Just read the most disturbing urban legend ever.
I was going to write about something else today, but this story is haunting me.
Or at least: haunting my keyboard, because the email is pretty much writing itself with little input from me.
What makes the story so creepy is that a variation of it actually happens in most people’s inboxes.
Anyway, check this out:
It’s 1989 and Russian scientists are drilling a borehole in Siberia.
14.5 kilometres deep into the Earth’s crust... things start to go wrong.
Very wrong.
Suddenly the drill breaks through into a cavity, almost pulling the entire excavation team down with it.
The scientists decide to lower a probe to see what is going on.
But the temperate down there is 1000 °C (1832 °F), so they are only able to record 17 horrifying seconds of audio before the microphone melts.
They can’t believe what they’re hearing:
Unmistakable sounds of torture, coming from 14.5 km below the ground...
… interrupted now and again by maniacal sounds of laughter, and a disturbingly deep voice lisping in Russian.
Convinced that they’re hearing the screams of the damned in Hell, all but three of the scientists quit the job.
They leave the camp, forego their pay, and migrate to the US, Sweden and Australia - refusing to set foot on Mother Russia ever again.
And the three scientists - the expedition leaders - who stayed?
They are huddled outside the camp, unable to sleep, keeping watch against anything that might crawl out of the borehole.
7 minutes after midnight, a plume of luminous gas bursts out of the borehole. It unfolds into the shape of a gigantic winged demon, with the words “I am coming for you” seared into the surrounding flames in Russian.
Two of those scientists spend the rest of their days in an asylum on the outskirts of Kemerovo.
The third never makes it out of the camp alive.
Creepy little story, eh?
Anyway, here is the point:
Most online businesses have this borehole to hell in their marketing too.
You sit down to write an email to your list, but it’s like trying to drill a hole into the Earth’s crust.
The crust resists you. It blocks your writing.
After 2-4 hours of drilling, your pen penetrates into an unexpected cavity.
You’ve broken through into the Well of Email Hell, where you hear the demons of writer’s block, diminishing sales and mediocre work torturing marketers of ages past.
You hear their ear piercing screams...
Except, they’re your own screams, echoed back from marketer’s hell.
A plume of luminous gas bursts out of your analytics.
It unfolds into the shape of a gigantic monkey with demon wings. You see the words “This campaign flopped” seared into the surrounding flames in single-digit numbers.
Hey, the Well to Hell in Siberia may be a myth (or maybe not…)
But the Well to Email Hell definitely IS real.
If you don’t have a well thought-out structure to guide your writing, you’ll get sucked down into the bore-hole...
… where boring emails haunt inboxes, skin subscribers and eat sales alive.
The best way to seal that borehole shut is by using stories that stick like cement.
Because here is the thing about a story that sticks:
We understand it, we remember it, and we can retell it later.
And if we believe it’s true, it might even change our behaviour permanently.
Why?
Because, as the legendary negotiation Jim Camp says, “Vision drives decision.”
Actually, this is one reason I created the “Ganesha, Storyteller” template in the Email Reliquary.
It removes objections and clears the path to sales by tacking a story to your email.
Storytelling with personality is like supercharging your drill.
It cuts straight through hell (and any writer’s block demons stupid enough to obstruct the way)...
… and emerges victorious into the psychological core of your prospect’s purchase decision.
But the Ganesha template is just one template. It’s this week’s “relic”.
If you want a different, “battle tested” email template each week, those riches can be yours for the demonic price of… $10 per month.
Come, noble knight of the Email Reliquary!
Unsheath your sword and slay your demons.
(You can sharpen your steel and grab your relics here: http://trial-eureka.teachable.com/p/email-reliquary/ )
