I once heard a story from a copywriter.
A prospect asked him to write a million dollar sales letter for him.
The copywriter said,
“Okay, how many people are on your email list?”
And he replied, “Oh, actually I don’t have a list.”
“Okay…do you have a product?”
“…No.”
“Well, there’s nothing I can do for you then.”
And that was the end of that conversation.
A lot of people seem to think copywriting is a skill that’ll magically bring in sales. Even I was one of those people when I first heard about it.
Admittedly, it was part of the reason why I got into copywriting. Of course, now I know that isn’t entirely true and still enjoy the craft regardless. The words do carry some of the effort in making sales, but there’s more to it than that.
Ed Mayer explained it perfectly.
If you don’t know, he was famous in the direct marketing world for producing great results and providing great marketing education.
At one point, he developed what was called the 40-40-20 rule, which worked like this:
40% of your marketing success has to do with your audience. In the case of email, is your list full of engaged, ready-to-buy subscribers? Or is it plagued with fake email addresses and freebie seekers?
40% has to do with the offer, and that in and of itself has a lot of components to it. Everything from whether or not the product sucks or not, the pricing, special promos, bonuses, etc.
And the last 20% has to do with everything else.
Which is why when people ask questions like, “What’s the conversion rate of this campaign,” it’s pointless.
I may have an email campaign that converted 90% of my list to buyers, but I can’t guarantee I’ll be able to reproduce the same results for someone else.
There are just too many outside factors to consider.
So what’s the logical solution?
Making your offer the best it can possibly be and build those strong relationships with your subscribers.
To learn how to do that through email, read my How to Become an Email Titan book.