Writing for an audience of one: Make people notice, listen and respond to your emails | Alfred Lee | Skillshare
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Writing for an audience of one: Make people notice, listen and respond to your emails

teacher avatar Alfred Lee, Creative Director & Copywriter

Watch this class and thousands more

Get unlimited access to every class
Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Watch this class and thousands more

Get unlimited access to every class
Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Lessons in This Class

    • 1.

      Introduction

      0:44

    • 2.

      You won't believe this: Part One

      1:13

    • 3.

      Think like a hostage negotiator

      4:38

    • 4.

      Quick, let me tell you a secret

      2:24

    • 5.

      Sit down, we have to talk

      4:18

    • 6.

      HEY! Are you even listening?

      2:10

    • 7.

      I've got good news and bad news

      2:21

    • 8.

      You won't believe this: Part Two

      1:40

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About This Class

Do you have unread marketing emails sitting in your inbox right now? I know I certainly do. So why is that? If you’re like me, you’ve cycled through one of these answers –

  • “I get so many of them, it’s hard to read through them all”
  • “I already know what they’re going to say”
  • “I don’t have the time to get to them yet”

These answers represent the barriers I will help you overcome in this class.

Getting noticed: All of us get more email in a day than we’d prefer. But, the same is true for every other aspect of our lives. In a world full of too many choices, I’ll guide you to helping your customers choose to open up your email.

Getting read: The only thing worse than being boring is being predictable. My simple tips will help you surprise your customers and make them want to read your email to the very end.

Getting a response: When a customer says they don’t have the time, what they mean is they aren’t willing to make the time for you. I’m here to help reverse that behaviour.

This class is about the mindsets which lead to writing proficiency. If you’re just starting out as a marketing writer, this class is ideal. However, even if you’ve been writing for a few years and can’t seem to break out of formulaic conventions, this class can help you find a new perspective.

Meet Your Teacher

Teacher Profile Image

Alfred Lee

Creative Director & Copywriter

Teacher

Hello, I'm Alfred Lee. I've been a copywriter and creative director for nearly two decades at agencies including Ogilvy, DDB, Grey, Rapp and Wunderman. My work has spanned over 15 business verticals and includes brands such as American Express, Cadbury, DHL, HP, Vodafone and many others. My ongoing mission as a creative professional is to help make brands more profitable and memorable.  

I'm also a spoken word artist who founded one of the first spoken word collectives in Mumbai, India. I was also the 2017 New Zealand Spoken Word champion. When not busy writing, I love a good game of Scrabble or Cards Against Humanity.  

See full profile

Level: All Levels

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Transcripts

1. Introduction: Hi, I'm are friendly. And in this class I'm gonna teach you how to write more effective emails using simple, repeatable and proven psychological techniques. This is a good class to take if you are a small business, a startup or a freelancer who depends on email for marketing. I'm a copy on in creative Director with close to 20 years of industry experience. And I create condom that is both profitable and memorable. My work spans across branches Vodafone, Disney, Cadbury, American Express, DHL, HP and others. By the end of this class, you learn how to get your emails noticed with the clutter. Have them read all the way through and make sure your customers are taking action. So what you waiting for? Let's get started. 2. You won't believe this: Part One: before we get started. Let's talk about the class project. Have you ever held a brief with demographics like this? Our target audience is men and women aged 25 to 55 who won between $155,000 Here. It's okay we all have for this project. I want into someone a lot less fictional, your best friend. So here's the brief. Write an email in running your best friend to a concert off their favorite artist. But there are some restrictions because of this project is fictional. You're still writing it in the real world. So here's the extended brief. Okay, you're not sure if they have enough money to pay for the tickets. Be the tickets, Once booked, cannot be refunded and see your booking the tickets, which gives them only two days to confirm. We learned to this project twice. I want you to write one version of this email before you begin taking the class. This will allow you to put your existing schools to use. It will also act as a reference tool to see where you need improvement. At the end of the class. You like the second doctors email at the very end. By then you'll be able to apply the skills you have learned in this class and compare it to your first draft, so let's get started. 3. Think like a hostage negotiator: too often. When we right, we don't act like hostage takers. We treat our emails like ransom notes. What does this mean? Three things. Number one. We start talking without considering that the other person wants to listen. We jump right into telling people what we want. And three, we expect people to do what we say. A better approach to think less like a hostage taker, more like a hostage negotiator. This has three main steps. Step one. Visualize a reader as an individual. Now, I'm not asking you to imagine what they look like or picture how they addressed that's highly relevant, and if you could do it, you'll be one of the X men. But what I am asking you to think off is really might be when your message arrives. Now you may be tempted to give me the knee jerk reaction. They'll be at work. The police don't. You see. When you visualize your reader, you're looking for smaller cues cues that you can use to boost the effectiveness off your message. Step two don't get led by generic information. Demographic information is like the first draft of your email. It's not bad, but it's not great, either. What I mean by this well, demographic information was meant to be a guideline for how we talk to customers. What it's not meant to be is a blueprint. Let's take a judge or gender, for example. Right now, you fall into a certain demographic. But does that mean you think and act like every other person in the demographic perception you don't? Another common mistake we make by leading too heavily on demographics is industry bias. Yes, there are a few common creates that may be shared by employees in a certain business verticals. But when you're writing, you're talking to an audience off one. Remember hostage negotiators in the final bit of genetic information we often tend to get misled by is intent again, a person of a certain age or gender working in a specific business. Vertical might need your product or service, but is that what he or she cares about most when they receive your email, we bring me to step three. Make them believe you only care about them once you've taken a few minutes to visualize a reader I had made sure you're not being biased by demographics. The three steps to get the reader on your side. Number one rigged on the defense's number to acknowledge that they mean don't want to talk . Number three. Talk about their pain points. First to explain which is an example. Let's say you run into an I T. Security professional and you're trying to sell them a new piece of software with the latest tools to block email spam. Here's some subject lines You might use great new tools to round up every last damn emails . Impress your client with spam email tracker. Put an indispensable with just a few clicks. Deal with spam email complaints faster with our new tools. Now none of these are wrong. They all have great information. The organ right to the point on the all offer a benefit. But each of them have one of the floors we spoke about earlier. For instance, great New told. Run up every last damn emails you're leading with the product. Impress your client with this new spam email tracker. Clear Industry Bias. Put an end to spam email with just a few clicks again. Demographic bias do. Is spam email complaints faster with a new tool? You think he wants things faster. You assume his desire. Save millions of dollars by fixing spam emails again. Industry bias. Now here's a bunch of alternate approaches, spam email and the vote of sending your anger management. Let's solve that. Ah, don't you hate spam email alerts? We've got a plan to end them. Spam email alerts are running before breakfast Does we can help with that? I wish you could fix stupid people, too. How about we fix the next best thing? You think that give you an award If you killed Spam emails forever? Now here's why. These work better. The 1st 1 breaks down the defenses. The 2nd 1 also breaks on the defense's the third and the fourth address their pain points, and the last one very clearly says, Hey, if you don't want to talk, you understand that what you need to look for are these things that make you seem less like a salesman and more like an ally. We'll go more into this in the next class 4. Quick, let me tell you a secret : in the previous lesson. We used basic human psychology to break down the initial barriers, and reader might have to opening your email. But those insights are just the beginning. In this lesson, we look at certain repeatable techniques that you can use to generate a subject line that grabs attention or the least makes a reader curious enough to open your email and ideally, lives. Each of us uses mental shortcuts to solve certain problems. The shortcuts aren't always guaranteed to be perfect, logical or rational, but they get the job done. Psychologists reported these as heuristics, for instance, The availability heuristic involves making decisions based upon how easy it is to bring an example to mind. So let's say I ask you which is safe for planes or trains? Chances are you think back to the last door you heard of an accident, and depending on whether you think of a plane or a train accident, you tend to associate the answer with that mode of travel. Now, I believe when it comes to looking for an open to a conversation, why email there? Certain creative your sticks, but you can apply. Here are some examples I don't care what people think. I'm trusting my gut. There's nothing else I'd rather be doing. I've only got one life to live. I'm not giving up. At first glance, this may look like an order list, but let's use the same email from the previous lesson to demonstrate these examples. I don't care what people think. I think I'm pretty to try and defeat email spam. You won't be the first. I'm trusting my gut. I'm not supposed to share the solution with everyone, but I trust you. There's nothing else I'd rather be doing. This may sound crazy, but I like dealing with emails. Ban. What? No way. I've only got one life to live. If this was the last email I've ever sent, I'd be happy the solution reached you. I'm not giving up. I failed 209 times, making the spam solution just so that you can succeed having through the list of 50 creative your sticks you can experiment with in the project. Resource is the next time you have to craft a compelling subject line. Why not try it? At least 10 of them to see which one works best or used to a three of them to run a B test with your readers. In our next lesson, we look at how to hold read his attention from the very first line, using a technique I call the premise. 5. Sit down, we have to talk: Let's face it, when you email a customer you're after one off two things. Their time or their money. 34 back to earlier. Listen, you could say that time and money are the two hostages you're negotiating for. But if you would have simply come out and ask for them, you probably wouldn't have much success because you haven't convinced the reader you care about them to do this. I like to use a premise. Premise is basically the story you lead with in the opening off your email. Now the story doesn't always have to be true. It just has to be believable. Here are some examples, so just a cataclysmic decision. We don't know each other, but it's time we did visualize this scenario. I'm surprised I haven't heard from you, isn't it said again, just like in the previous lesson? These may sound like incomplete ideas, but let's see how they work when applied context to a headline and an opening often email suggesting a cataclysmic decision. Ever imagine just walking away from your desk for a month. Dear John. People think dealing with spam email is easy. Clearly, those people haven't spoken with someone like you or me recently, but you and I both know that if you walked away from my desk for a month, they be drowning and spent wouldn't day. So how can you demonstrate this value to your customers without having to unleash panic stations? I'm glad you asked. Second example. We don't know each other, but it's time we did. For both our sakes. I hope we meet soon. Dear John being in the I T. Security business, you think you seem pretty much every kind of spam email out there. But it's always the worst one and over the last year had to encounter some of the absolute worst. That's why I just knew I had to speak with you today because my team has developed a tool which could spare you and your clients the nightmare having to deal with vicious span. And as a fellow professional, I'd like to army with the latest defense as soon as possible. Visualized this scenario. It's eight AM You get an email. Your biggest client server just went down. Now what? Dear John, I'd like to call this the nightmare before breakfast. Now I know it's the last thing you want to think of is a worst case scenario, but what makes it even worse is that many of these nightmares a cause but something as simple as single spam email. But what if I told you there was a solution? You could deploy today or before you finish your first cup of coffee? I'm surprised I haven't heard from you. If we haven't spoken yet, you must be one very lucky person. Dear Jordan, if you're like me, luck is not a word you want here. When it comes, I t security. But at the rated, which spam email is getting faster, smarter and more destructive. Chances are your current security solutions are only going so far and leaving the rest to luck. How do I know this? Because I have dealt with the ICTY divisions of over 30 Fortune 500 companies like you. They all thought they were doing everything they could to be secure until they heard what I had to say. Isn't it said Spammy. Meals are really afford. It's so hard to explain, isn't it? Dear John, Just between you and me, I'm tired. I'm tired and I'm fed up of customers putting ideas, security like some genie in the bottle when they simply make a wish and we make it happen. He when I know that it's much more complicated than that. And with each passing day, email spam is getting smarter and more destructive, isn't it? Which is why my team and I have been working on adaptive solution for the last 18 months. Believe me, deploying it is a lot easier than coming up with explanations later. As you can see, each of these offers a premise that gives your email a story. The human eyes, You annual Rita. They help you, however briefly, to make a connection, and that's all you need to start talking. I have included a list of 50 open premises that you can experiment with in the project. Resource is in our next lesson. We look at how to hold a reader's attention in our next lesson. We look at how to hold a reader's attention, especially after you've been talking for a while. 6. HEY! Are you even listening? : this lesson is fairly simple. How to get past boredom Notice I didn't say how to avoid being boring. That's because no matter how good a writer you are, people have limited attention spans, and every single person gets bored after reading for a while. So what can you do? Three things. Number one. Make it sound like you aren't talking that much. A simple way to do this is to break your email into sections and use headers. This allows the reader to skim the email at the beginning and get a quick sense of what to expect it. Also, Liston digest each section individually before moving on to the next. Also, after you written your first trapped, go back and see how many sentences you can split in half. Smaller senators are easy on the ice, the offer better comprehension, and they feel more natural. It's intense, acting like a breathing pause you normally take while speaking. Number two. Understand and address drift points adrift Point is any part off your email, where the reader's attention might start to flag. Ordinarily, as a writer, you wouldn't be the best person to spot these points. My advice. Print your first dropped and that someone read it or read it out aloud to someone at the end. I asked them where they felt. They began to lose interest. These ion drift points. Once you know where they are, see if you can condense your copy to get rid of any or if you can't get any information out , move to Step three. Recap. Dense information. Once you've identified Adrift Point, it's OK to acknowledge it to your reader. You could say something like, I know this seems like a lot to digest right now, or look, I get it. This isn't easy for you or even I know you're thinking This is a big decision right now. Another thing you could do with a drift point is recap what you've said so far. Use bullet points if you need to, or even a simple ABC in short sentences. All this will help you set up for the clothes, which we'll discuss in our next lesson. 7. I've got good news and bad news: Like we said at the very start of this class. A good email is a hostage negotiation for the readers, time and money. So how do you go about getting it? Step one start early. A call to action doesn't always have to be better at the end of the email as you make your case. Usual hint for only clothes so you could say things like, I've got your interest already. Let's talk about closing this deal or usually this is the people a lot of people just leaning and asked to sign up. Or even if this is all you hear about our product, it will be an amazing deal, and you can grab it right here. Step two. Acknowledge your agenda despite starting on the premise, your ultimate goal isn't a trick. Your reader. You need to respect his time by being up front about your conversation, being a transactional one. So as you get to the end, start saying things like, I could talk about this all day, but Or if you're wondering what this is going to cost, let me tell you Or you could say now, of course, all this does come at a price. Step three. Never apologize for what you want. Just because you haven't end on a request, do not sell yourself short. This is a classic mistake. You see, at the end of charity emails, David Lee said. Things like, We know this sounds like a lot, but or give us whatever you can you need to believe in the product or service you're offering. This includes believing in the price of it as well. So why does this entitled? I have good news and bad news because of a little psychological tip called loss aversion. Loss aversion is the idea that losses generally have a much larger psychological impact than gains of the same size. So, whenever possible, talk about how much a customer could stand to miss out if they don't accept the offer. It's a proven strategy to drive sales, and that's the last piece of advice I have for you in this class. And I finally listen, really do a recap of all the things we've learned and revisit the class in our final lesson . Really a recap of all the things we've learned and revisit the class project to discuss how to approach draft too 8. You won't believe this: Part Two: thanks for taking my skill share class. I hope you gain some new insights and found a way to sharpen your writing skills. When I first spoke about the class project, I mentioned we were going to do it twice. So here's what I want you to do. You can even start working with anything your existing draft or you can start from scratch on a new one. My suggestion is to start a fresh. This gives you a better version to compare against. When you do begin writing. Ask yourself these questions. Have I visualized my reader? Have I thought about them beyond just the basic demographics? Have I considered the intent? Next? Ask yourself. Have I considered their defenses? And what am I doing to break them down? Do have a plan to tackle them? What is my media's biggest pain point? When it comes to subject lines, I want you to try out a few off the heuristics from the worksheet, then in your body. Copy. I want you to refer to the worksheet again and use at least two opening premises to lead your copy. As you write. Remember, talk in small tendencies and look for any drift points. And don't be shy to introduce your call to action early and more than once. I'm really excited to see your second draft of this project in the gallery, and I'll be jumping into comment on as many as I can. I'd also like you to actually show both emails to your best friend. Ask them which email they prefer and share your findings in the community. I hope you enjoy this class. If you've liked what you've heard, please feel free to follow me on skill share and share this class with your friends and coworkers until next time. Happy writing.