Adam Street's Blog
The spiritual and practical path to freedom to do your art

How Disney animators can help you write better e-mails

I love my chiropractor.  She’s an artist the way she approaches healing.  She’s cool as hell and she’s fun to talk to.  

I started receiving emails from her shortly after I became her client.  When I opened her first email I was shocked to see that it was… So… 

Boring.  

I had to ask her if she was doing her own email marketing because she is so full of life and her emails are stale and make me want to cut myself.

I’ll show you what I mean.  This is the beginning to an email from last week.

SUBJECT:  Exposing the Truth Behind Opioids

RESEARCH THAT MATTERS WEEKLY 

Did You Know…   In the 90’s, medical doctors were falsely lured into prescribing opioids as a treatment for pain…

Who in the world are they writing to?  Medical students who need data for their term papers? Not only is this fluff but it’s boring fluff.  

Honestly I just feel sorry for my doc and I did voice my concerns.  I learned she wasn’t thrilled with the company she hired but she was giving them time to prove themselves.

If you would like to add some spice to your emails, take an animator’s approach.

In the Illusion of Life  Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston introduced us to 12 Principles of Animation. The most important one for me was APPEAL.

Appeal is about creating interesting characters that appeal to the audience and capture their  interest and attention.  

No appeal = boring.  

Animation is like good writing.  It’s not always necessarily what you say.  It’s also what what you DON’T say.  

JK Rowland said in an interview that she had tons of Harry Potter pages littered around her office.  She said she realized she gave away too much and had to keep taking things out so she wouldn’t ruin the endings.

Dr. Seuss put it this way, “So the writer who breeds more words than he needs, is making a chore for the reader who reads.”

Dr. Seuss is being nice.  If reading is a chore most people won’t read what you wrote at all!  So take out the fluff and leave the good appealing stuff.  

For free daily tips and insights on how to get your emails oozing with appeal, sign up for free at https://adamstreet.net .

Adam

Lean on Pete

Sales.  We all need to have them.

But make no mistake, your clients are buying YOU just as much as they are buying your product or service.

That’s why it’s so important to use a Blockbuster strategy and add some entertainment to your marketing.  It’s the glue that creates the emotional connection between you and your tribe.  

Think of it this way.  There’s two sides to every coin.

Look at Spider-man.  He wouldn’t be as interesting without Peter Parker.  If people in New York had a problem and Spidey swooped in, saved them, and swung away.  It wouldn’t be the same.  

There’s tons of supers in New York.  Spidey would blend in like cough syrup in the cold and flue section at Walmart.  But he goes back to being Peter Parker and Pete is…  Well, flawed.

Stan Lee said this about the wall crawler:

“He’s the one who’s most like me — nothing ever turns out 100 percent OK; he’s got a lot of problems, and he does things wrong, and I can relate to that.” 

We all can.  Super and spectacular on one side, awkward teen who can’t even talk to a girl on the other.  That is contrast.  Contrast is interesting.  Contrast sells.

Chadwick Boseman said this about playing T’Challa and the Black Panther movie.

“What does this do for the world?  Is it actually valuable in the political climate, in the social climate we have?  And I have to say, yes!  Not because it makes people escape, but I think when it’s done right, it gives people hope.” 

And that’s true for you too.  When you create a great experience you give people hope.  Whether they buy from you or not.

To learn how to add Blockbuster strategies to your marketing and products join my free daily email at https://adamstreet.net

Adam

The Massive Myth

Check out this email subject line that was in my inbox this morning:

“Adam, 12 Days To A Massive Pay Day Online (Step-By-Step)…”

Then of course came the ever so common… 

“This changes EVERYTHING… “

Next, insert a big-ass testimonial about making massive dough with the next big thing in marketing…

When you market like this in email, this is the equivalent to yelling in person.  Would you walk into an office and start screaming at people?  Probably not.  Well, maybe if you’re the guy from the Bar Rescue show.  Or Plankton from Spongebob who said the louder you talk the more authority you have.  

If you keep using aged tactics like Plankton and Mr. Next Big Thing guy, you may as well dump streaming, find a high-quality VCR, and watch all your favorite movies from 1984.  

These Business Paradigm kats crack me up.  You could use the copy in that email to sell his “system” or you could use it to sell vacuums.  It has little distinction. 

Maybe it’s a good product.  I don’t know.  But the copy in that email is like Voldemort, it has no soul.  

Us in the Artist Paradigm cast different spells.  We care about what we do, how we do it, and the transformation it gives our clients.

Believe me…I like dinero.  I didn’t buy my iPhone 12 with positive energy or unicorn farts.  

MASSIVE hype is noise .  It’s easy to ignore because unless you live in a cave…without WiFi…  It’s something we’ve all heard before.  And if you’ve heard it before that means it’s easy to ignore.

Michael Masterson put it this way:

“Great sales letters don’t tell the customer what to think … or feel … or want. They locate the prospect’s feelings, thoughts, and desires, and then stimulate them. They provoke the prospect to do the feeling and thinking on her own.

Don’t be Voldemort.  Don’t be Dr. Doom either.

Persuasion and good copy has it’s place but— If you can’t empower your prospects to think and act on their feelings, why should they buy from you?

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Adam

My Comic-Con airy-fairy tale

There’s nothing like attending Comic-con.

Where else can you meet artists, see oceans of art, and comic books all in one place?  

Plus, have you ever waited in line for coffee behind Batman, Sailor Moon, and two dudes dressed as Stormtroopers?  It’s awesome.  

Frank Lloyd Wright said something that I apply to my Con shopping.  “If you invest in beauty, it will remain with you all the days of your life. “

And there’s no greater beauty than Dean Yeagle’s books.  He’s my fav.  He usually releases a new book a year and I wait for my annual trip to San Diego to buy it.

I fell off the wagon a few years ago so my collection is lacking.  Last year  I decided to get “caught up” and I purchased his recent books. 

Except for Scribbles #7.  

I wrote Dean and he said it may be eventually reprinted.   I asked him if he had a waiting list he could put me on and he said no.  He said something silly like, he’s not ‘sophisticated enough’ for a waitlist. 

In Dean’s defense he’s an older guy with a rabid following of turkeys like me who devour his products so he doesn’t feel the need to do it. 

Well, for young whipper snappers out there like you and me without a Walking Dead like following…  Make sure you create a list!  Don’t leave a good sale to chance.

This week, I had lunch with my business partner that I have not seen in years.  Before we left he gave me a gift.  It was Dean Yeagle’s Scribbles #7.  I never told anyone that story so he had no idea I was missing only that book.

I believe in synchronicity and it’s fun when things work out like this.  Though I was prepared to follow up with Dean in a year.  

There’s a beauty in sales, and follow up that I was prepared to happily do.  In this case I was a buyer but if I was a seller I’d do the same thing.  It’s fundamental in getting what you want.

The fundamentals are important and usually underrated.

Lebron James is known for dunking and shooting fade-away jump shots.  But he wins more games with fundamentals like shooting free-throws and hitting layups.

Wright’s quote could be looked at this way too:

If you invest in the fundamentals, they will remain with you all the days of your life…but only if you apply them.

For more, join my e-mail list at https://adamstreet.net .

Adam

I love what I do! How come I can’t sell it?

Remember Seth Godin’s Marketing in Five Steps?

We left off with step 3.  Let’s recap:

1.  Invent a thing worth making, with a story worth telling , and a contribution worth talking about.  

2.  Design and build it in a way that a few people will particularly benefit from and care about.

3.  To tell a story that matches the built-in-narrative and dreams of that tiny group of people, the smallest viable market.

And now four… Spread the word.

In the book Seth says this is the step everyone gets excited about.  I agree.  A lot of people do enjoy droning on about their course, or new book coming out.  But plenty of people have anxiety about it too.   Cause after you build it there’s a question you gotta answer.  

How the f*@k do I promote this?

Let’s face it.  It’s not like you’re The Rock who gets paid $1 million to promote his movies.  You probably can’t do like Tom Cruise did years ago and jump around on Oprah Winfrey’s couch either.

There’s tons of ways to promote your biz but one of the biggest hangs ups I see is people think they have to be loud, annoying, or not themselves.  

Whether you buy ads or start cold calling your friends like you just became a distributor for Amyway.  Do what is best for you.  Not comfortable.  Best.  

In Kevin Garnett’s book KG AtoZ, he recalled a quote from Chauncey Billups.  “Just because someone doesn’t play with the same fire as KG, it doesn’t mean they’re soft.”

Put another way…

Just because you don’t have poise on camera like Marie Forleo, promote like Steve Jobs, or have a booty like Kim Kardashian.  It doesn’t mean you aren’t good at spreading the word.

You love what you do.  Show that love to other people.

Adam