An Email With a Very Slippery Slope

Going in a different direction with this one.

So far we’ve broken down 4 emails from ecommerce companies. Today we are going to shift gears and look at an email in the biz op niche.

This week we are breaking down an email from Grant Cardone.

Before I jump in, I would love your feedback on these breakdowns. Leave a comment down below or hit me up on LinkedIn and let me know.

As a reminder, every week I am going to pick a different email that I read and that “made me click.” I’ll break down the email from the subject line to CTA and share what I think they did really well. 

Hopefully I can share some insights into what makes a really good email and how you can use these insights to improve your click through rates and email conversions. 

If you have an email that “made you click” and you’d like me to break it down, shoot me an email at ben@henkenmarketing.com.

Now let’s get onto the good stuff…

Relying On Credibility To Reinforce Your Subject Line

“The event that humbled me”

This subject is super effective because of WHO it’s coming from. 

Knowing that it’s a story about Grant Cardone turns the curiosity up on this subject line to 11.

If you aren’t familiar with Grant Cardone, he’s one of the leaders in both the business world and the real estate world. He’s started multiple businesses, owns apartment buildings across the USA and is worth almost a billion dollars (or maybe he’s reached a billion already…)

He’s also known as a brash, in-your-face type of personality based on how he shows up on social media.

Having had the chance to talk with some people who know the real Grant Cardone, that’s not who he really is. But that’s beside the point.

This subject line is pure curiosity. I had to click to find out the event that “humbled” Grant Cardone.

The Slippery Slope of Email Copy

“Ben, 

I thought I was killing it. 

At the time, I had 3 profitable businesses and 300 units of real estate.

I thought I had it made.

I was wrong.”

Here, we are setting the stage. Grant is sharing his start and building credibility for anyone who isn’t familiar with his backstory. 

Everyone on his list knows about his current success, but my guess is that not many are familiar with how he got started. This initial email copy sets the stage without delaying too much.

Remember, I opened the email to learn about the event that humbled Grant. Not to hear about how awesome he is. So Grant doesn’t want to have too much extra information before he gets into the payoff for the subject line.

Here’s the slippery slope of the email…

The subject line gets you to open it and read the first line… the first line gets you to read the second… the second line gets you to read the third… and so on.

Our intro sentences here are short and they build on the curiosity that the subject line created without causing the reader to lose interest.

The Payoff for the Subject Line

“When the 2008 economic crisis happened, I got hammered.

My businesses got slaughtered…

My real estate plummeted in value…

Even the bank started calling my loans.

Not because I had ever missed a payment…

It was because they were the ones in financial trouble.”

Your subject line can be as curiosity driven as you want it to be. It can be salacious, open-ended, and even “click-baity.”

As long as you deliver.

If Grant had sent an email about the “event that humbled him” but then talked the whole time about how great he was…

That subject line would have been click-bait.

But here we have the payoff on the subject line and our first open loop has been closed.

The 2008 economic crisis was THE event.

Whenever you close a loop, you want to open another as quickly as possible. Don’t give the reader the chance to bounce away because they aren’t curious anymore.

Because of who Grant is, there’s an open loop that’s created naturally when he starts talking about his businesses “getting slaughtered” and his real estate “plummeting in value.”

We know that he is an uber successful person… So how did he bounce back?

OK… This Doesn’t Fit

Now at this point in the email, I’m hooked. I’ve bought into the story and I want to find out how Grant bounced back.

But then this happens…

The first part of this email was a masterclass in storytelling and open loops.

But inserting this image at this point in the email doesn’t make a lot of sense… at least to me.

Does financial trouble start tomorrow at 1 p.m. EST?

What is this Unbreakable Challenge?

Side note… this was part of a series of emails promoting the Unbreakable Challenge. But I honestly had only opened one or two. I was vaguely familiar with this Unbreakable Challenge but only knew a little about it.

Having a CTA “above the fold” is a good way to increase your CTR. But you want to make sure that it’s congruent with the rest of your email.

This CTA feels forced and doesn’t mesh well with the story or the text-based nature of the email.

After a solid start… this email has fallen on it’s proverbial face.

I would have rather seen the email just continue with the story…

“It was because they were the ones in financial trouble.

It was a hellish and stressful time…”

Recapturing a Little of Our Email Mojo

“It was a hellish and stressful time…

And it took months of hard knocks learning… 

But I came out of it smarter, richer, and better prepared to survive and thrive.

Today, I have multiple highly profitable businesses. 

My real estate empire… is over $4 billion in size. 

So what did I do differently?

A lot.

For starters, I didn’t shrink my goals. I didn’t start playing defense.

The other things I did were mostly strategic.

I learned how to make my businesses “Unbreakable” so they could survive any outside forces.”

After the weirdly placed CTA… we’re back into the story.

But it feels like our smooth story has been thrown off track a little.

The first two lines of this segment are a little clunky. I would think about eliminating the line “And it took months of hard knocks learning…”

Because then we slide right into the second open loop….

“What did I do differently?”

Now I think we can clean this up a little more as well…

“So what did I do differently?

A lot.

For starters, I didn’t shrink my goals. I didn’t start playing defense.

The other things I did were mostly strategic.

And I learned how to make my businesses “Unbreakable” so they could survive any outside forces.”

Simply by eliminating a few lines, we make this section a lot more slippery and get to that CTA quicker.

On To The Next Open Loop

“And once I did, it no longer mattered what the economy… the competition… or even the environment did…

My businesses continued to build, scale, and run like clockwork.

Look, I’ve spent over 40 years developing the plans that have helped me create multiple highly successful businesses.

I’ve refined and distilled what I’ve learned down to FIVE actionable frameworks.

I use these frameworks to build and scale every business I’ve created.

They work for ANY type of business.

Up until now, I’ve never shared them with anyone else publicly.

But that’s about to change.”

Here Grant shares a little insight into what “Unbreakable” means to his businesses.

And he opens the next loop… did you catch it?

Go back and read again…

“FIVE actionable frameworks.”

The slippery slope has led us through the 2008 economic collapse, ruin for Grant’s businesses, how he re-built his empire, making your business Unbreakable, and now his 5 actionable frameworks.

We’ve closed a few loops and opened a few more.

There may have been a few bumps in the slide, but here we are.

What are the five frameworks?

And you’ll see here that Grant begins to remove objections after introducing the concept of his five frameworks and introduces scarcity.

“They work for ANY type of business.”

You always want to be in the head of your reader, and this is the immediate question that people are going to ask themselves. “Well it may have worked for Grant, but will it work for MY business?”

And then “Up until now, I’ve never shared them with anyone else publicly.”

Here’s the scarcity angle and introducing some FOMO.

If Grant’s never shared these strategies before, I don’t want to be the one who misses out when everyone else is learning about them.

Call To Action Number 2 (or is it number 3?)

Remember the rule of ONE – always have ONE link, one CTA but present it in multiple formats.

Technically we have already seen two. The first was that weird image that seemed out of place. The second was when Grant told us that he “learned how to make my businesses “Unbreakable.”

Here is CTA number 2 (because I’m not really counting the image…)

“Starting tomorrow, I’ll be sharing my proven frameworks for the first time ever.

It happens during the Unbreakable Challenge.

This online 5-day live event is happening from January 24-28^th and I’d love for you to be there.

Here’s the link to register:

<< Remember – It’s 100% Free To Attend. >>”

What I love about this… it’s clear, not clever.

Tell the reader what to do. 

Click the link to register. 

3 More CTAs As Grant Closes Out The Email

“Look, building your own business is hard.

But you don’t have to come up with a plan on your own. 

You can use my proven frameworks instead.

I’m willing to share it with you for free… during the Unbreakable Challenge.

Make a commitment to yourself right now.

Make a real plan to learn my proven frameworks so you can put them into action in your own business.

It all begins when you grab your seat to the Unbreakable Challenge.

10X Every Day,

Grant

P.S. Have you claimed your free digital copy of my brand-new book, 10X Unbreakable Entrepreneur?

Just sign up for tomorrow’s FREE Unbreakable Challenge and it’s yours for free.”

Two things to learn from the end of this email…

Always leave the reader with an open loop that they either close by clicking a link or by opening your next email.

Here Grant is using the 5 frameworks as his open loop to get you to sign up for his Unbreakable Challenge.

Also, there is no limit to how many CTAs you can have. As long as they all go to the same place.

Having ONE link in your email is great for deliverability. But you can share that link as many times as you want to.

At the end of this email, Grant gives you three more opportunities to click the link.

“Grab a seat”

“Claim a copy of his brand-new book”

“Sign up for tomorrow’s FREE Unbreakable Challenge.”

I would have moved the Unbreakable Challenge image down to the bottom of the email. Gives yet another CTA and provides an image for people to click on.

(I just read a stat that people who click on an image are more likely to buy than people who click a link or a button… Not sure how valid that stat is, but something that’s worth testing.)

The image would have fit better at the end of the email and I think could have gotten a few more clicks.

Lastly… always have a P.S.

There will be people who skim the entire email and only read the P.S. 

In this case, someone may have missed the entire email, but seen the CTA to grab a copy of Grant’s new book. And that may have been all they needed to click the link.

BUT if there’s no P.S. that person is missed.

Lessons

>>Open loops are key

Open loops get someone to open an email and to click a CTA.

If you close a loop in your email without opening a new one… there’s no reason for your reader to click.

So if you’re looking to increase click through rates… open a loop that the reader can only close by clicking your CTA.

>>Rule of ONE

Provide multiple CTAs, but make sure that they all go to the same link.

>>Create A Slippery Slope

Remember Sugarman’s copywriting advice… create that slippery slope.

The subject line has one job – get them to open

The first line has one job – get them to read line two

Line two has one job – get them to read line three…

And so on. As you write your email, make sure you keep your reader on that slippery slope so that they have no option but to slide all the way down.

Preview for Next Week

Next week I’m jumping back into the world of ecommerce and breaking down an email from a brand that I love.

This email isn’t focused on getting a sale, but rather in building their brand message and developing relationships with their customer.

Stay tuned…

Until then… if you’ve got an email that “Made You Click” send it my way so that I can include it in my weekly breakdown. You can forward emails to ben@henkenmarketing.com

Next Steps

1. Leave a comment below – what did you think of this email? What did you like or dislike?
2. Share this breakdown with someone you know – know anyone with a DTC ecom store? Share this breakdown with them and they’ll thank you for it.
3. Follow me on LinkedIn for more content – and connect with me if you are an email marketer, ecommerce business owner, or course creator.