How to build campaigns that sell

GM! Paperboy here 🗞️

Last Friday I got pulled into a St. Patrick’s Day strategy call by one of our 8-figure clients.

“In the past we’ve always done a % off sale and it seems to just do meh. How do we take it up a notch?”

I love when clients ask me questions like this. It usually leads to something great.

I wrote this email up as a guide to help improve your campaigns generally, using St. Paddy’s as an example. I’ll walk you through the simple yet effective framework our team uses to come up with 11/10 concepts for our clients.

Step 1: Research, research, research

Go through milled, reallygoodemails, Email Love, pinterest, reddit, and do the following:

• Search for St. Patrick’s related keywords

• Filter for last year for the days leading up to, or during the holiday

• Scan through what brands were sending, what people were talking about, etc.

• Fast forward to today and study what people in your niche are talking about, what cultural movements are happening, what memes are trending, etc.

As you review the inspo, write down anything interesting you see. Funny headlines. Keywords to use. Relatable memes. Color product grids. Unique brands. Design inspiration. Unique sale ideas. The list goes on.

If you do this stage right, you’re setting up your whole retention team for success. For reference, just for St. Paddy’s I found 150 pieces of inspo.

Step 2: Brainstorm the concept

Regardless of whether you’re running a sale, new arrivals, a non-promo email, or you’re simply not sure, write out all the cool ideas you can. Don’t restrict your brain — let it take you in whatever direction it wants. You can worry about constraints later.

A few thought starters to ask yourself as you brainstorm:

• What’s the obvious St. Patty’s angle everyone will do (so we can avoid it)?

• What’s a mechanic we can add (reveal, draw, game, bundle)?

• What’s the contrarian take?

• What’s a trend we can ride on and spin it in our own way?

• What’s a benefit of our product that ties into this campaign?

• Is there a customer or brand story we can tell?

• What’s something our competitors would be afraid to do?

• What’s the most insane sale we could run?

For St. Paddy’s this is what my unedited list looks like based on my inspo & brainstorm:

• Flash Mystery Sale (click to reveal, drives up clicks)

• Save some green (sale)

• Promote green & gold products (aesthetic grid, shades of green)

• Refund 1 in 10 (lucky draw)

• Luck of the Irish (scratch & win in email - technically hard)

• No luck needed (motivational, goes against the grain)

• Play up eco/sustainable (celebrating green… feels weak?)

• Sell a mystery box (St. Paddy’s Box, crazy value higher AOV)

• Go green (new arrivals that are exclusively green)

• Find your lucky charm (hunt for something on the site - I kinda hate these people are busy)

• Toast to St. Paddy’s with X (recipe)

I also created an AI Slop list. It’s the first thing ChatGPT came up with when I asked for headline inspo. It’s also the phrases I saw repeated most in my inspo on mediocre emails (remember, ChatGPT was already around 1 year ago).

• You’re in luck

• It’s your lucky day

• Luck o’ the stylish, luck o’ the Irish, etc.

• The Lucky Sale

• No Luck, All Charm

• Lucky You

• A little luck, a lot of X

• Find your pot of gold

Am I overthinking what is and isn’t AI slop? Probably. But I prefer to keep pushing the bar with copy for my brands.

Step 3: Choose your concept

Based on your brand’s unique factors (margins, inventory, launch cal, etc.) you should pick out a concept that feels fun & relevant to your brand. Be clear on what your primary goal is: revenue, clicks, replies, etc.

When you show your team the concept their reaction should always be “wow I love that”. Anything less means you haven’t found a strong enough concept yet. If this is you, go back to step 1.

Step 4: Plan your copy

This is where you bring back all the headlines you wrote in the inspo stage.

Try to craft a fun story that ties in your brand and the holiday.

Plan out the following:

• Subject line: How do I stand out in the inbox next to all the other brands with a scroll-stopping hook? When everyone uses the 🍀🌈 emojis, what can you do different?

• Headline: How do you hook them in to your concept as quickly as possible? Don’t bury the lead.

• CTA/Offer: What will be irresistible for the reader to click or drive record engagement for the brand?

• Relatable: What words can you use to make your reader say “damn that was good”? Can you make them laugh? Feel nostalgic? Feel motivated? Will they want to read this email, or write it off as corpo-feeling content?

If you did the first few steps right, writing out the brief & copy for the campaign should be surprisingly easy.

80% of the work should come from the research & concepting stage.

Step 5: Share the vision

As you pass the work on to your designers, pick 2 or 3 designs you like from your inspo journey and share it in the brief.

Make sure to give context on what parts of it inspired you. You want to pass your vision on to them.

Step 6: Collect the gold

It’s a St. Patrick’s Day campaign after all.

Need help?

If you read this and thought, “I want this level of thinking in my campaigns… but I don’t have the time,” that’s literally what my agency does. We help 7 & 8-figure brands send 11/10 campaigns that get read and convert.

My view on campaigns

If you carry this level of intensity in the brainstorming and creative process in every campaign, your brand will be received well by your customers.

You always want to send unique content people read. If you continuously send generic, AI slop content similar to what every other brand sends, you will lose your readers. They will go subscribe and follow more unique & interesting brands. This applies to your product, your copy, your imagery and your overall brand.

You have a 1:1 dialogue with your customers. Make them feel seen and they will reward you.

Stop thinking about email as just email. Think about it like you would an Instagram page. Would copying a template from 3 months ago work? Would using the same creative as your competitors stand out? Would a lazy post perform?

St. Paddy’s Inspo

• Find a pickle

• Split the G

• Scratch & Win

• Green aesthetic

• Another green aesthetic

• Clover Hero

• Don’t forget your green

• Eco angle

Meme of the Week

That’s all for now,
Paperboy 🗞

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