influence stack or a persuasion stack. And what you're using is you're using social proof and you're stacking with specificity, which I don't think the specificity rule showed up in here.
Kathryn: No.
Michael: But there's a freebie for you today folks. Specificity is really significant. So 347 people in your area, you want to be accurate, you want to be honest, but it's way better than 350. Because even if there's 350 people, wait til there's 351 or catch 349. That type of specificity-
Kathryn: Easy for you to say.
Michael: Words are hard. Then you end up working through that. So that's really, really good. So there's a stack there for you. Social proof and specificity.
Kathryn: All right, number five. Number five is when negative can deliver positive results. So here's the basic principle here. People are twice as motivated to avoid pain as they are to achieve gain. Twice as motivated.
Michael: And I think that's an underestimation.
Kathryn: May well be an underestimation.
Michael: Totally true that when you can tell people, and here's the biggest problem that a lot of people have when they're writing their marketing copy, their emails, subject lines, the body of their emails or even communicating. They're trying to persuade somebody with all the good things that they're going to get. When, if you could just think a little harder and help at least add in the things, pain that people are going to avoid, you would be so much more.
Kathryn: So if you can help them avoid mistakes, avoid pain and your subject lines and your emails, you know, are things like seven emails you should never send. Like-
Michael: Oh that's good.
Kathryn: ... because that's going to cause you pain, right?
Michael: I'd read that.
Kathryn: Yeah. You have no idea what you've missed. Why your conversions suck and how to fix it. I mean things that are-
Michael: Learn from our three biggest mistakes in running a business.
Kathryn: Exactly. Things like that. So you put the negative out there because people are interested in learning and avoiding pain and mistakes. So that's number five.
Michael: Super good. Number six, how to create need that people can imagine or how doubters turn into buyers when you create need that they can imagine. This is kind of a mouthful here. But basically what we're saying is you want to do everything you can to paint a picture, and we use present tense storytelling, which means you know, the cheat is to say imagine, but if you can take away imagine and just say you finally made it to vacation. You're walking along the beach, sand in your toes, the warm sea running up and down, occasionally running over your feet. You're able to just relax. You know you don't have any emails to answer. You're with your family. It's a perfect sunset and you know that when you're done here, you're going to go back to the place you're staying and have an amazing dinner. Okay, I just put you in a frame of reference. If you've ever been to the beach, you're back on the beach. If you've never been to the beach, you may be. My wife right now wants to go to the beach.
Kathryn: I was walking in the rain in Maui when you were doing those. Very, very, very good.
Michael: This whole experience of present tense, but if I can get you to imagine what the potential future could be for you, let me tell you how you can get to that beach. Let me tell you how you can double your sales, your revenue in three years. Did you know that if you actually increase your sales somewhere, I think it's 25% a year, if you can increase revenue in three years, you can double your revenue. What would it mean to you to double your revenue? What would that look like to getting people-
Kathryn: Subject line, what would you do with twice your current revenue?
Michael: Yeah.
Kathryn: So things like that. I mean, really positioning people to be imagining a scenario so that you can turn them into buyers of your product.
Michael: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What if you never had to fire another employee again?
Kathryn: What if you never had to hire another employee again? We love our employees. That would make me sad.
Michael: We love our employees. But what if all your employees were awesome employees?
Kathryn: Yup.
Michael: Okay.
Kathryn: Okay. Number seven, the authority principle. So things that make you look better than the competition. So the authority principle simply is if you can find someone who's already trusted as an authority, Consumer Reports, Travelzoo, you know, Katy Perry's skincare, whatever, someone who's an authority.
Michael: Katy Perry has skincare?
Kathryn: I don't know, but just if she did.
Michael: Okay.
Kathryn: Then if you can use, if you can trade on their authority, you can get stuff open. So you know something like airport employees spill travel secrets you probably don't know. That's compelling. Right? And it's secrets from insiders, things like that. Anytime you can trade on a perceived authority figure or group to help you, then that instantly makes you look a little bit better.
Michael: You did a behavior stack there too.
Kathryn: I'm so good at stacking.
Michael: Because you put in secrets into experts.
Kathryn: Exactly.
Michael: Hear the expert secrets. That was pretty good. Yeah, no, I heard that. I saw what you did there.
Kathryn: All right. Number eight, Mr. Redman.
Michael: One thing to say to increase response. So give the reason why. Give the reason why. Now it's harder to put these in subject lines but I think this is super valuable and that is if you can say why you're doing something and you give a good reason. So there's some amazing research. Crazy. I'll tell you about the copier story. So the copier story research is this. They did this research on what would happen if you, if you gave people a good reason and basically there was, they waited til there was people in line at this copier and then somebody would come up and they would say, "Can I cut in line? Can I cut in front of all of you?" And they would give a reason and some people would not give a reason and they would look at the difference between the people.
Michael: How many people would let this new person step in front of everybody in line and make copies and as opposed to, you know, the person who said, I have a reason and the other person didn't. Let me, you know, can I step in front of you and make my copies because da, da, da, da, da, da. I have a reason. Well, what they found out is A, if you gave a reason, they were like significantly more likely to let you step in front, but what even got even crazier is they realized the word because was incredibly powerful in the situation. We somehow have a sense if somebody says because to believe that there's something of value and a good reason coming after it, but what they started testing second was how good a reason it was. It usually it was just like, I mean one of the reasons was can I step in front of you to make copies because I don't want to wait. Because I don't want to wait and you know what?
Michael: The people, the strangers in line by a significant margin. I don't remember what the margin was. Actually let the person step in front.
Kathryn: Simply because they used the word because?
Michael: Simply because they used the word because.
Kathryn: It's a compliance trigger.
Michael: Now you don't want to ... It really is. And open this letter because you don't want to miss out. Open this letter because if you don't dot, dot, dot, right. Okay. You're stacking a couple of things there but the because is pretty significant and what they've discovered is if you can use, because then that is very powerful. In a sales presentation, if you would ask for the sale or you're dealing with objections, if you can figure out how to work the word because in ... Well that's a very good question but the answer to that objection is because we blah blah blah. Because, and even if you don't have a good answer just say because and then put a sentence in that makes sense if you're just trying to figure it out because sometimes-
Kathryn: Because I don't want to wait.
Michael: Because I don't want to wait. It actually works. Because you should. Well, that's not a very good answer, but at the same time, because it's wise, because it's a smart thing. Because if you don't, I think you're going to regret it.
Kathryn: There you go.
Michael: All right.
Kathryn: So you legitimize your request with a reason. So if you're asking for their response and you can legitimize it with some sort of a reason, especially if you can start it with, because. That is very helpful.
Michael: It rocks. I'm telling you what we're not just coming up with these things because somebody said them in front of a room. Every one of them we use. It was just nice to hear him in the list and they're good reminders because you're always looking for things that are true.
Kathryn: So thank you Nancy Harhut.
Michael: Thank you Nancy Harhut.
Kathryn: All right, number nine. So this is called the journalist's secret that boosts email readership. And if you've ever taken a journalism class, if you've ever been taken just a good English class about writing, they always tell you that whenever you're writing, you need to pay attention to ...
Michael: Five Ws and the H.
Kathryn: Five W' and the H. And what are those Michael Redman?
Michael: What, when, where, why, how.
Kathryn: What, where, when, why, who?
Michael: Oh, I forgot the who.
Kathryn: That would've been four Ws and an H. Nice try. 90%. So what, where, when, why, who and how. So five Ws and an H. So if you can use numbers and lists, create orders, multiples of 10, I mean things that are easy to think about. What did 90% of people have in common? No. Three reasons not to use lead scoring. Why online marketing is a game changer. There's all of these, you know, it's an educational process that you're building in education and filling in the informational gap using the questions of what, why, when, why, how, who. All of those things. And so, so that's what that one is.
Michael: Yeah. No, that's a really good one. And we preach this, I preach this incessantly to our staff. Our staff right now is really good, but I'm constantly reminding our staff and folks that we're consulting with for and working with. If their staff is writing or anything else, people go, "well, what am I going to do? What do I say?" It's an old journalism piece. And I mean Woodward and Bernstein, I can remember seeing movies and stuff like that and just even that being hammered into people and I was like, yeah, that's huge. So ready here we go.
Kathryn: And number 10. Which days are best for success? That's the title of this one. And essentially this is the idea that if you can piggyback or take advantage of or utilize or invent, I don't know, a holiday, a celebration, something that sticks out that gives you a reason to communicate. And it could be anything. I mean it can be National Pie Day, you know, who knows? And I don't know if you know this, but there is a calendar out there online for, and there is some thing every single freaking day of the year, National Orange Day, which could be the color or the fruit, I'm not sure which. You know, National Scrapple Day. I don't even know what scrapple is.
Michael: All right. I just have to say I feel like this is anti-climatic as a 10.
Kathryn: Well I'm sorry.
Michael: I mean it's a good one, but I was waiting for something like totally awesome for number 10 that was going to be like the cherry on top. But I do have to say this is good. This is good. I don't know which one I would've put in 10 if I'd thought about it earlier because I didn't think about earlier. But which days are ... and there's something tricky in this one though that I think that people don't always notice because it seems crazy. It just seems insane that everybody has a day. And quite frankly I think a lot of people who make up a day, they think it's cute or something like that, but they don't realize the true power of it. And here's what the true power I think, or at least one of the major levers in this concept is, is that you have actually the ability to keep somebody's attention if they think there's some kind of relevance.
Michael: The relevance factor is huge and it impacts everything along that we've talked about today. It's kind of hidden in everything. But if I can give you a relevance, it's kind of like the because thing, it doesn't need to be like, because its National Potato Day. Why are you giving me a potato? Why are we having French fries? Well-
Kathryn: Because it's National Potato Day.
Michael: First of all, who needs an excuse to have good French fries? But because it's National Potato Day or why are you saying this to me? Or why are we doing this? Because. And as soon as you say, as soon as you have a relevance factor, then you all of a sudden the brain goes, "Oh okay. Well I may think it's a dumb reason, but at least it's a reason." People love reasons. So now that you've given them a reason and let's just wrap this whole entire thing up.
Kathryn: Yeah, let's review and give you the, the 10 just real quickly, one more time and that way you have them.
Michael: All right. 10.
Kathryn: Okay. So. 10. Number one, use words, use magic words in your subject lines. Things like new, free, secret or secrets, alert or your target's name, person you're actually trying to email. Use their name. We love hearing our names.
Michael: Name's good. name's good.
Kathryn: That's number one. Number two.
Michael: Number two.
Kathryn: Use the principle of scarcity to position your message for fast response.
Michael: Scarcity's a big one.
Kathryn: So scarcity, that's either urgency, This needs to happen right now or it's exclusivity. You are special. I am looking just for you, but either way, it's that sense that it isn't for everyone or it's, it has to happen right now. So the principle of scarcity matters a ton.
Michael: Number three, the ripple effect of consistency principle. If you can get someone to say yes once, there's a increased chance, you're going to get them to say yes a second or third time.
Kathryn: Yes. So remind people of their earlier yes. If you want to have another one.
Michael: Yes.
Kathryn: Number four.
Michael: And if you can get people just to say yes, small yeses. That's a real big part of that.
Kathryn: Small yeses.
Michael: What's a small yes, a small yes is-
Kathryn: A tiny investment of time or money.
Michael: Well, not even, even in the conversation ... Once you're having a conversation, you know it's a lovely day, isn't it? Yes, it is. And those little yeses actually lead to bigger yeses. Really tiny yeses.
Kathryn: Okay.
Michael: If you can get them to say yes to something that's obviously yes to them, that's helpful.
Kathryn: Get them in a yes mood.
Michael: Yeah, really it's true.
Kathryn: Yes.
Michael: Number four.
Kathryn: Use social proof when you're writing your emails. So people like to do what other people are already doing or have done. So if you can say, you know, "347 people in your area have already done this, you should try it." That is an element of social proof.
Michael: I've seen statistics say that if you use testimonials that that can increase your chance of a sale or yes or a lead like 40%.
Kathryn: Yup. It's amazing.
Michael: Yeah.
Kathryn: All right. Number five, use negative to deliver positive results. People are twice as motivated to avoid pain than they are to achieve gains. So help people avoid mistakes.
Michael: It's a big thing in sales people often forget. They're always trying to convince people by talking about all the good reasons why they should do something. Help them find the thing that they're avoiding.
Kathryn: Yup.
Michael: Because they're way more likely to say yes if it's a good thing and they can avoid pain. Mm.
Kathryn: That's a big bonus.
Michael: Number seven.
Kathryn: Six.
Michael: Number six.
Kathryn: Number six, he can count. He's very, very smart. But the counting, it's difficult.
Michael: It's rough some days.
Kathryn: So this is turning your doubters into buyers.
Michael: By creating an imagined future for them.
Kathryn: Yeah. So making sure you're telling stories that they can imagine themselves in that your product would help further.
Michael: Incredible. And speaking, present tense when you're telling the story is super important.
Kathryn: Yeah. So stirring their memories or their imaginations.
Michael: Now we get to go to number seven.
Kathryn: Now we get to go to number seven, and what is that Mr. Redman?
Michael: It's the authority principle.
Kathryn: The authority principle.
Michael: Yeah. What instantly makes you look better than the competition? The authority principle. People recognize and respect authority. If you can generate your own authority, it's part, it's part of the credibility issue.
Kathryn: Yeah, definitely. Or if you can use an industry expert, you know, according to consumer reports, blah-di-blah, and that supports what you're trying to do. Very, very helpful.
Michael: Speech makers have been using it for centuries.
Kathryn: Absolutely. Number eight this is, we've decided this is your favorite I think. So. The number one thing to say to increase response is to give the reason why. Because I don't want to stand in line.
Michael: Because I don't want to stand in line. Okay. I'm not going to comment anymore.
Kathryn: So legitimize the requests that you're making with a reason. Give the reason why.
Michael: Yes. Number nine.
Kathryn: Number nine.
Michael: The journalist's secrets, the five Ws and an H. Make sure you're doing the good things to communicate good writing. That will be solid.
Kathryn: Offering to fill in an information gap is the whole point of that.
Michael: It's really huge. Number 10.
Kathryn: Number 10.
Michael: Which days are the best for success? Holidays.
Kathryn: It's a holiday, a celebration. It's happy National You Day and then personalize your offer. I mean there's just ways to do that.
Michael: You know, it occurs to me and the most obvious one and I was even missing it is why everybody who pitches weight loss and physical fitness the best time of the year by a long shot is-
Kathryn: New Year's.
Michael: New Years.
Kathryn: New Year's resolutions.
Michael: I mean, January and New Year's has no relevance on us becoming in shape or why we should get in shape but for some reason it's attached to that New Year's resolution, a big deal.
Michael: Hey, we're Half a Bubble Out and this is HaBO Village podcast.
Kathryn: So we just want to thank Nancy Harhut for putting that list together. She owns a company called Wild Agency.
Michael: Shout out to Nancy. Whoop, whoop, whoop.
Kathryn: Yup, yup. So Nancy is teaching her clients the same things that we're teaching ours and it's just fun to use somebody else's list sometimes. So thanks, Nancy.
Michael: Yeah, no, that's great. Thanks Nancy. And again, we're Michael and Kathryn Redman. We own an agency and marketing firm called Half a Bubble Out, and this podcast, HaBO Village Podcast is out of that, out of our agency and, and we do this kind of stuff for people on a regular basis for our clients. So if for some reason you have a need, we want to invite you to contact us halfabubbleout.com and email us. You can find our phone number there, halfabubbleout.com. You'll also find the blog there and we would love it if you'd leave us a message on if you found this useful, valuable, what you think and-
Kathryn: Yeah, make sure you like us on iTunes because that helps a ton. We appreciate it.
Michael: Yeah. So other than that, thank you very much again for visiting us today. We appreciate it. Welcome to the Village, and we hope you come back again.
Kathryn: Have a great rest of your day, wherever you find yourself.
Michael: Take care. Bye bye.
Kathryn: Bye bye.
