Author: Chris Pearson, Partner & Email Marketing Specialist at 3BM
Summer of 2022, I made the decision to propose to my girlfriend (soon to be wife).
I did the whole shopping for engagement rings thing, but I noticed something interesting…
The “men’s department” for rings was lacking.
They all looked, felt, and sounded the same.
Nearly every website could have swapped branding and nothing would have been different.
I couldn’t help but dig deeper to see if there were any brands AT ALL that were selling men’s wedding rings that actually had a personality.
Oh, and did I find a gem?
Yes, an absolute gem!
When I get my ring, I will be buying from this brand. Hands down.
Why?
Because they’re funny, different, and resonate with me emotionally.
Introducing:
“John and Michelle, co-owners of Manly Bands had such a horrible experience finding John’s wedding band. There was no place to get cool options, find a ring that fit or even be close to a normal budget, and the customer experience was just awful. So they both quit their jobs, moved across the country, got married, and started Manly Bands out of their new garage — all in 30 days!”
Read the rest of their story and meet their team.
Rules: The Email Muse
Each week, I venture through 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 your emails.
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.
And no forwarding me your own emails. That’s the only rule.
Capeesh?
Let’s get started.
Subject Line: Identity
Look at how Manly bands taps into the identity of their potential shopper while also injecting humor:
Here, Manly Bands focuses on two common questions asked of every product these days:
What are the materials? Where are they sourced?
As awareness increases about how supply chains, manufacturing, and material sourcing, brands will need to talk more about where and how they get their materials.
While this may sound tedious and “over the top,” it’s an opportunity to get people’s attention where most brands won’t think to go.
Sharing your brand’s unique process on sourcing materials and manufacturing products is not new, but it is powerful.
How?
Because your brand may source the same materials as your competitors, but your competitors are talking about the unique process that makes those materials into the products you sell.
Schlitz Beer did this with their 4,000-foot deep artesian wells to extract the purest water for their beer.
Sure, every other beer brand did something similar, but none of them were talking about it.
Schlitz started that conversation, so when other beer brands joined the “show and tell,” they were seen as “copying” the competition.
This skyrocketed Schlitz to the top of the charts for a while.
So, even in the most obvious, mundane places, you can find angles and information people will pay attention to, as well as set your brand apart from the rest.
Opening Line: Reminder about the spRING sale
A simple reminder about their 30% off spRING sale:
In many cases, you can keep emailing your list on a weekly/daily basis without really changing much with your strategy for promos EXCEPT for putting a reminder at the top of the email.
This is a great way to keep your list engaged and entertained without it feeling like you’re pushing too hard with the sale.
People worry that they may send to their list too often, but…
If you segment properly, keep your emails “on topic,” and assume that the people on your list are there because they want to be…
You can get away with a lot of antics before people get “burned out” or “frustrated.”
I’m not saying push the limit on this, but…
What I am saying is that people see your positive intent and recognize you’re attempting to help them solve a problem, avoid pain, or achieve a desire.
That goes a long way.
Body Copy: Personality and Humor
This is the reason I wanted to break this email down:
Manly Bands uses personality and humor to give a different perspective on wedding rings for men.
If you shop for men’s wedding rings, you’ll find it’s like a dingy old back room with low lighting and the stringent smell of sulfur for some reason.
Us men don’t get a whole lot of attention when it comes to representing our commitment to our partners.
Maybe I’m wrong…
But…
Manly Bands leans into their target market and offers up a funny, tongue-in-cheek way to connect with and access wedding bands.
Callback: Subject Line
Here’s the callback to the subject line:
One of the major concerns for ring shoppers are the materials and where they are sourced.
Over the last few decades, consumers have become more aware and curious about where their products come from.
This, like mentioned earlier in this article, is a great way to set yourself apart in an industry that hasn’t changed for say a few thousand years.
You get a ring. I get a ring. We make a promise. Yay!
How do you make that different?
You focus on a specific market, inject humor, and shake things up a bit.
One other thing to note, here, too, is this:
The morally superior/ethically sourced feature of Manly Bands plays on the identity of the customer.
When writing copy (or designing something), spend some time assessing WHO your customer is emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.
Where are they in space and time when they encounter your offer?
Their morals, values, and beliefs play a huge role in their decision making process.
This means that if you understand their psyche, you can help them see the value in buying from you… because you can show how your products line up with their world view.
You can show them where they are, where they want to be, and the gap between the two…
Guess what fills that gap?
Your products.
In other words, psychographics are what drive the human to do, say, and be a certain way.
If you can place your product in that line of doing, saying, and being, then you can make more sales.
Obvi you want to do it ethically. But, this is how you turn strangers into raving fans.
You connect their identity to your product so they can achieve a desire or avoid pain.
More Humor and Identity
Check out this subheadline:
Manly Bands continues to play on the customer’s identity around ethically sourced materials.
They also do it from a tongue-in-cheek manner, focusing on the emotional side of things, not the logical.
CTA: Reassuring the buyer’s decision to purchase
Get rid of that guilt:
Many Bands gives the reader a way to buy guilt-free.
If they feel guilty shopping for rings, then they now have a way to clear their conscious.
They can buy from Manly Bands and get an ethically sourced ring without the guilt of without polluting the planet.
Because “pollution is laaaaaaaaame.”
Conversation subtext
A little extra bonus here…
When we speak with one another, there is a subtext beneath the words. It’s the meaning behind the words that we’re saying. The words you use and the subtext beneath are tied to emotions and memories. These emotions and memories are how we conceptually make sense of the word.
Concepts drive communication.
Unless we tie our words back to a known or familiar concept, we may as well be speaking gibberish.
Humans won’t connect emotions unless the concept is known or familiar.
This is why when you choose a topic, opinion, and way to present something, you also should discuss which emotion(s) you want the audience to feel.
Yes, you can get people to feel emotions like happiness, anger, fear, sadness, surprise, anticipation, and more on purpose.
We cannot flip a switch in their brains manually, but we can present information, patterns, and stories to people to suggest and evoke those emotions.
This is why storytelling is a massive market worth hundreds-of-billions.
Manly bands chose their concept, went with the “guilt-free ring shopping” angle, and injected a little personality and humor.
This makes their brand voice unique to any other men’s ring company on the planet.
This is how you can make your brand stand out, too.
What You Learned
Here’s the tl;dr of what you learned today:
- Focus on speaking to your customer’s identity, not their brain.
- Find the unique in the mundane. If everyone does it, why aren’t they talking about it?
- Personality and humor resonates with morals, values, and beliefs. This attracts your ideal customers.
- Your brand ought to have a brand voice and tone. This separates you from your competition.
- Concepts are how we communicate. Subtext and memories are how we feel.
Now what?
- Book a call with 3BM to see if it makes sense to work together.
- Check out the Manly Bands website.