A chat with my neighbor made me question my whole email list strategy
I was talking to my neighbor, a retired teacher, about the constant emails she gets from stores. She said, 'I just delete anything that doesn't sound like a person wrote it.' That simple comment hit me hard because I've been using the same automated welcome sequence for my clients for two years. I realized my own emails probably sound just like those she ignores. Has anyone else had to completely rewrite their automated messages to sound more human?
Oh man, did that ever happen to me last year? I had to scrap my whole newsletter setup because my friend said it read like a robot manual. I spent a weekend just making it sound like I was talking to one person. It's a brutal wake up call, but it makes such a difference.
Isn't it crazy how we don't notice our own robot voice until someone points it out? I mean, what paulw53 said about it feeling like a note from a friend is exactly the goal, but it's so easy to slip into manual mode when you're trying to be "professional." Maybe it's just me, but I have to actively picture a specific person I know reading it, like my sister or a close buddy, to keep it from getting stiff. That mental switch makes all the difference.
Totally get that. Reminds me of my old boss who wrote every client email like a formal memo. We had to stage an intervention with a stack of printed out replies that sounded super stiff. He started reading them out loud and just cracked up at how weird it sounded. Now he drafts everything in a text to his wife first to get the tone right.