Why You Should Avoid the “Bait and Switch” Technique in Your Sales Email

Open rates are an important metric for every sales email you send, but they shouldn’t be the main focus. The main goal of a sales email is to sell a product, program, or whatever it is the email is promoting. This is a common mistake that I see a lot of major brands and businesses make. The “Bait and Switch” technique may increase your open rates, but it might actually hurt your sales. Let me demonstrate with an example.

Wait, Who’s This From?

I received a sales email from the Healthy Back Institute — a hugely successful company in the pain relief market. They have a whole suite of products from supplements, information products, to physical products that target people who suffer from different types of chronic pain.

Immediately, I noticed something was off. The “From” name portion of the email didn’t identify the sender… Instead, it said “Photo of Adam”, followed by a subject line that read “Your MRI Results”.

Pretty alarming, right? Naturally, I clicked it.

Not REALLY My MRI Results…

Of course I knew it wasn’t my MRI results, but I needed to see what the body of the email was all about.

The sales email itself was well-written. The purpose of the email was to sell an infrared heating pad for your back. This is backed up a case they presented of how stagnant blood flow could be the cause of your back pain.

And to drive the point further, they included a before and after MRI scan of how using an infrared heating pad could improve your chronic pain.

A strong angle (stagnant blood flow causing chronic pain), coupled with strong imagery (MRI scans with before and after using an infrared heating pad examples), became a great segue into the product they want to sell.

However…

While the body of the email was strong, I couldn’t get over the “Bait and Switch” or click-bait nature of the email.

When writing a sales email, it’s important to understand your demographics.

I’d imagine that the demographics of Healthy Back Institute tend to be on the older side. Some of their customers and prospects may suffer from multiple health issues and may actually be waiting for MRI results.

Although the initial panic and anxiety caused by the “From” name and subject line lasts a couple of seconds, the reader is going to feel a little annoyed that these “results” is really just a means to get you to buy. It’s a sales email in disguise.

Here’s What to do Instead

The “From” name portion should either be from the company itself, or the company’s founder. An honest, straightforward approach where the subscriber knows who the email is from keeps the communication clear.

As for the subject line, instead of saying “your MRI results”, which could be severely misleading, say “Do your MRI results look like this?”

A slight tweak can make a huge difference.

It still has an element of curiosity, but it isn’t bait and switch. You won’t be fooling anyone into opening that email.

In the End

The body of this specific email is so strong that it doesn’t really need to use this technique. The “bait and switch” technique comes off as dishonest, and that’s the last thing you want to have your audience think when you’re trying to sell to them.

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