Excellent Marketing

I'd really like to ask Stephen Taylor, who sent me the email to the right, how many times he has been asked, "How much is your "Transforming Your Practice Time" series?" I would hope the answer is "zero" and that would be awesome because this email is a great example of writing that is targeted for an audience and is constructed nearly flawlessly.


The email starts with a greeting, followed by 4 lines. Within those 4 lines, the word "free" is use twice. That is then followed by a link with the word free. Then comes a sentence that tells the target audience (drummers) that many drummers ("tens of thousands drummers") have already "gone through this series of lessons." Then there's a line of text that asks a question, followed by an answer in italics, followed by the author's testimony and credibility for offering the free series.

My one quibble with this email is the paragraph that shifts the tone. These two sentences stick out from the rest of the email, which has been written in short bursts:
This course will be entirely focused on developing a predictable daily practice routine that yields results and allows you to leave your practice time happy and satisfied. It will be about revolutionizing your practice time so that you can stop having practice guilt and start enjoying your playing.

I wanted to know if I was off-base with how long those sentences are so I pasted them into MS Word to do a quick Word Count to verify my initial thought. Sadly, I was correct. 48 words in two sentences, split as 27 words in the first sentence and 21 words in the second sentence.

Both sentences

It's not so much the length of the sentences that I quibble about: it's the change in tone, shifting to the future tense. "This course will be entirely focused" reads like the course hasn't been created yet, like it is still in progress.

Second sentence

Here's a stab at rewriting those two sentences:
You will develop your daily practice routine, leaving your practice time happy and satisfied.

First sentence

Revolutionize your practice time and leave practice guilt behind. You want to enjoy your playing, right? That's why you're a drummer - you enjoy playing drums! This FREE series brings the opportunity to do just that - ENJOY DRUMMING!

If it were my email, I would rewrite the first two sentences, and then split the next three sentences into a separate paragraph, and push the final sentence, which is the last sales pitch (for a free series) in the email, like this:


This course will be entirely focused on developing a predictable daily practice routine that yields results and allows you to leave your practice time happy and satisfied. It will be about revolutionizing your practice time so that you can stop having practice guilt and start enjoying your playing. 

The really cool thing is, it won't be just your practice time that improves. Being happy and content with your playing leads to a happier and more productive life outside of the practice room as well. It is going to be a COMPLETE BRAIN DUMP of everything I know about the art of practicing. 

I am going to show you how to construct a methodical and predictable daily practice routine that lets you maximize every minute of practice you put in.

I'm not pretending that I am a marketing writing guru, but I am a technical writer who has been writing text professionally for 8867 days (24 years, 3 months, 1 week, 5 days). My analysis of this email is a result of learning about writing during that time.