8 Email Openers

This is one of the most popular story starters ever.

Some of the biggest creators in the copywriting space use it so much you'd think they're sponsored and it's in the contract that they need to use it in 5 out of 7 emails every week.

And that of course means that everyone who aspires to be like those people also abuse this email opener.

I don't blame them. This opener is so good for stories.

That is because it's not only extremely effective as an opener, but also suuuper intuitive to use.

What you need to do for this story opener is answer these simple questions:

"Who? What? When? Where? Why?"

This is one of the classic ways we start stories in real life, too and that's why it's so good.

From the writer's side, it's easy to come out and start from there because it's the natural way you're used to doing it.

And from the reader's side, these are the kind of stories we always hear in real life so we've learned to be interested, tune in, and listen.

Now, I said you need to answer these 5 questions but in reality, it's easier than that.

You won't always need all 5 of them - just answer the ones that are relevant.

Eg you could say "Yesterday, I went to the supermarket to buy sardines because my dad loves them"

This has all 5 Ws answered.

Who? Me
What? I went (to buy sardines)
When? Yesterday
Where? To the supermarket
Why? (To buy sardines) because my dad loves them.

But you can use as little as 2 Ws if the situation fits.

Eg I used to piss my bed

Who? I
What? Used to piss my bed

From there, it's easy to let the story unfold as it happened (in examples like the supermarket one) or get to your main tying point of what you just said (in examples like the pants-pissing one).

From 2 to 5 Ws, all options are great and they all lead you forward in the same way so you can write a great, clear email fast.

You can't use 1 W, unfortunately.

Eg I was

Unless you are Rene Descartes and follow up with "therefore I am"

But you don't need to be a great writer or a poet to write a daily email.

But if you are a writer or love fiction, you might really like this next email lead in the next lesson.

A fiction favorite.

A book-enjoyer's baby.

A [third alliteration that you actually find very cool, thank you very much 😤].

With In Media Res, as the name suggests, you have to start in the middle of the action.

Now, you are writing emails, not the next big epic fantasy novel that's gonna turn into an Amazon TV series, so, most stories won't really have that much of an 'action'... in that sense at least.

If you were indeed writing a novel, you could do something grandiose like when I started one of my most popular novels with the protagonist facing the 'final boss' and seeing all his friends get brutally murdered before him.

(as in both in front of him and before he was murdered)

When you're writing story emails, though, while you might not be able to write something similar (unless you go for a completely fictional story, as we saw in the Email Ideas module), you can learn from openings like the one above.

Because they can teach you the right action to start from.

What's a more gripping story start?

"I put the cereal box on my shopping cart and kept walking through the aisle"?

Or...

"I had a hunch but my heart still plummeted when I saw the Slack notification from my client"

Obviously it's the second one.

But why?

Because the second one makes you feel.

It has pain. It has sadness.

It has emotion!

Of course it has other things going for it, too, like an open curiosity loop, relatability, etc but you don't need aaall of that to write a good In Media Res opening.

So, when you want to use such an opening, what I recommend is finding the juiciest, most emotional part of the story...

And start one step before it.

As you can see in the example above, I didn't start with "I got fired today" or "'you're FIRED'" or anything like that.

Although I could, I prefer to start a bit earlier and have a tiny build-up into it.

But also, does that mean you can't have openings like the cereal one?

In my opinion? You can.

It won't be as gripping or hookey or sensational as the 2nd one.

But if you have an email list you email frequently and you've built a relationship with, then you absolutely can write about random shenanigans like going to the supermarket.

Especially if you use it the way I teach in the Slice of Life archetype.

I also recommend it if you don't have a great relationship with your list but want to build one - like I said, it's not as hookey or sensational, so some people will leave but the ones who stay will have a much stronger bond.

Plus, you can grow it back, except this time it will be even better when you reach the same size.

Next up, we're continuing with stories but now we're slightly stepping into the realm of fiction.

See you in the next lesson.

If you're in the middle of the promo of a new product or you're constantly bringing new leads, this is a great story opener to explain the value of your product.

What you want to do here is start a story where you're reader is in it and you explain it through their POV.

You can use this opener in ways like:

"Picture this: You're in so-and-so place, doing this-and-that thing"

Or

"Imagine you're suddenly able to cook the perfect meal on demand, every single time..."

Or

"You wake up tomorrow and suddenly instead of money, we're using written words to pay for stuff (eg a starbucks coffee costs half a book page/140 words"

In general, you want to create a specific scenario and put your reader in the middle of it.

Either because you want to future-pace them about what your product can do...

Or to make them think in a different way...

Or even just explain how to handle a tough situation.

And as you saw, it doesn't have to be a pure 'internet marketing' type of opener.

You can use it with fictional stories too, which would be a much more entertaining way to make the same point.

But basically, no matter which way you decide to use this opener, what you do is put the reader in the center of the universe and start building the world from there.

Detail by detail.

And your point comes out naturally when you do that.

Next up, we're moving again to a different kind of story

Stories about you are awesome.

Stories with your reader as the protagonist can be really creative and persuasive.

But it would be a waste if you didn't use stories about other people in your emails.

First of all, people care about what other people do.

This alone helps your reader stay on the page.

But also, there's so much wisdom (and so much stupidity) in other people's lives and experiences that you just HAVE to tap into it.

The primary way I personally like to use it is by mentioning something great about someone else.

Eg "Charles Dickens was one of the first and most famous serialized authors"

And from there I could take it any direction I want.

I could talk about his writing speed or how he dove deep into uncertainty since he was the one that popularized this type of publication or anything else.

But you could also go heavy on the news and sensationalism like "OMG did you see what Trump just did with the new tariffs increase? Lolololoroflmao 😂🤣"

In both cases, and most of the time when writing this kind of stories, you start with the big event or important/impressive bit up top to grab the reader's attention and build from there.

This is the final lesson on story starters!

Believe it or not, just there 4 starters cover the VAST majority of stories told through email.

They are super helpful, super versatile and can help you tell 1,000s of different stories.

Next up, we're heading into Questions as email starters.

I'll see you there!

The first lesson of the Question starters is also the simplest ones.

What you want to do is just ask your reader a direct question and then answer it yourself.

This lets you share your perspective — which your reader cares about if they are subscribed to your list, you probably have some wisdom to pass on to them — and also prompts the reader to reply with their own answer, which is great for engagement.

They could agree with you, disagree with you, or give you an entirely different perspective.

And a lot of them you'll also be able to feature in future emails for more content.

Some examples could be:

"Do you ever struggle with starting your email?"

"How much of your business do you automate right now?"

"Did you know there's a way to sell more of your stuff while doing less hard pitching?"

"How much time do you waste in front of the computer without working?"

Questions are some of the most versatile email starters because they give you the boost you need to start writing your email but they hit a small pause to allow you to take it any direction you want after that.

Next up, we're going to talk about a fancier (and rarer) type of question

This is one of the most engaging emails you can send, as long as you don't give the answer away in the end, which would still be a great email but not as engaging.

You start your email with a quiz question like "If you had $500 and a SaaS product but 0 following or connections, what would be the quickest way to start making revenue?"

And then you can optionally give them options (pun intended) like A... B... C...

Then you can either expand and give hints or give the answer straight away or even tell a story about an approach someone took somewhen that may or may not have been the best way to go.

In the next lesson, we'll see an ol' friend make its comeback, but with a new, fresh fit.

Wooooooooh!

The WWWWW is back!

But with a twist.

Don't get mistaken, this is not the same as (or similar to) the WWWWW lessons we saw on the story starters.

I do NOT make duplicate content for the sake of adding more stuff.

(In fact, I wish I could make this course even SHORTER but it would not be as complete if I did)

Of course you'll still find some similarities in some parts, but that's inevitable when you want to create a system as complete as this one, but still, if you find a similar style or insight in 2 different parts, it's because it's being used in an entirely different way that didn't fit in its other lesson so it had to be part of the latter one.

With that out of the way, how do we use the WWWWW (Who, What, When, Where, Why) as a question starter?

In the story lesson, we answered 2-5 of those questions in a single sentence to set the scene.

In this case, we choose just one of the Ws to talk about a very specific topic.

For example:

"Who is the most prolific copywriter of all time?" or "Who else would love to add an extra 2 hours in their days?"

"If you had to start over, but kept only ONE skill, what would it be?"

"When was the last time you asked your audience what they really want from you?"

"Where is the passion for the craft nowadays?"

"Why are XYZs videos getting more views than yours, even though they're seemingly doing everything wrong?"

In the next lesson, we're going to learn about a different kind of question.

If I gave you a good hint in this sentence, you could guess what it is, couldn't you?

Alright!

Next up we have the Rhetorical Question!

A rhetorical question is a question that doesn't actually expect an answer from the other party.

It might be the rarest type of question just because it's often so indirect and thus not as easy to come intuitively.

(Though now that you know it and you don't rely on pure intuition, it's gonna be much easier to use it 😉)

There are 2 main ways I've seen people use this kind of question starter.

1) Some take a philosophical approach
2) Others prefer to go the internet marketing route.

The philosophical approach is a much better fit for a longform newsletter or if you want to write an email that builds a relationship instead of going straight for the sale.

These can be questions like:

"What is the true goal of your business?"

Or

"What makes us happy, really?"

The internet marketing approach is a simple and effective way to create a mindset shift for someone newer on the topic.

And a mindset shift is one of the best things you can do to become an immediate authority in your reader's mind.

Just do it once or twice in the first few interactions and you've elevated yourself to guru-level heights of authority.

Some example questions could be:

"Do you need social media to grow your audience?"

Or

"Is a headline necessary in a sales letter?"

This is the end of the Question starters and we've already covered 2 out of the 8 main types of starters!

There are many more lessons to go, but I'm sure lots of email ideas are already bubbling in your head - feel free to take a break and pump out an email before continuing, if you need to.

See you in the next, bold section!

When they zig, you zag.

This is what this bold starter is all about.

Start with one belief virtually everyone has...

And then shatter it to pieces.

No need for warm up or formalities - just straight to the point.

Obviously there's not quite a template for that because I can't tell you what your opinion is.

But you could say something along the lines of...

"Most copywriting courses are bullshit"

Or

"Lifting weights is one of the absolute worst ways to lose weight"

Point is, you wanna come out swinging.

And if you feel you're gonna piss some people off with this email starter...

You're absolutely correct! And you should piss some people off with it.

If you don't, it means the opener was not executed properly, since it wasn't controversial/contrarian enough

Now, the Provocative Declaration could be perceived as a Direct Contrarian starter on steroids.

But that's not the only (or necessarily the best) way to look at it.

I mean, yes, you could take what you wrote using the previous starter and juice it up

(eg "if you're a copywriter, your courses suck and you are scamming people out of their money")

But in this opening you don't need to necessarily be contrarian. You can just be provocative.

For example, take this infamous lyric from Eminem's "I'm Back" song from the distant year of 2000.

Is it contrarian? Or just provocative?

"I take seven kids from Columbine, stand 'em all in line Add an AK-47, a revolver, a .9 A MAC-11 and it oughta solve the problem of mine"

Of course you don't need to go as hard as the greatest rapper of all time (he's still criticized for that line 25 years later and is mentioned even in his latest album)...

But if you have something to say that you know is gonna generate a buzz, then it might be a good idea to go harder than you normally would, just to get the extra buzz around your name.

Of course, if you're operating in a certain niche, it's best if your provocation is niche-related, which will generate less buzz overall but more concentrated mentions of your name around the proper parts of the internet.

I will refrain from adding more examples here. You can read all my controversial and unapologetic thoughts in my daily emails, instead.

This is more of a bold starter than a controversial or a contrarian one.

You can be perfectly PG and agreeable and still write Pattern Interrupt openers.

A pattern interrupt is something that subverts the expectations of the reader.

For example, you could read an email subject line and expect a proper opener that eases you into the body.

But with a Pattern Interrupt, you get something you don't normally expect.

This could be a weird sentence (eg NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO FUCK NO!) or an image or an immediate cta or anything that's not expected.

The other way to use this in your openers is by adding the pattern interrupt in the idea of the first sentence, not necessarily in the structure or sentence selection.

For example:

"Stop writing social media and blog posts. This is the fastest way to grow your list"

Or

"Forget everything you've heard about Upwork proposals. Here are the only 2 types that work"

In the next lesson we'll talk about the final and — for most — the most fun bold opener.

Are you done with the world? Do you wanna give a giant middle finger to everyone and everything or to someone/something very specific?

This is the opener for you.

Take your tea and slowly let it spill (because if it wasn't the tea, it would be the guts of whoever upset you).

You know how some people say that "writing copy/sending emails is my therapy"?

That's because they have an outlet for their rants.

Whether you want to complain about the kids these days or talk about something that happened to you or the society itself or the state of the industry or the results of a promo, you can do it all with a good ol' rant.

Just start with whatever it is that pissed you off and sent you on a spiral.

(remember, spirals are good for content, so don't worry too much about it)

((as you can see, I'm the perfect mental health support friend))

For example:

"You won't BELIEVE what happened to me today..."

Or

"Is it just me or is the copywriting world diving deeper and deeper in the mud as time passes?"

Or

"Drag-n-Drop builders are the bane of my existence..."

Just start with the topic you wanna vent about and then let it loose.

That was all when it comes to Bold Openers!

Next up, we'll use some openers that can be used by every brand even if you don't want to be controversial.

I find that these kind of openers are used a lot by people who want to develop a cult-like following, so get excited!

Our beliefs are one of the biggest parts of who we are.

They shape our world.

And this means they also shape the world your readers experience when they read your emails and consume your products.

So, sharing your beliefs is important to attract the right people and repel the wrong ones.

Of course, you can weave these inside the email's body, but starting with it every now and then is a good idea.

For more content, you can do the same with not-so-serious beliefs.

Eg "I'm a firm proponent of milk before cereal, but this guy right here made a good argument" and then you jump into a silly story.

One other thing you can do is leverage your experience and credentials with this kind of openers.

Eg "After working with dozens of ecom brands, I've seen this to be true about LTV:"

It's a great way to establish the main theme from the start and keep your reader's attention even if you end up going on a few tangents down the line, because they know there's a reason and the tangents are leading somewhere.

Now, I have a confession to make: In the next lesson, we'll get a bit more 'in our feelings' and vulnerable.

I'll see you there.

One of the most personal openers you'll ever use.

Being vulnerable is not easy. Especially in front of a crowd of strangers (+ some friends).

But, just like in the Rant/Vent starter, the list is a great outlet to let some things out.

Helps with mind stuff and builds a really strong relationship with your list.

It's not the best for bringing immediate sales but it helps in the long term because of the relationship-building.

(Unless you guilt-trip or shame your audience into buying from you like some people out there do 👀)

You need to be careful with what kind of confessions you share and how often, as this can hurt your brand if you don't manage it properly.

And of course, you can also do the fake confession/vulnerability that flips into a flex or arrogance.

(eg "I'm sorry... for BEING SO GOOD AT SELLING YOU STUFF!")

((eg2 "You know guys, there's something that I don't talk about enough... and that's HOW GOOD MY XYZ PRODUCT IS!"))

Of course the opener is a confession but that doesn't mean the whole email should be fully confession-coated.

You can use it obviously for a Slice of Life or Fireside email but you could also transition into a Violins email or a Crusader one or any other that fits (there are a lot)

In the next lesson we'll talk about a starter that is always fresh by nature and sometimes, when you find a use for it, the email just flows super smoothly all the way to the end.

Welcome to the lightbulb moment opener!

To execute this opener correctly one must imagine Sisyphus happy that you just had a sudden, ingenious idea pop right into your head and you ran to your computer to share this with your audience.

If there is a pattern you've noticed or an idea you had lately or something that your data recently revealed...

Then this makes for a great way to start your email.

Like "Guys! I just realized this thing about sales page headlines!"

Or "I was just looking at my data and I found something crazy about what emails convert best"

This makes you look like a pioneer in your field that's pushing the boundaries of the industry and discovering new stuff.

Almost like a mad scientist laughing in their lab.

...or you can use it as just an opener, like it's not that deep 🤷

But if you DO want to and use this opener strategically, you can make it really impactful.

Either way, this is a great value/insight-based opener to use in your emails.

In the next lesson, we'll talk about some more of the highs you can share and how to do it.

Time to celebrate! 🥳

First of all, because you're ~half way through the openers. But also because this opener is all about sharing your wins and achievements!

Of course, as per usual, we don't just randomly share stuff. We do things strategically.

And, yeah, there are very few ways to mess up an achievement or win yet you can still do it if you believe.

Just like with mindset shifts, this is a great way to increase your authority in the eyes of your audience when the achievements you share are related to what you're selling and what they're there to learn from you.

Eg I could talk about a campaign I ran recently that got $85k in cash in 5 days and 6 emails.

This is great for showing people that you know what you're doing.

But if you want to use the same opener but for relationship building (with a tick of authority), instead, then you can talk about a win or achievement outside your niche, eg how you cooked a delicious dish or how you were able to get a new personal record in a run you went.

And if you still feel these are not enough ways to use this opener, know that you can also use this opener for smaller wins and achievements - not all of them need to be case-study worthy.

Instead, you can talk about a nice email you wrote that you feel proud of.

Or about how you finally managed to make the perfect espresso.

And then you can take this opener any direction you like, with the simplest one probably being the Straight Shooter for your new product launch.

Next up is the final opener in the personal sharing category currently, and we're still staying on current events.

See you there!

"Sooo.... What's up, doc?"

This is a famous, recurring line from Bugs Bunny.

Whenever he would make his first appearance in an episode, he would often be munching on a carrot and ask "what's up, doc?"

Well, with this opener, your job is to answer this question.

Tell your reader what you're currently doing or give them a general update on your life and/or business.

This is one of the openers that pull the curtain a bit more open and let your reader see more into your mansion.

Which again is great for relationship building but needs attention to not go into parasocial territory, since this is the same way we share stuff with our friends and family, so it's easy for the reader's brain to make the connection that "oh, they shared this with me. So we're friends now!"

You can talk about a new hobby you've started or a hobby you keep enjoying (Alin Dragu loves sharing about his golf adventures)

You can talk about something you've been doing at home (eg "I just fixed my leaky sink by myself for the first time")

Or it can be a business update (eg "I've been on the hunt for a VA lately")

It's also a great opener for writing personality-based, conversational emails, since this already sounds like a convo you'd have with a friend, so your mind keep working that way.

If you find yourself often starting your emails like a high school essay, you might wanna give this opener a try. What's up, doc?

This was the final lesson in the Personal Sharing starters - use it for good!

Next up, we're gonna hop into the most value-focused starters of the entire course! And we'll do our best to make them engaging and entertaining.

See you there!

The most direct and vanilla of the Direct Teaching category. It couldn't be missing from the list.

What you do here is take a lesson that would be relevant to your audience and deliver it in 1-2 paragraphs.

Of course you could dedicate the whole email the lesson, like we see in the Anti-Scrooge archetype, but that's not necessary.

If you deliver it in a concise way first, you can then continue however you want, eg using an a la Jesus approach or even a Venty Latte talking about all the people that do it wrong, are ignorant and refuse to learn the fundamentals.

So, as you can see, even though Direct Teaching sounds boring, there still are a lot of different ways you can approach it to make it fun and engaging.

For example, you could start with something like:

"When you write CTAs for buttons, you should use context-specific action words instead of generic 'buy now' etc"

Or

"After writing pop-ups for multiple ecommerce clients, I've found there's a split in approach depending on if you give more or less than a 10% discount"

And then you can continue the way you think is best.

In the next lesson we're gonna see a similar but more pithy version of this opener.

Again, we're here with a lesson for the reader, but this time, we are going to use one of the most repeated rules of storytelling (which applies to many many things other than storytelling).

Show don't tell.

We are going to show them what the lesson is.

Now this can be interpreted in lots of different ways.

You could indeed show with pictures that "this is what XYZ 9-figure brand is using as a pop-up to collect leads" and "this is a pop-up that converts at 10+% lead capture rate while asking for both email and SMS"

Or you could paint a picture with your words "let me show you what a top-tier customer experience looks like when you want to capture leads with a pop up"

Or if you want to go step-by-step for something more complex like "this is how you build a cart abandonment flow in Klaviyo"

The great thing about this type of opener is that there's immediate proof that you are legit. Because you're not just sharing anything. You're showing them the results (be it outcomes or deliverables) of what you're teaching.

So, this shuts down anyone that would otherwise want to dismiss you.

This time, you came with receipts.

Next up, the next lesson will show you how to make Direct Teaching actually super appealing.

This is how we take a Direct Teaching opportunity and make it much more desirable.

So desirable actually, that this kind of opener is also one of the most popular and most effective ways to start a sales page.

We are talking about the Secret opener.

And secrets naturally draw us in.

As children, we had secrets from our families and our friends, shared with maybe 1-2 people.

But also think about how massive it would feel back then to find one of your friends' diary.

Also, revealing a secret means there might be a way to do the same thing faster/better or find an approach that gives as much better returns than what we're doing now.

So, mentioning a secret gets people tuning in.

Now, in terms of reveal, you have 3 options.

(and that's important because it can impact your opener)

You could reveal the secret immediately (eg "the secret to eternal life is sacrificing a chestnut in a blue moon while playing with your bellybutton")

You could reveal the secret at the end of the email (eg "By the end of this email, you'll know the secret skill A-list copywriters master to write killer sales pages every time")

Or you could not reveal it at all because that's reserved for inside the product (eg "You know how A-listers always feel confident about pumping out killer sales pages? That's because they have a secret skill they've mastered... the same skill that got them to A-list level (it's obviously not copywriting)"

Different openers have different effects in curiosity and readership, so it depends on what your goal is.

Obviously the secret that's revealed at the very start will most often be the one that feels the least valuable because 1) why would you reveal it raw like that if it was extremely valuable and 2) you haven't explained the importance of the secret enough for them to understand yet.

In this final lesson about Direct Teaching, we're going to do something similar to the first one, the Lesson Sharing but applied to bigger or/and more complicated processes.

This is also a perfect fit for a Listicle type of email if you have a step by step process.

But also, it's a great way to pass a mindshift to your reader.

If they have a specific process in mind for doing X thing and you show them the same process but with a few steps being different or re-arranged, you create a shift in their minds as the reason for their problem finally clicks and you become an authority in their eyes.

Also, if most other people are cryptic or generic about how a big task is done, this is a great opener to dive into an enlightening email.

Eg "Everyone's talking about writing sales pages, but no one actually explains how you go from 0 words to 4,000+. Here's the process you need to follow:"

This brings us to the end of the Direct Teaching openers. They can be boring but they're also extremely useful in a lot of cases.

Now it's time to go to the next section, which is a very promising one.

This is probably what comes to mind when we think of a promise in marketing.

And honestly, it doesn't need too much explanation.

"I'll help you get your next client"

"I'll show you how to do market research"

"I'll teach you to be rich"

"I'll explain how money works"

"I'll show you the world"

And as you saw, it doesn't have to be related to a product or pitch necessarily.

But even in promises, there's nuance.

And this nuance lies in the additions and expansions you can add to the promise.

You can add the element of time - in two ways.

1) In the time it will take for them to do the thing (Eg "I'll show you how to land at least one high ticket client in 21 days")

This works great for bigger promises that take a long time to fulfill normally

2) In the time it will take you to deliver the promise (Eg "In the next 5 days, I'll teach you everything you need to land high paying clients")

This works great for dripped-out courses (eg email-delivered courses or courses that unlock 1 lesson per day in a platform) or for cohorts/bootcamps.

You can promise many solutions in one promise, like "Here are 5 ways to get rid of impostor syndrome"

You can promise the same thing but better, like "I'm going to show you the easiest/fastest/most complete ways to do XYZ"

What better way to start your day (or your email) than with a heavy dose of fear?

Kidding aside, a great and not-always-obvious, promise-based opener is a negative promise or a promise of impending doom.

Here, what you do is you flash a 'caution' sign that something bad is about to happen.

Either because of some events that happened or because of something your reader is doing but they have time to change before the bad stuff reach them.

Direct response businesses are very fond of this kind of opener in emails and especially in sales letters, because:

1. It makes you immediately feel something negative that you want to then push away
2. We as people tend to more easily run away from bad stuff than run towards good stuff and they want to take advantage of it

It's a common pattern of many multi-million campaigns that "the world is changing forever. You need to act fast and join the new era or get left behind by those who will"

This happened with:

• AI Copywriting
• Actually still happens routinely in the stock market
• It happened back in the day with the actual gold rush
• And it will continue to happen for as long as selling exists

A recent example is Stephan Georgi's new course, RMBC II, where the headline literally is "Copywriting is DEAD" and continues to show how you'll get replaced by AI-enhanced copywriters if you don't act fast.

Same with "There's a new railroad across America and it's making some people very rich" where again if you didn't act now, you'd get left behind by the people getting rich.

But you can also warn people against something they are currently doing that's actively harming them.

For example, "No one will read your emails if you're doing this"

Or "This thing you're saying in sales calls is ruining your chances to get a deal"

Or "Continue eating the seeds from the water melon and this will happen to you"

Or "If you want to avoid going back to a 9-5, you have to stop doing XYZ"

Have you ever heard of Sherlock Holmes? I bet you have. And this proves

Sometimes the best promise is the promise hidden in a mist of mystery.

Because when we have missing information, our brain tries to fill it as well as it can based on the surrounding info.

So, if I tell you "I have prepared an amazing offer for you today" then your brain will think about something that would be amazing for you and will get you excited based on that.

Now, what I have prepared for you might be exactly what you thought or might be something exactly different.

And what I have prepared for you can fall anywhere on the spectrum from complete bummer to best thing ever, even better than what I expected.

But none of it matters until the big reveal. Until then, you have already formed an opinion based on the info I've strategically revealed.

This works best when you have in your hands something that you KNOW it's gonna take your reader's expectations and blow them out of the fucking water.

But you really really need to know that you've done something much better than they expect. Because if you fail to deliver, then you're cooked my friend.

And when this happens, it's hard to regain the reader's trust (and make them give you their money again).

We don't like getting disappointed. So, when something like this happens, we over-correct and really lower the person's rankings in our mind. So do it badly just once and you might lose some buyers forever. But do it well once and you might win some forever buyers.

Sometimes you don't need to promise actual things in your opener.

Promising to change someone's belief is an actual promise too.

Like "I'll show you why Upwork is actually a GREAT platform to get clients"

Or "If you thought AI can't write good copy, think again"

What's great about this opener is that it can make a huge impact in the way your reader sees you, since it gives you the opportunity to create this mindshift that turns you into an authority... while still being a much easier promise to believe than something actual, like making money or finding clients or any direct promise where people are naturally skeptical.

And it can also work in tandem with the promise of impending doom, like in the "copywriting is DEAD" example.

And of course, the easiest promise to make is to promise an experience.

It can set the tone for an amazing email when you have something juicy to share.

Eg "you are going to LOVE what I have for you today!"

It can easily bring up the excitement but there's another sneaky reason this works so well.

The vast majority of people don't know what to think or how to feel the vast majority of the time.

And this type of opener can set the right frame or right point of view to look at what you have to say.

Because maybe what you have to say is indeed AMAZING but only from the right angles or the reason it's amazing might not be immediately obvious.

This makes it easier for your reader to have the response you want them to have.

And without it, while people would still get excited by your message, it wouldn't be as many people and they wouldn't be as excited.

Telling people how to feel is a weirdly effective way of making people feel a certain way.

If we're being honest, you won't be using this specific opener too much unless you have a very specific (and niche) voice and format in your emails.

You just tell your reader about an offer you have before continuing your email. Or you could even leave it at that if you want to.

I have a client where this is exactly what I'm doing, as part of a specific flow, and it's actually printing.

Of course, there's context that came before the email, it's a good offer, and plenty of stuff have been orchestrated in general, so don't think I'm promising you this opener by itself just prints.

What I'm saying instead is that in the right circumstances and the right context, it makes a lot of sense to be simple, direct, and remove any fluff.

Think about how you could implement it for yourself.

This opener is more common than the one above just because it has a persuasion element built in. We've now added urgency and/or scarcity in it.

This is the kind of opener you want to use in the middle of a very tight promo to keep the offer in your reader's mind.

And the great thing about this is that oftentimes you can use this opener as the main topic of your email, if you have a limited amount of items for example, you can talk about why there are so many/few left now.

Or if it's something you offer every once in a while and then close the cart again, you can segue into what happens if they ignore/take this offer

I've seen a lot of people using this kind of opener when they begin promoting an offer they have.

Derek Johanson of CopyHour is one of them

Once a month or so, he's running a week-long campaign for one of his offers.

And most of the time, he starts the first email of the campaign by announcing he's going to be promoting XYZ offer this week and then dives into the email.

I've also seen a lot of people who are afraid of annoying their audience use this type of opener when they run a campaign, to let them know they are promoting something and they can tune out of it by clicking a link.

I'll be honest, I'm not a huge fan of those 2 approaches but to each their own.

One way I do like to use this kind of opener is by announcing this sale (which ideally is kind of a surprise sale) by making it a big, FUN event.

Like oh the circus just opened for a short while and it's gonna be lots of fun for the next 3 days.

Sales should be exciting, especially if you're making the right offer to the right audience, they should be HAPPY to see you selling a bunch of stuff to them.

And this is your opportunity to open up with a bang.

I've seen this type of opener a lot recently and I think I like it.

Basically, before you start your email you start with a reminder section.

It can have special design and UI but ideally not, because people learn to ignore that different part if it has too many unwanted stuff too often.

So, what you can do is start with a straight up reminder like "Reminder: in 24 hours XYZ sale ends - make sure to grab it before it's over"

Obviously you can dramatize it as much or as little as you want, you know about copy, you don't need me to tell you that.

And another thing you can do is start with 1-2 lines about today's topic, then pause — ideally with an open loop or cliff hanger — and weave in the reminder for your offer or have a literal commercial break/sponsorship placement by yourself.

Then, you can continue your email as normal, but you've already reminded your reader of the offer and don't have to wait until the end of the email to bring the CTA.

Of course that doesn't mean you shouldn't have a CTA for that same offer again at the end — you absolutely should!

(could turn stuff like commercial break etc as breaking the 4th wall here - im not sure what I meant by breaking the 4th wall when I wrote that, but that's probably it)

This is a very simple and relatively low-effort opener to use since a large part of it is sharing what someone else wrote.

But still, there are ways to make the opener more interesting and your reader stay more engaged.

Now, content can mean a lot of things, but what I mean in this case specifically is things like:

• Testimonials
• Replies to your emails/comments to your posts
• Social media posts/videos you found in the wild (X, Reddit, YouTube, Substack, Threads, TikTok, etc)

Now, in theory what you have to do is introduce how you found the piece of content you want to talk about -> featuring that piece of content -> riffing off of it.

Kinda like:

• "A new customer of XYZ course wrote me to say this:"
• "I got this reply after yesterday's email:"
• "I found this post when I was scrolling through [platform]"

And that's completely fine.

A lot of people do that.

But if you want to use this like a pro, you gotta add some more stuff before you feature it.

Stuff that will increase your reader's curiosity and intrigue, and ideally hint at drama coming up.

And you can do that in 3 ways:

• You can add adjectives (or descriptions) to the person
• You can add adjectives (or descriptions) to the content
• You can add adjectives (or descriptions) to the situation

(and obviously you can use a combination of the above)

Adjectives (or descriptions) to the PERSON:
A long-time subscriber and highly-successful copywriter had this to say about my sales page approach:

Adjectives (or descriptions) to the CONTENT:
A recent buyer sent me this "kinda-sus" testimonial to my new course XYZ:

Adjectives (or descriptions) to the SITUATION:
AI is absolutely cooked and these posts I've been seeing lately more-than-prove my point:

Remember, we're writing email copy. Being casual and conversational is great, but it's also quite a profitable idea to make things look as good as possible.

Update: funny coincidence but right after I finished writing this section, I checked my emails and Alin Dragu had just sent an email to his list using this exact opener.

I was honestly thinking about adding the memes inside the 'Content somebody else wrote' lessons.

In the end, I decided against it, because memes are kinda unique.

Yes, a lot of the stuff we mentioned earlier also apply when you share memes - you still want to increase curiosity, intrigue, and drama.

That being said, I need to expand a bit for memes.

Because you can't just take a random meme and feature it. I mean you can, but unless your audience is there for your random memes instead of whatever it is you want to teach and sell, then it won't be that great.

You want to find memes that tie to a great — or even better, to a horrible — take and riff off that.

Another type of meme that's great for sharing is the kind of meme that's tied to a core belief you have. You can use it then in so many ways, even escalate things and use it as a Crusader email.

For example, I could share a meme of two people having a picnic inside the gym, next to the weights, with a caption of "me and bro between sets"

This is an extreme representation of what's true: people who lift with high intensity need to rest longer (which I don't mean as a form of superiority, it's literally a different kind of training for building more strength rather than more muscle).

And in general people in the gym need to rest longer than the average trainer tells them and I could go on to talk about all that, just like I am now.

This one's great for people who are closer to a beginner level in their topic and are still learning heavily.

Or for people that like to go through a lot of books and educational material in general.

Because what you can do is find one single sentence that you found interesting and feature it in your email.

Like "Oh, I was reading XYZ book and found this part about how to create ad copy that appeals to a colder audience" and then feature that part.

It's great if the book or course or whatever you're going through has to do with the topic you talk about because you're increasing your status in the eyes of your audience in real time when you're doing that since they can see you learning.

But you can also take an excerpt from a completely irrelevant book because you:

• Like the writing
• Liked the message
• Resonated with the MC (MC stands for music creator btw... oh and main character too)
• Found a typo and you wanna scorch them
• Literally any other reason

And by the way, double whammy on the Alin Dragu email because that Substack post he featured in his email earlier actually had a photo of a book page with a specific paragraph highlighted.

Very featuristic stuff.

I've found two main sources of questions you can use as an opener.

The first one, which is also the one I recommend the most, though not everyone has access to it, is questions from your audience.

Let people ask you questions around the area you are an expert in and you can feature them in your emails.

The second comes from Quora, which is a website exclusively for asking questions.

You can also use websites like stackexchange if you operate in a more niche topic.

It's like Reddit before reddit was created. While mainly used for programming (stackoverflow), you can find a lot of cool stuff around a huge variety of topics (I've mostly looked stuff around history, sci-fi, and world-building there).

In both cases, the introduction works the same way we talked about in content someone else wrote and then you decide which way you wanna go. You:

• Answer the question (obviously)
• Talk about the nature of the question
• Talk about the reader's false beliefs that led to the question
• Anything else related to that questions without necessarily answering it