Am I selling to buyers?

I've been listening to Ben Settle but have I been learning?

The other day I shared an idea I had for doing some business development. Something to reach out to a prospect with.

When scanning the ads Meta was feeding me I got one from Qomfort. They make Birkenstock like footwear but are supposedly conscious in their approach. You know, pay people fairly, good materials. That type of thing.

I thought they would make a good potential prospect for me. It’s within a niche I’d looked into to do email copywriting for.

But after only a small bit of research I uncovered that they weren’t what they had advertised. They were just a drop shipper with ‘Made in China’ knock offs. Read the post I linked to above for the details.

However, it gave me an idea. I could approach actual legit sellers and show them how their email game was no different to a scam.

So, I did.

I’m not going to write it off as not having worked yet. However, I did have a thought this morning when I was out doing my road work.

I’ve been listening to Ben Settle’s now defunct Ben Settle dot com podcast on repeat. I’m on my third run through of the 100 episodes. It totals about 36 hours or something.

Ben’s great for stressing principles. And that’s an approach to learning that I like. Focus in on mastering fundamentals and I think I can go a long way.

But maybe I was missing one of his core teachings with my business development:

Sell to buyers.

Now the companies that I was reaching out to, they do collect email addresses and mail to them. So, in that sense they are a fair target for me.

But they’re emails just look like everyone else’s. Hence why a company like Qomfort would also have the same style.

And what is that style?

Subject line with X% discount. A reminder that time is running out. Very little text in the email itself. Just links and pictures of products they want you to buy.

Basically, it’s like they just Frankensteined a few bits of their website into an email.

Could any company doing that really be a good prospect for someone like me that is a copywriter with email being a core focus? A company that only treats email like a nice to have. One that just reappropriates web content and shares nothing original. Just another transactional style email trying to catch a buyer (rather than a customer) in the promotions inbox.

Probably not.

I’d have to educate them on how email can be different.

And if I have to educate them, then it’s not something they are already buying.

P.S. You can still find the Ben Settle dot com podcast on Spotify. All 100 episodes are there. It’s a great principled based yet entertaining way to learn.

P.P.S. But as Ben says, his work isn’t for newbies. What I am doing here right now though is for newbies. It’s just me documenting some of the things I’m doing on my way into copywriting. Subscribe to follow along.