I turned finding a scam seller into a business development idea
Another tale of trying to get clients when starting out as a copywriter
I’ve jotted down in a notebook a few niches that I’m gonna try and sell into.
You know, stuff that interests me or that I know something about.
One of them is good quality and well sourced basic clothes.
Maybe I’m a hippy or something, but when I’m not buying second hand clothes (Marseille is sooo good for this) I like to try and get nice quality plain clothes and underwear that isn’t made by slaves in a sweatshop.
And I’ve had more than one girlfriend that is really, extra, extra into this.
So I reckon I know something about it.
Something about the market.
Anyway, I got this meta ad the other day and signed up for the 10% off thing you get when you give them your email.
I’ve done this for a few companies and I get their marketing emails in my promotions.
With this particular new company, I was thinking I’d try and target them as a client. But when doing a little research to find the right person to reach out to, I got a little suspicious.
Long story short, they aren’t at all what they are advertising.
But then I had a brainwave.
The emails these fake scumbags were sending looked exactly like those being sent by the legitimate companies.
So I screenshotted my inbox. In the picture were emails from the scammers and the actual good guys.
I found the CEO of the not fake 3rd world style scam job and sent him the below email.
I’ve hidden the name of the CEO and his company from the screenshot, but everything else is exactly as I sent it.
Let’s see if I hear back from him ;)
Subject:
Did you want XYXYXY emails to look the same as a scam company's???
Message
Hey XXXX!
Yikes! Your email game isn’t much different to a dodgy drop seller.
Qomfort Co. are running Meta ads marketing themselves as conscious makers of footwear similar in style to Birkenstock for a fraction of the price.
But when I looked a little more into them, it’s obviously they are BS
“Founders” Danielle and Imogen never share their last names and don’t exist on the internet - crazy for young female fashion founders to not have interviews and their own social pages etc
They say they are HQ in Sydney, Australia but their site is registered in Wyoming USA, there is nothing in Australia.
There is no LinkedIn or anyone on LinkedIn associated with the brand
They look like they have thousands of rave reviews. But if you dig you’ll find unhappy threads on Reddit and videos on Youtube. “Made in China”, “slow shipping”, “bad customer service”, “poor quality”.
It must be annoying for legitimate guys like you to have to compete for ad spend with the likes of these types.
However, you can see from the screenshot of my inbox, that their emails and yours are basically the same.
Even if Qomfort wasn’t a scam, are you standing out in someone’s inbox with your current way of doing email?
You’re going to all the effort of collecting email addresses and offering a 10% discount in return.
But then you’re sending the same transactional style emails as everyone else.
If you’d like an option to think differently about email and how to make it stand out, let me know.
Aidan
on the med in marseille
===> email copywriter
PS I was born in Ireland and grew up in Sydney, Australia. I live in Marseille now but English is my native language.
PPS If you check me out on LinkedIn, you’ll see I was a recruiter for 10 years. And now you’re probably thinking: what the hell does this guy know about email? Well, I was what they call a headhunter. I didn’t run the job ads and scan incoming CVs. I went out and found highly in demand people (mostly tech roles) and convinced them to speak with me. Mostly by email and other text messages. Just trying to think of the amount of emails I’ve written makes me dizzy.
I made the switch to email copywriting this year.