How Soon Is ‘Too Soon’ To Pitch In Your Email Course?

How soon is too soon to pitch your product?

That’s a raging debate among email marketers.

On one extreme, there are experts who claim that new subscribers need an “incubation period.”

And like fragile baby chicks, if you expose them to a cold-blooded sales pitch too soon, the budding relationship will wither and die.

On the other extreme, you have marketing gurus like the late, great Gary Halbert who compare new prospects to porcupines.

Apparently porcupines only go into heat once a year for 8-12 hours. When they do, they go completely NUTS. And after that it’s business as usual.

If you buy this view of customer behavior, you pitch early and often, because you might only get one shot at converting that subscriber to a customer.

So which is it?

Do you “nurture” and “incubate” for days or weeks to build goodwill?

Or do your start pitching right away before your subscriber loses interest?

The answer is “yes.”

Wait, what?

Let me back up for a minute.

One of the most important concepts in all of marketing is the customer’s “state of awareness.”

This idea was first explained by master copywriter Eugene Schwartz in his magnum opus, “Breakthrough Advertising.”

Many of your new subscribers fall on the “unaware” end of the spectrum. They’re oblivious to you and your product—and in fact they may not even fully understand the problem you can solve for them.

On the other end, you have “most aware” subscribers. These people know all about your product and what it can do for them, and they are sitting with credit card in hand just waiting to buy. And all you have to do is stick a buy button in front of them.

Remember the chess master analogy from a few days back, where I mentioned that a master chess player is always thinking 10-15 moves ahead?

THIS is the chess game.

Your goal at every step in your email course is to nudge people from the “unaware” side of the spectrum to the “most aware” side.

What does that look like in practice?

In the email courses I create, I introduce the product early.

Sometimes I’ll go so far as to mention it in the video on the thank-you page that new subscribers see after opting in.

And I’ll almost always include a passing mention of the product (as well as a link to the sales page) on day 1.

This gives the “porcupines” a chance to buy the product immediately. (You’d be surprised how many people will buy right from that thank-you page mention.)

And the customers who need a little more wooing will see the product mentioned several times before they get a direct “call to action.”

This way, as the course progresses, your subscriber’s awareness of your product increases day by day.

By the end, you’ve moved the subscriber all the way from “clueless” to “clued in.”

They’re wavering and almost convinced to buy, and all they need is one final nudge.

And tomorrow I’ll show you how you can give them that last little push.

P.S. “Breakthrough Advertising” is by far the most important book on copywriting and marketing I’ve ever read. It’s hard to find, though. Used copies on Amazon regularly go for over $200.

I can help you get a brand new (and 100% legit) hardcover copy for half that. Contact me if you’re interested and I’ll hook you up.