Ice Bath Anyone?

Two weeks in a row I get to break down emails from ecommerce brands that are using copy heavy emails.

My wife and I have had a love/hate relationship with ice baths and cold showers for a couple of years now.

For a few months I was even taking a 5-minute cold shower each morning.

And I grew to really enjoy it.

Recently my wife has begun to do the same and there are some noticeable benefits.

But as we are looking ahead to being a full-time RV family, we are going to have to make some adjustments. And figuring out how to minimize our footprint has become even more important.

So when she found this portable ice bath… I was intrigued. 

This week’s Made Me Click email breakdown is focused on two emails from nurecover.

A brand that sells portable ice baths.

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…

4 Surprising Benefits

Subject Line: 4 Surprising Benefits Of Ice Therapy

There’s a lot that I like about these two emails, but there’s also some room for improvement.

Starting with the subject line and preview text.

First, subject lines that are in title case scream “This Email Is Trying To Sell You Something!”

Other than that, this subject line is good. It generates enough curiosity to make me want to open. I might change out “surprising” for “lesser known” but I don’t know that it’s necessary.

Worth an A/B test though…

Next the preview text is just the start of the email. Which looks clunky because the start of the email is a linked image header. 

So the preview text looks like this… //nurecover.com/products/ The benefits of ice therapy…

Preview text is a simple way to stand out if done right. Make sure you test and see how it appears in your subscribers inbox.

The opening to the email is solid, if not spectacular. I opened the email to check out the teased benefits, and this opening is simple enough that I want to keep reading.

Something to note…

Try to avoid phrases like “most of us” of “all of us.” Emails should be written to one person. So speak in terms of me and you. Not us and we.

First Two “Benefits”

These are both really interesting. I actually knew about the second, but I’ve done some research on cold therapy (thank you Dr. Andrew Huberman) and I probably know more than the average reader.

BUT… there’s one big but here… these are not benefits.

At least not what’s in bold.

Activating the diving reflex? 

Stimulating the release of norepinephrine?

These aren’t benefits… they are more along the lines of features. 

Each description ends with the benefits…

Activating the diving reflex… so that… you feel super calm and relaxed.

Simulates the release of norepinephrine… so that… you experience reduced feelings of stress and anxiety.

These bullets would be stronger if we lead with the benefit and followed up with the why.

Benefits 3 and 4

Similar thought process here. 

These bullets lead with features and end with benefits. I would flip them just like we talked about with benefits one and two.

Which list is more appealing?

Cold therapy:

• Activates the diving reflex
• Stimulates the release of norepinephrine
• Reduces cortisol levels
• Activates your sympathetic nervous system

OR

Cold therapy can help:

• Your body conserve oxygen and makes you feel super calm and relaxed
• Reduce feelings of stress and anxiety
• You feel more at ease
• Improve your resilience to stress and make you mentally stronger

Remember that most people are going to skim your email and only read the bolded parts. 

So while nurecover does a great job hitting both the benefits and the science behind… someone who skims the email is only going to see the science.

And that’s much less appealing than the benefits.

The Close

I love this finish. Clean, on message, and provides two different CTA that lead to the same place.

I also love that this email is signed off by a person.

Now I don’t know who Adam is, but I would assume that it’s someone important. The founder, CEO, etc.

But honestly it’s not important. Having the email come from a person rather than a brand is always better.

With that in mind… I’d love to see the email show up in my inbox “from” Adam rather than nurecover. And it would be nice to see some personalization at the start of the email to make this feel even more like a letter from one person to another.

A Hidden “Trick”

I’m seeing this more and more… 

And for good reason.

The more text that you have in your email… the better it looks to email providers (Google, Apple, Yahoo, etc.)

And you’ve got a better chance of landing in the primary tab vs the promotions tab or worse, the SPAM folder.

What’s down here doesn’t really matter (my guess is less than 1% of your openers actually read it) but if it helps deliverability… 

Email #2 – Boosting Testosterone

Subject Line: Studies Reveal: Do THIS For A Few Minutes a Day to Boost Your Testosterone

Again, a good subject line that is hurt by title case. It’s also really long… 

When I opened this email on my phone, the subject line cut off after “Minutes”

No mention of boosting testosterone.

Always make sure to test your emails on desktop AND mobile.

Again, the lead in this email is good if not great. I would love to see some more personalization and more of a one-to-one feel.

Just like the first email, we’ve flipped the benefits and the “features” of cold therapy. 

But, it works better in this case because someone who is skimming this email already knows that it’s about increasing testosterone.

Which is just an overall good thing.

Karen… ?

I love using testimonials and I don’t think you can overdo it.

BUT… in an email about increasing testosterone levels…

A testimonial from a female customer seems a little out of place.

I know that testosterone is present in both males and females and that both can benefit from increases in testosterone.

BUT… I think it would make a lot more sense to include a testimonial from a male customer here rather than from Karen. (And of course, I’m assuming that Karen is a female…)

Removing Objections

Closing out an email by removing objections is always a strong move, especially when the email is targeted towards prospects not customers.

I’m pretty sure this email is part of the welcome flow, so it would stand to reason that our goal here is to convert a first time buyer.

I would change this final CTA to be aligned with the subject line and body of the email.

So rather then “reap the benefits” I’d focus on “boosting testosterone.”

CTR typically increases when your CTA is aligned with your subject line. Or in some cases it works even better to make your CTA the SAME as your subject line.

Lessons

Let me know in the comments or on LinkedIn what you thought of this breakdown.. 

Here’s some take-aways.

>>Make sure you are writing to one person, not a group of people

>>Avoid title case in your subject lines

>>Highlight benefits, not features

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.
4. Subscribe to my email list – and get all my email breakdowns as well as my email tips and tricks sent directly to your inbox.