Since 2015, I’ve had a beard on my face.
I’ve let it grow long.
I’ve trimmed it short (too short at times).
And I’ve even been offered money to shave it off.
(One lady offered to pay me to clip a few strands for fishing lure material… but that’s a story for another time).
Anyway…
If you also have a beard (or love someone who has one), then you know the importance of beard care.
When you don’t take care of your face carpet, it turns into a wieldy cluster of barbed wire you (nor your lady) would want to rub your fingers through.
For years, I’d tried to find a brand that I liked to wash and oil my beard, but it was like trying to find the perfect pair of shoes.
Some oils had enough fragrance to put a moose down.
Other balms were thicker than vaseline and turned your hair into a fly catcher.
And don’t get me started with the beard shampoos. Most every single one turns my beard into a basket of brittle sticks you don’t dare touch or risk breakage.
So, when I ventured out into the wild, wild west of beard care one more time, I wasn’t hopeful I’d find a brand I’d like and use for years.
Until I found:
Not only does Beardbrand sell great beard and mustache care products, but I believe their email game is strong.
They stay away from the heavily designed emails that look like a digital billboard you ignore as you drive past on the highway.
Instead…
They stick to minimal design elements (a logo, product picture, and/or footer social icons… at most) and focus on the message of the email.
Their goal is to build a relationship, earn your trust, and get you to click on things when they ask.
That’s it.
This is how you “sell” without selling in email.
But…
Before I get into the email we’ll be breaking down today, the rules for those who are new here:
Rules: The Email Muse
Each week, I brave the marketing wilderness to find highly-effective ecommerce sales emails… and I shine a light on what made them work.
My goal with this weekly tangle with The Email Muse is to teach you strategies and tactics you can use with email.
Where do I find these magical electronic pieces of mail? My inbox, mostly, since I’m signed up to lists that I want to be on. I also take suggestions from readers who have a stellar email they’d like to share.
Did you get an email recently that made you smile, your eyes tear up, or flat out gut punched you? I want to see it.
Forward the email to me at (chris at threebeaconmarketing dot com) with a brief note about what you liked about it. If I choose to break it down, I’ll give you a shoutout and link back to your site.
Oh, and don’t forward me the emails you wrote. That’s the only rule.
Let’s get started.
The Email – Beardbrand: “This blows!”
Now, what makes this email from Beardbrand so special?
Personality. Connection. Real.
This is why I wanted to break this email down for you today and shine light on what they’re doing that you can take back to your emails and try for yourself.
Here we go:
The from name is their brand name. This is fine for their brand. I’d like to see it come from Eric, their founder, or their in-house copywriter, Mike Lawson (Hey Mike!) to make it even more personality driven.
But… they still let the personality fly in these emails, and I love it.
Now, the subject line. “This blows!” doesn’t seem specific to beards does it? That’s the point.
Something that Beardbrand does really well is take real life situations and line them up with why you should use their products.
In this email, Bearbrand talks about the one thing that blows about having a mustache…
“If there’s one thing that blows about having a mustache – it’s blowing your nose while having a mustache.
Boom. Pain point.
They start in the first sentence with something that “blows” and pokes it.
Next, they go into the power of a mustache, ending with a great moment of honesty…
“Mustaches are powerful! They’re masculine and strong and represent virality — until they’re soaked with snot. Look, that manstache is practically a ShamWow for snot rockets. Yeah, it’s gross. This is not news to us. And as far as we know, blowing your nose has been an issue for mustachio’d men since the advent of mucus.”
The truth about blowing your nose with a mustache is it blows! There’s now way around it.
This is agitating the pain point of snot in your mustache.
Here’s what I really like about this body copy. It makes true statements. It talks about what a mustache represents. And then it goes straight for the honesty (like a friend would) and keeps it real about snot getting stuck in your mustache.
And then they end the body copy, here, with sharing that mucus has been a problem for mustaches for a long time. And that there’s really no hope in “fixing” this problem.
But…
“But as we make our way through flu season, we wrote a blog with five tips to help you keep your mustache a little less mucousy.”
Beardbrand ties the mustache snot to a common problem most people face this time of year – flu season. This gets people to nod their heads and go along with the idea that this email is speaking truth.
Finally, Beardbrand offers a solution to the mustache snot problem:
A link to a recent article on their site.
This is what’s called “congruency.”
Beardbrand is talking about the snotty mustache problem in their email. They offer a solution to that pain point. The link leads to an article that offers “How to Blow Your Nose When You Have a Mustache.” That’s congruent.
They also focus heavily on “selling the click” not the article. If they were to sell the article as what you should go read, they probably would get fewer clicks on their link. But, instead, they sell the idea that if you’re struggling with a snotty mustache, especially during flu season, clicking the link will help you out.
Nobody wants to read an article.
But somebody wants to solve their snotty mustache problem (and people who want to solve a snotty mustache problem will consume the solution in nearly any format. In this case, it’s an article).
If they would’ve linked to an article on How to Style Your Beard with Beard Balm, it would have been incongruent.
The link click would’ve been a betrayal, and Beardbrand would’ve hurt their reputation (aka trust) with the reader.
When you’re talking about one thing and switch gears without warning, your readers get whiplash and stop engaging. It’s like when you’re on a rollercoaster you’ve never ridden before – every damn turn whips you from left to right, up and down, because you’re not sure which way you’re going. This is uncomfortable and not the ride your reader signed up for when they opened your email.
Stay congruent.
The PAS Copywriting Framework
One of the biggest hurdles most brands struggle to overcome is not knowing what to write in their emails.
And it’s a valid concern.
It takes a lot of mental energy and focus to write a damn good email.
But…
If you go back through this Beardbrand email and read it again, there’s a copywriting framework that ties it all together.
It’s called the Pain, Agitate, Solution framework.
Let me show you:
Pain – blowing your nose and catching snot in your mustache.
Agitate – mustache represents virality and manliness, but not when you have snot hanging from it.
Solution – a link to an article that shows “How to Blow Your Nose When You Have a Mustache.”
This framework creates what’s called a “curiosity gap,” because you mention what the solution is, but you don’t say how it works.
And the absence of “how” is what gets people to click the link to read more.
Without that curiosity, well, people are ignoring your email and going back to watching another episode of White Lotus.
So the next time you are writing an email (or any copy for that matter) and you get stuck, think about the PAS copywriting framework.
What You Learned
Here’s the tl;dr of what you learned today:
- How to “sell” without selling
- Personality is a good thing (in a saturated market, it’s the only thing)
- Your “value emails” don’t have to be boring
- Sell the click, not what’s on the other side of the link
- Follow a copywriting framework to maximize persuasion
Now what?
- Book a call with 3BM to see if it makes sense to work together.
- Check out Beardbrand and their products.