The Email Octagon #2: Duke Cannon

Last month I went to pick up a prescription at my local pharmacy. When I got there, the friendly pharmacist told me it would take about 20 minutes to fill. So rather than get back into my car and listen to sports radio while cruising Reddit, I decided to partake in a little retail therapy.

I was just casually browsing the men’s shower section when my eye suddenly noticed a huge bar of soap that looked like a beer can. WTF?

I stopped to investigate. Hmm.. I wonder what beer soap smells like? Then I noticed the brand name. Duke Cannon?

Hells yeah! Sounds like a badass sailor from the 1800s. While I wasn’t ready to buy new soap, I’m more of a body wash guy, I still signed up to their email and SMS marketing list on the spot.

One month and 10 emails later I can honestly say that Duke Cannon delivers the goods.

So let’s jump in and break down an email for one of their products that I actually bought in a Big Box store over the weekend.

The Email

As we dive into this gem of an email lets stop and discuss their subject line.

Subject Line: Still THICK, Still in a Box

This is a fantastic example of using curiosity in your subject lines to elicit the all important open click.

What’s THICK? What’s in a box? Hmmm… lemme find out.

Also this subject line is a little racy, right?

THICK. That’s a very powerful adjective that can conjure up all kinds of visceral feelings and images. And the fact they make it ALL CAPS. just adds to the intrigue.

10/10 Subject line.

Ok, you got my attention let’s open this email up and take a peek under the hood.

If you’re going to use a curiosity based subject line it’s really important to pay it off right away.

I HATE when emails use a juicy curiosity soaked subject line then not explain what you’re talking about in the email.

It’ll work a few times but then your list will quickly learn that you are a no good click bait tease.

Duke Cannon delivers the goods instantly with a big THICK GIF of the product they are featuring and referring to in the subject line.

Which is… Their THICK body wash.

Full disclosure - I’m not really a fan of using GIFs in emails, I find most e-commerce brands just abuse them and it complicates the workflow, but this is a simple and incredibly effective GIF. It beautifully shows off all the items you’ll get in your box. Four BIG, THICK, BOTTLES baby.

Nice work Team Duke Cannon.

Moving right along to the body copy section of the email.

This email is announcing a new update to their THICK box. They’re adding two new scents.

I love this first phrase

“​​We're always on the lookout for ways to help all the hard-working fellows out there enjoy showers of substance…”.

There’s so much personality in this copy. “Hard-working fellows” “showers of substance”. These are word combos we don’t see all the time, and they go a long way to helping email subscribers bond with the brand.

They definitely didn’t use ChatGPT to write this.

When we click on their awesome CTA button “Click For the Box”, we jump to their masterclass of a product page.

Two Simple Yet Lethal Copywriting Techniques

90% of e-commerce stores have lame ass product descriptions. In fact it’s usually just a boring product description followed by a few bland bullet points.

But not Duke Cannon. Right off the bat, we are greeted by an killer copywriting technique that the legendary Eugene Schwartz coined as “concentration”, which is simply contrasting your competitors' weaknesses against your strengths.

The strategy for concentration is simply following a “bad - good,” sequence that shows your competitors’ weakness and then immediately follows up with your strength.

Here’s their “bad” section:

O.M.G. After reading that paragraph how can you possibly use any other body wash?

Unless you want to see yourself as an overgrown teenage frat boy.After hitting you in the nose with a jab, the next paragraph is where they come in with a hook to turn your lights out.

BOOM. You see how that works? If you have a vastly superior product to your competitors this is an absolutely devastating copywriting technique.

This technique is also using another copywriting technique called Future Pacing, which is simply letting people imagine and vividly picture what their lives will look like in the future after they have your product.

Also notice how this is all accomplished in a few short sentences.

If you start using these two copywriting techniques in your emails you will be LIGHTYEARS ahead of everyone else showing up in the inbox.

Ok sorry for that detour.

Let’s jump back to the email to hit on a few more points.

The GOAT Email Design

As I’ve stated many times before, I am not a fan of design-heavy marketing emails. Mainly because they complicate the workflow and make it harder to send MORE emails which is where you’ll see bigger results.

This email the perfect example of what I’ve dubbed the GOAT email design which looks like this

[HERO IMAGE]

Body copy

CTA Button

[Product images or call out]

Assuming they already had the GIF ready to go, this email probably took 30 minutes to get ready to send.

The body copy is live text, which is super important for deliverability, and the “Earn Rewards” call out section at the bottom is one image, so they could easily just slap that into the template and hit send.

This is when email marketing is an absolute joy. When you have an idea, you set it up quickly, run a test, then send it out and watch the money roll in.

Love it.

Hats off to the email team at Duke Cannon you guys are getting your hands raised today inside the Email Octagon.

Lessons to Implement.

•Use curiosity based subject lines BUT pay them off immediately inside the email

• Try using the copy techniques of concentration and future pacing to destroy your opponents’ products

• Start using the GOAT Email Design and see how fun and profitable email marketing can truly be.