The Anti-Vanilla Approach

Welcome to the List Building Lifestyle Show where we believe in standing out not blending in. I’m your host, Igor Kheifets. And today we’re talking about email marketing in a new way. Have you ever found yourself stuck in the middle of trying to please everyone and ending up pleasing no one? It’s a pitfall many marketers fall into, afraid to take a stance, afraid to be bold. But here’s the thing, vanilla might be a flavor, but it’s not a strategy. In today’s episode, we’re tackling the power of taking a clear stance. Whether it’s discussing controversial topics like religion, or dissecting industries, like Big Pharma, we’re not afraid to voice our opinions, because being vanilla is boring, and boring doesn’t cut it in the world of email marketing. But it’s not just about being loud. It’s about being relevant. We’ll explore how to keep your emails fresh and engaging, avoiding the trap of repetition and irrelevance. Because let’s face it, if your subscribers aren’t interested, they’re hitting Delete faster than you can say unsubscribe, so tune in as we uncover the secrets to crafting emails that resonate, that engage, and that ultimately drive results.

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I’m Igor Kheifets, and this is the List Building Lifestyle, the podcast for anyone who wants to build a wildly profitable email list working from home. If you’d like to make six figures, travel the world and help people improve their lives in the process, this podcast is for you. I also invite you to claim a free copy of my best selling book, The List Building Lifestyle Confessions of an Email Millionaire at igorsbook.com. Get the free book plus $3,000 Bonus packages including my best capture page templates, email swipe files, and traffic blueprints, visit www.igorsbook.com for details. And now it’s time to claim your list building lifestyle.

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Two cents, one is don’t be vanilla, because vanilla is all about trying to avoid taking a stance, you know, trying to like, I remember having a conversation with this guy whose daughter goes to the same school as my daughter. And I don’t know why, but he asked me if I believed in God, right? And so I talked to him about my experience going through religious school back in Israel and how I grew up in a household where my mom believed in God but my dad did not believe in God, and kind of expressed my opinion to him that I don’t believe in God, that I believe that we make our own luck, that I believe that we don’t need religion to be good human beings to each other. 

And you know, what kind of person took a position that, you know, seeing what their religious institution looks like, and how religion tends to be used for the wrong purposes, I don’t want to subscribe to the traditional idea of what it stands for. And so there were two other guys in that same conversation. And the other guy expressed the opinion that he believes in God and the other guy expressed the idea that he believes in God. So now this guy who asked the question, he has me who says don’t believe in God, and to other guys who say they believe in God. So he’s basically facing the crowd where both sides of the argument exist, right? And so you know, when he does the absolute worst thing you can do if you’re an email marketer, and he says, Yeah, I think there’s something there, but I’m not sure, you know, he’s trying to stay sort of kinda in the middle of that argument without expressing any definite opinion. 

That was the day when I stopped respecting that guy, because he was the pussy for lack of a better word for it, you know, to express his actual opinion. I’m sure there’s an opinion there to be expressed, but he failed to express it. And so from that point forward, I didn’t really care about his opinion, most things because I know he’s not going to give me an honest answer anyway. And so this is what you don’t want to do with your list, you want to have a clear stance, you don’t have to be obnoxious about it. You don’t have to try and really sell the idea to the list or try to convince anyone of the opposite, you can still be respectful of their opinion, or whatever the issue is, again, most of the time it would not be like the issue, like the discussion about God, it’s going to be something related to the industry, like if you’re mailing about, you know, in the health market, you’ll be talking about Big Pharma, what do you some big pharma? Is it good that we have big pharma and all these pills? Or is it bad? You know, like, I would take a stance about Big Pharma and say that it’s really bad, you know, like they do more bad than good. And I would express that opinion, especially if I have an alternative way of treating some kind of condition that I’m trying to promote to the list right?

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Now, at the same time, if I was, for example, talking about nootropics, or any kind of drug that increases your focus, and kind of hot new, high performance drugs, not like cocaine, but like, you know, stuff that you can still get with prescription or sometimes even over the counter, in some countries, like I would probably not be as critical of Big Pharma, I’d probably talk about the positive impact of Big Pharma rather than, you know, take on a super, you know, anti stance on them. So, but again, I will probably alienate somebody on my list. But what I would know is that for every one person or 10 people that I would alienate him a list, taking that stance, I will have, like 100 fats, because there’s going to be 100 voices is going to be like, yeah, yeah, that you know, in agreement, and don’t be boring. 

Now, let’s unpack what this actually means. Because being boring, the way you are boring to people is, in a couple of ways. First, if you are talking about things that aren’t relevant to them, like, if they don’t care about something, you’re automatically boring. If you talk about Big Pharma, and they really don’t care, that’s a boring email to them. The other aspect of being boring is expressing the same ideas that they’ve heard before, in the exact same way they’ve heard before. Which is why, you know, I’m always very, not sensitive, but like, I’m very aware of the different ways to express ideas. Because you can take the same idea and express it in the form of a story, you can take the same idea and just express it head on, you can take the same idea and express in the form of a chart, you can take the same idea and express in a form of contrast, by comparing, you know, points of view, you know, head to head, you can do all kinds of stuff.

And that makes your emails way more exciting, way more interesting than, you know, just a plain old point blank, who else wants to blah, blah, blah. Now, on some level, on a very basic level, at the very least, you have to make sure that the benefits that you’re talking about, or the solutions, or the problems that you’re talking about in your emails are actually relevant to what the experience your potential customers are going through. Because, you know, let’s say that I’m a golfer, and I’m getting on your email list, and you talk about golfing and you have like a book that you’re promoting or a course, where you’re teaching how to know the short game. 

Okay, so if you talk to me just about the short game, and I believe that my short game is great, that’s like automatically boring to me, even though you’re talking about golf, which on some level is still interesting. But that’ll be boring, because I just don’t have a dire need at this point in time to solve this issue, which means this week, you’ll talk about short games, and I won’t be paying attention. But next week, you’ll talk about some other aspect of the game, maybe we’ll talk about the long game, and maybe I secretly feel that my long shots suck, and that you know, I should be able to hit the ball 300 yards, and I can only squeeze in 150. 

And I’m thinking that I’m missing something. And then next week, you talk to me about a special set of clubs that you know, get me an extra, you know, 100 yards on my drive. So that would be very interesting to me. So I’ll be picking and choosing, I’ll still be subscribing to your list. I’ll be picking and choosing which emails I’ll be opening and which emails will be acting on. So again, everybody has what will be called the WHIFM radio station playing in our head all the time. I don’t know if you ever heard this. It stands for what’s in it for me (WHIFM) that’s why they call it the radio station. That’s literally what people think about all day long. Even those who sacrifice their time, money and energy for the sake of others. They still do it. You know, while being tuned into the whole What’s In It For Me radio station. So you have to remember that and you always have to, you know, be mindful of what’s in it, like how can I express this in a way where they will clearly understand what’s in it for them. When you can communicate to your list like that you’ll see a response rate go up significantly.

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Thank you for listening to the list building lifestyle, get access to the previous episodes transcript of today’s show, as well as other exclusive content at listbuildinglifestyleshow.com. Also remember to claim your free copy of my best selling book at www.igorsbook.com. It explains how I made millions with list building starting from scratch. Plus, I’ll give you $3,000 worth of free bonuses, including my best landing page templates, email swipe files and traffic blueprints. Go to www.igorsbook.com now to claim your free package.