This is a formula I invented: 70% Content, 30% Sales.

It's a ratio of value-to-selling so people don't hate you for spamming them with sales pitches on email or social. Tattoo it on your forehead:

It means when writing a sales pitch, try to give at least:

70% Good Content.

30% Sales Pitch.

This means even if the (potential) customer doesn't buy the product, they've at least learned something from your sales pitch.

I personally do this because may not buy something RIGHT NOW, but they might buy years later if they stick around. It's a really common occurrence:

While I wish EVERYONE buys stuff from me the moment I sell it, that isn't reality.

Some people may not find the product valuable at a certain time.

Some people may not have enough money to buy the product.

Some people may not find the product good enough.

Some people don't need the product at the moment.

Some people don't need the product at all.

Some people just aren't interested.

There's a bazillion reasons someone won't buy.

But if you constantly bombard them via email and social media with sales alllll the time, you might scare them off.

This person will unsubscribe or stop following if constantly bombarded with sales.

You can also apply this to a specific piece of sales copy. If 70% of it is value, then you can hook people into reading it even though it's a sales pitch:

This concept arose from AppSumo:

In the early days of AppSumo I was writing all of the promotional content. The goal was to sell something several times a week, and eventually every single day.

I quickly noticed that people paid FAR MORE ATTENTION to the emails when they were useful.

This means even if a customer didn't buy that deal, they still learned something valuable. By giving 70% useful content in each email, this ensured people would stick around much longer, and LOOK FORWARD to getting these emails.

People would actually go out of their way to make sure AppSumo emails would land in their inbox.

You can see 70% of this email is spent educating about the product.

We strove to write great copy each time because we wanted to be helpful, but also for business reasons! Cost per acquisition of an email subscriber was around $8/user, and if we just bombarded someone with deals and they left, that could mean money down the drain.

For this reason I would use the 70% Content, 30% Sales concept to give MOSTLY GREAT INFORMATION, and then try to sell a little once the customer realized how valuable the product was.

Don't be pushy, be helpful instead.

When a lot of people sit down to write a promotion, they often switch to be pushy and aggressive. Instead shift your mindset to being HELPFUL!

Let's take an example:

Being aggressive and pushy:

This kind of selling is all sales, and zero good information. Imagine getting emails like this several times a week from a company who is constantly pushing you.

People who give 0% good content and 100% high pressure sales tend to not do well longterm as people stop being interested in their offerings.

Instead, give them content they can use, even if they don't buy:

Do you see how about 70% of that sales pitch was just giving them good content?

I'm not suggesting you do this for EVERY sales pitch you write, but if you plan on keeping readers/followers for the longrun, delivering lots of value like this even if the person doesn't buy is a great way.

So if you're trying to build a long term following make sure to give them at least:

70% Content, 30% Sales.

Sincerely,

Neville Medhora