Email Copy Breakdown: The Great Laura Belgray
For today’s email copy breakdown, we are going to dive into one from the Great Laura Belgray. If you’re not on Laura’s email list, you really should be. Even if you’re not an email nerd like I am, she has some serious storytelling chops and will brighten up your day.
To be completely transparent, this might end up being more of an homage to her awesome, I mean she’s Laura F*ing Belgray...but let’s see what happens.
Let’s start with the subject line…
Three humiliating mistakes
Laura sent this email as part of the welcome sequence when you first sign up to her list. Open rates for a welcome sequence tend to temper out as the sequence progresses. Unless you hit them with something completely unexpected.
This is exactly what Laura does. A lazy marketer might put something like “Don’t miss a chance to whitelist my emails” or the even lazier “IMPORTANT. Open for important information”.
No not Laura, she gets you with intrigue right away. I mean who doesn’t want to read about humiliating mistakes (especially someone else’s). She leaves it open to interpretation, are these mistakes you could make or mistakes that Laura made? Either way, you’re going to open this email.
This is probably one of my favorite whitelist requests. There’s no fluff, she asks what she wants you to do right in the first paragraph of the email. It’s dripping with Laura’s personality, makes you smile and if you’re like me you whitelist her emails.
**We already like each other, right? I’m feeling it. Do us both a favor and move this email to your inbox, if it landed somewhere else and/or whitelist my email address -- because I want to be in the box where your friends go, not the one with the unopened offers to pillowcase sets.**
She ends this section with a transition. Is it a silky smooth transition? No. But, it does a good job at separating the first ask in this email from the other sections.
See, you get good freebies from me. But I like that our relationship started off from a pure place. This is like in the movies when one person hides that they’re filthy rich to make sure the other person really loves them...and then they get married, and then, surprise! We own 3 planes! And a mansion with its own amusement park! And Richard Branson! (Not that Richard Branson, Richard Branson is the name of our purebred race pony.)
Seriously?! Only Laura does similies this sweet that paint pictures that evoke emotions, make you smile and get her point across. This is super hard to do (trust me, I try). Now, does she need to add the bit with Richard Branson? Nope, of course not. We would still feel the feelings and smile without it. But, that one very specific detail does something the other details don’t, it makes the statement memorable.
This is all to say, you passed the test, Jenn. We can get married now. And ride off into the sunset on Richard Branson.
Thanks for believing in me.
Oh wait -- don’t go yet! Did you get up in my Insta? That’s some key Talking Shrimp shizz. OK, as you were.
xoLaura
The second ask. Usually, we stick to one ask or one objection per email. But, there are times when a second ask doesn’t take away from the first. In this case, there are people that no matter how much they enjoyed your email aren’t going to pause their day to whitelist the email.
(Or maybe they have no clue what whitelisting is... Like I didn’t until recently)
Anyway, there are people that just won’t whitelist, but they will click on a link to check out IG. Especially if they enjoyed the email.
pps - What made you sign up for my list? How’d you find me? Have you been watching me from a window across the street for 3 years and you just now realized you could find out everything about me just by subscribing? You can tell me. I know you’re there.
Then Laura ends with a sneaky way of getting her original ask. Did you know that when people respond to your emails that their email provider is most likely going to start sending your emails to their inbox? I can guarantee you that Laura knows that. Hence her ending with questions for you to reply to.
To wrap it up…
I already admitted to loving Laura’s emails. Are they classically perfect and follow every email rule? No. But she’s the perfect example of a person who knows the rules before she decides to break them. I focused this breakdown on her tactics to get responses to her “asks”. I didn’t even tough her storytelling genius. That’s going to have to be an entire breakdown by itself.
Some takeaways from Laura’s welcome email:
Don’t open with obvious subject lines
Get to the ask right away, but make it original and in your voice
Make sure the second ask doesn’t compete with the first
Remember there’s always more than one way to do something
Laura Belgray is awesome (just in case you missed that)
Stay tuned for more email breakdowns and tips!
Talk soon,
Jenn 💛
P.S. If you want someone to write some kickass emails for your business, give me a shout!
