Eldritch Horror in your Inbox: Framing narratives and gimmicks in email marketing

Greetings, fleshy one.

Would you rather get emails from a copy writer or from an interdimensional shadow monster?

If you're a subscriber to the Faustian Nonsense newsletter, you've made your choice. And a Faustian bargain.

Our marketing emails, mostly focused on podcast release announcements, crowdfunding updates, and casting calls, don't come from me or my fellow podcasters, but from Pod (short for Kvozpodnepryxhiek), an eldritch being with shadowy tentacles and many glowing eyes and teeth.

This serves several purposes, but here are the two main ones:

1. I don't hate writing these emails
2. Our fans don't hate reading them

Marketing doesn't have to be boring or formulaic. You don't have to do it the way everyone else does it. It can be fun for everyone involved, and you can make the emails appealing enough that people will sign up and actually open them, without needing to incentivize such behavior with discount codes. But you have to be willing to get a little weird with it. Or wyrd, even.

FN is lucky in that department, our vibe has been a little weird since the start. The name is Faustian Nonsense, I mean, really. So when we decided to get a little gimmicky with our email list, it just made sense to lean into the goth and the deals-with-monsters vibes.

And it turns out, these emails are so much more fun to write! Yes, a new podcast comes out, we need to convey certain information to our fans. What's the new show called? What's it about? Where can you find it?

Yes, that can be pretty interesting in its own right, don't get me wrong. We're lucky here, too--we're marketing fun stuff. But no matter how exciting a work of art is in its finished product, reading a summary of it may not be thrilling. And anyone who remembers their high school history classes knows that learning dates is just not fun.

But when that news is delivered to you in character? The most boring parts of delivering news get shiny and new. And frankly, they get way more fun to write.

You can even use the character as an excuse for pretty much anything. In a normal marketing email, crowdfunding can be an awkward request for money(/support/help). Or, through Pod's voice, it can be an eerie temptation with a hint of threat. ("I'll be watching from just over your shoulder...just ask your cats what they stare at in the corner that you can't see...") The only limits are your imagination.

What I'm saying is, I never see anyone else do it this way and I don't understand why. People are way more likely to read to the end of an email that entertains them the whole way through. The rare marketing email I see having fun with it, some tongue in cheek copy or some product anthropomorphizing? I actually read those, I don't unsubscribe, and far more often, I buy.

Just...come on people. Marketing emails, ads, all of it, we know people are sick of them. At least make them fun.

And if you'd like Pod in your inbox, you can sign up at faustiannonsense.com!