Ever heard of the Rule of Reciprocity?
Lots of business owners love it. In fact, a good number of them use it as a foundation on how they do business.
Here’s a quote I saw that explains the rule well:
“If I give you something of value that you perceived to be valuable, you’re going to feel an obligation to return back to me something of equal value in return.”
Sounds good, right? But it can actually harm your business — without you even knowing it.
You see, based on the rule, if you give me something valuable, then I’ll feel obligated, compelled, forced to buy from you.
Uhm…
Heck, no.
If I don’t need your product or service, then why would I buy from you?
Now, for the record, I’m not saying that the rule is a total sham — because to some degree, it works.
But IMHO, this rule caused a lot of business owners to lose their balls when it comes to selling. A lot of people nowadays can’t sell shyt unless they’ve provided enough value to their prospects.
Sounds familiar?
They became marketing wimps who don’t know how to make people buy without giving away the farm along with the kids.
More:
You can even see this phenomenon in emails…
People try their best not to sound ‘salesy’ because they’re afraid their customers might get annoyed and leave their list.
So they sugar-coat their pitch or bury their link in the PS.
Not knowing that they only harm their business doing this.
But who can fault us?
We were made to believe that the Rule of Reciprocity is a universal law — just like the law of gravity.
We were taught that people won’t buy unless they receive value from us first.
Gwurus and shexperts sing in unison, telling us that we should give away dozens of free content first before selling anything.
But after handling dozens of email marketing campaigns, I realized that this is not the case.
In fact, you can sell in every email you send to your list. And your readers would even thank you for selling to them.
How?
By using ‘infotainment’ when writing your emails.
Which simply means combining information with entertainment. Just switch on your TV to see great examples of this concept. News shows that present information in a way that is fun and entertaining.
Now, does it take a lot of time to write infotaining emails?
Not really, as long as you know what you’re doing.
Interested to learn more?
Then, you should download a free copy of my book, Email Copywriting Handbook where you can see actual examples of ‘infotainment emails’
Download it today. It’s totally free.
Here’s the link: http://bit.ly/RomEmailCopyBook