The nine-word email: your best secret weapon
Want to have your most valuable email campaign that takes the least amount of time to put together? Of course you do. That’s the dream, right?
Well, here it is: Send a nine-word email.
The strategy, popularized by I Love Marketing’s Dean Jackson and Joe Blandino, has grown to mythical proportions. Email marketers swear by it. Success rates, according to those who send it, are through the roof. It may be the single best email you ever send and it may take you the least amount of time to send it.
Worth a shot, right?
How to send a nine-word email
Quite obviously, the email should be around nine words. Fight the urge to add more.
Dean Jackson’s original nine-word email was sent to real estate leads, and it read, “Are you still looking for a house in Georgetown?”
That’s the key to the nine-word email: re-engaging your prospects.
The nine-word email is ideal for dormant leads who have already been introduced to your business or product and have made a connection. The first email you send to people should not be a nine-word email. But the fifth? The tenth? Maybe.
Some would say to wait 90 days. Others send to leads that have been inactive for multiple years.
And wouldn’t you know, people get results.
I’ve found open rates on emails are 15%-200% higher than what I consider to be “typical,” and you’re able to drive a “dead list” into a “new list” at the same time.
Nine-word email template
- Subject
- Nine-word body
- Done
In the subject line, place the person’s first name, and that’s it. Kind of spammy-looking, but it at least gets people to notice and, ideally, to click.
The body of the email should use some derivation of this:
Are you still looking for …
or this:
Are you still interested in …
Dean Jackson’s email plumbed for interest in a house in Georgetown. Others could search for those still interested in losing weight or building a new website.
You don’t even need to include your name or a salutation at the end.
Keep it super simple.
Here are a couple examples I sent myself, using each of the above two templates.
(Yes, I would still like a Honda CR-V. Thanks for asking!)
(No, I made a huge mistake in being interested in CrossFit in the first place.)
Enjoy the valuable feedback
Are there any drawbacks to the nine-word email? Rejection, for sure, but I’m not sure you should consider rejection a drawback. Rejection is information; you get to find out that a former prospect isn’t one anymore, and you can drop him/her/it from your list. The huge benefits—re-engaging a lost group of leads—outweigh being turned down. So long as your email isn’t triggering spam or abuse complaints, it’s a win-win.
Be ready to continue the conversation you’ve started with your nine-word email. Keep following up.
(Maybe use more than nine words in your follow-up emails.)
