How I made you read over 1800 words

Yesterday I shared a story.

A story that demonstrated the most important thing about creating content I’ve ever learned.

Today I’ll tell you what it is, point out how I used it in that last email, and give suggestions of how you can use it too.

But not yet.

First, I should give some credit.

Two mentors in particular shaped how I think about grabbing and keeping attention… Shawn Twing and George Ten.

If you like this kind of thing, go check them out.

Yesterday’s email was over 1000 words.

And most of the people who started reading made it all the way to the end.

In our world of 7-second attention spans, that’s unheard of.

And even though the email had no “reply ask” or CTA of any kind, I’ve been getting replies like this:

How did I do it? How did I purposely engineer an email people loved to read?

Here’s the big lesson…

.

.

.

drumroll…

.

.

.

In one word, anticipation.

You see, I am constantly teasing a future reward for your attention, so you continue to give it to me.

In fiction, this is known as foreshadowing.

Small little hints of what is to come.

“Open loops” that you, the reader, desire to close.

It’s why we’ll sometimes watch a whole movie that sucks.

If you reread yesterday’s email, you’ll notice I talk about poo immediately.

But I tease that the climax of the story comes later.

Several times, I make them think the payoff is coming soon, only to pull the rug away at the last minute.

Until I finally give it to them.

But from there, I immediately open a new loop.

One that I didn’t promise to close until today.

And here you are.

See how that works?

Now here’s how you can use this in your business:

You can create anticipation in your emails just like I did. People will read more of your words, and are more likely to open the next one.

Your subject lines don’t have to be great if people are eagerly anticipating your next email, like this guy is:

Haha.

I’m teaching you all a legit superpower today, please do not abuse it.

Here’s the chef’s kiss takeaway - You can create anticipation for your product in a similar way.

Click. I hope the light bulb just turned on.

Can you imagine what would happen on launch (or relaunch) day if you have a line of people going nuts with anticipation and desire?

Maybe something like this:

Yeah, that’s my friend Tanner raising almost $600,000 in less than 48 hours.

(To be clear, I had nothing to do with this other than offering some encouraging words over the last few months.)

This is a presale. Cypress Resort does not exist yet.

But Tanner and his wife Melissa have spent months telling the story of their vision for this place.

The vision opens the loop. And for the people who have been following along, contributing to this crowdfunding campaign closes it.

Your marketing should be opening loops, and your sales process should be closing them.

Simple, but not necessarily easy or obvious.

That’s why I’m helping a number of people with this 1 on 1 inside of Copy Consigliere.

Here’s feedback from one client:

And even though there are only 5 spots left, filling them is not the purpose of this email.

Instead, I wanted to let you know how the poo story ended.

…which I promise I’ll do tomorrow. I mean, we’re already over 800 words today.

And goodness knows we shouldn’t “bother” our subscribers with too many emails, right? ;)

Tomorrow, the conclusion of the poo story, the million dollar dinner, and one more takeaway.

See you then,

Greg