Email Marketing Tricks Anyone Can Try

Most people send an email, cross their fingers, and hope someone buys. What they skip is the study part — looking at what is actually working in real inboxes right now and understanding why each piece of an email does what it does. In this video, Alston pulls up real emails from Jim Cramer’s financial newsletter, Burlington clothing, Walmart, HBO, and ClickFunnels and walks through what each one gets right, what each one gets wrong, and what you should copy for your own campaigns.

If you have ever stared at an empty compose window wondering what to write, or sent a campaign that nobody clicked, this breakdown will give you a concrete mental model for every email you send from here forward.

What You’ll Walk Out With

A clear understanding of the single purpose every marketing email must serve
The three elements that make a campaign strong: authority, urgency, and a prominent CTA button
A side-by-side look at five real brand campaigns so you can see what a good email and a bad email look like in practice
The Interest, Desire, Motivation (IDM) framework Alston uses to figure out exactly what to say to a subscriber
How the email funnel pyramid filters your list from opens all the way down to buyers
Why email converts at around 20 percent — far higher than social or search — and how to reach that number yourself
A step-by-step plan you can follow to launch your first email sequence this week
Not sure what to sell in those emails? Run your skills through finder.platformproof.com and get a match in minutes.

The One Job of Every Marketing Email

Before you judge any email campaign, you need to know what it is trying to do. Alston makes this very simple: the purpose of email marketing is to get your subscriber to make a decision and take action. Usually that action is a purchase. Sometimes it is a click to a piece of content that will eventually lead to a purchase. Occasionally it is just streaming or visiting a page that helps the brand prove engagement to investors. But no matter what form the action takes, the underlying engine is the same — you have to generate interest and create a sense of urgency so the reader feels like they are missing something real if they do not act today.

That framing — action plus urgency — is the lens Alston uses to grade every campaign in this video. A campaign that checks both boxes is good. A campaign that has urgency but no action button fails. A campaign that has a button but no urgency is weak. Keep that scorecard in mind as you read through the examples below.

The Anatomy of a Strong Email Campaign

Looking across every example in the video, three structural elements separate strong campaigns from weak ones.

First is authority. The reader has to know instantly who is sending the email and why that sender is worth listening to. Jim Cramer’s name and The Street’s branding carry weight in the financial world. ClickFunnels carries weight in the marketing world. If a brand has no authority, it has to build it fast inside the body of the email itself — or subscribers will delete it without reading.

Second is urgency. A “limited time offer” badge, a countdown, a discount that expires today — these are not tricks. They reflect a real psychological truth: people delay decisions indefinitely unless there is a cost to waiting. Good campaigns make the cost of waiting visible. The Street sent Jim Cramer emails two or three days in a row to reinforce that the discount window was closing. ClickFunnels sent an email on Tuesday about a free training and then sent a follow-up on Wednesday to eliminate any remaining hesitation.

Third is a prominent, unmissable CTA button. This sounds obvious, but Walmart’s campaign failed largely because there was no clear button directing the reader anywhere. Burlington’s campaign suffered because the button blended into the rest of the design. The email that does not tell the reader exactly where to click next is an email that loses.

Real Example: Jim Cramer and The Street (What Authority Plus Urgency Looks Like)

This was the campaign Alston rated most highly. The Street is a financial information company, and their email led with exactly who they are — Jim Cramer’s name and the company brand are front and center. From there, the email stacks multiple urgency signals: a limited time offer header, a prominent red CTA button, a mention that the subscriber can save $125 if they act right now, and two free bonus reports thrown in to sweeten the deal. Then another CTA button appears further down the email to catch anyone who scrolled past the first one.

That structure — authority at the top, urgency in the middle, CTA repeated twice, free bonus offer buried in the middle to feel like a discovery — is a framework you can model for almost any digital product. Notice that Alston received two or three of these emails within a few days. That sequence is intentional. Each email in the sequence either adds a new reason to act or reminds the subscriber that the offer is expiring. If your open rate on the first email is 30 percent, a second email gives the other 70 percent another shot.

Real Example: Burlington Clothing (Mostly Fine, But the Button Fades)

Burlington’s email invited subscribers to join eRewards and take online surveys in exchange for Burlington gift cards. The concept is solid — it gives the subscriber something in return for their engagement. The copy includes urgency language: “Hurry, take advantage of your exclusive invitation now.” The brand identity is clear.

Where it falls short is the button design. The main CTA blends into the surrounding content rather than standing apart visually. A subscriber scanning the email quickly might miss it. Alston also noted that this campaign may simply be targeting the wrong audience — he is not a heavy clothing shopper, so the offer does not tap into anything he cares about. That is a useful reminder: a well-built email sent to the wrong segment still underperforms. The offer has to match the subscriber’s actual interests.

Real Example: Walmart (What a Failed Email Looks Like)

Walmart’s email loaded incorrectly and showed almost nothing — broken images, no visible content. But even setting the loading issue aside, Alston’s verdict is clear: there is no button directing the reader to take any action. The subscriber knows who Walmart is by logo recognition alone, but there is no reason to click anything, no discount to claim, no urgency to act. It is a brand awareness impression, not a marketing campaign.

This is worth sitting with if you are just starting out. People assume that a big brand name is enough to make an email work. It is not. Walmart with a broken email loses the click just as fast as an unknown newsletter with a broken email. The mechanics of action — urgency, CTA, value — are non-negotiable regardless of how well-known you are.

Real Example: HBO (Action Does Not Always Mean Buy Now)

HBO’s email featured a prominent image of a well-known celebrity alongside three headline content offers: a documentary, a spotlight piece, and a news segment. The CTA was to stream — not to purchase a subscription, but to engage with content.

Alston points out that this is still a valid campaign goal. If HBO can tell its investors that a campaign drove three billion streams in a month, that is a meaningful business outcome even if no money changed hands directly. For a lapsed subscriber, an email saying “you are missing these three shows” is a softer path back to resubscription than a hard sell. The lesson is that your campaign can have a middle-of-funnel goal — build engagement, drive traffic, remind people of value — and still be counted as successful if it moves the subscriber one step closer to a buying decision.

Real Example: ClickFunnels (The Gold Standard for Eliminating Objections)

ClickFunnels is a platform that lets people build landing pages, opt-in pages, and automated email sequences without needing a developer. In the video, Alston walks through two consecutive ClickFunnels emails — one sent on Tuesday and a follow-up sent on Wednesday — and explains why they work so well together.

The Tuesday email promoted a free “Funnel Builder Secrets” training. The offer was free. It was sent by a co-owner of the company. The branding was clean. And the email walked the subscriber through exactly two steps to register. Alston’s analysis: that email eliminates every common objection at once. It is free, so cost is gone as an objection. It comes from someone with real credibility inside the company, so trust is established. And the two-step process removes complexity as an objection. “It couldn’t be easier” is not just marketing copy — it is an objection-removal statement.

The Wednesday email followed up with “Are you ready for some amazing news?” — more value building and another round of objection removal. Together, the two emails show a complete sequence: introduce the offer and its value, then follow up to catch anyone who hesitated and give them one more reason to act. This is a pattern you can copy for almost any offer, whether it is a free guide, a webinar, or a product launch.

Alston also noted that once you join the ClickFunnels list, they keep emailing you about other products in their lineup. This is intentional funnel architecture. The entry point is free or low-cost, and then the sequence continues to introduce higher-ticket offers over time. If you want a live example of a well-run email funnel, signing up for the ClickFunnels free trial and watching how they follow up with you is a free education.

The Interest, Desire, Motivation Framework

Alston comes back to this framework repeatedly throughout the video, and it is worth spelling out clearly because it is the foundation of every effective email he showed.

Interest is what the subscriber cares about at a surface level. If they signed up for a marketing newsletter, they are interested in marketing. If they signed up for a finance alert, they are interested in finance. Your subject line and first paragraph have to speak directly to that interest or the email never gets opened.

Desire is the specific outcome the subscriber wants. Not just “marketing” — but more specifically, “I want to build a system that brings in customers while I sleep.” Not just “finance” — but “I want to stop losing money in the market and start making consistent gains.” The body of your email has to connect your offer to that specific desired outcome.

Motivation is what is driving them to act right now. Usually it is a pain point — something that is not working, something they are losing, something they are afraid of missing. The urgency language in a great email (“act today,” “limited time,” “this expires Friday”) works because it connects to motivation. If you can name the subscriber’s motivation and show them that your offer solves it, and you can show them that not acting has a cost, you have the core of a conversion-worthy email.

The Street’s email worked because it named a specific financial desire (saving money on investment research), connected it to Jim Cramer’s authority (the person who can help), and created motivation by putting a dollar amount on the discount and a deadline on the offer. ClickFunnels worked because it named a specific marketing desire (build a better funnel), connected it to the co-owner’s credibility, and motivated action by making the entry point free.

Not sure what to offer your email list?

Figure out which skill you already have that people will pay for at finder.platformproof.com.

The Email Funnel Pyramid

Alston describes the email campaign as a pyramid. At the wide base, you send an email to thousands of people. Only a percentage of those people open the email. Of those who open it, only a percentage click through to your website or offer page. Of those who click through, only a percentage buy. Each layer of the funnel is narrower than the one above it, and your job as the campaign designer is to maximize the conversion rate at each step.

If your open rate is low, your subject line is the problem. The email is not compelling enough to open in a crowded inbox. If your open rate is strong but your click-through rate is low, the body of the email is failing to deliver on the promise of the subject line. The reader expected something based on the subject and did not find it, or the CTA button was not prominent enough to notice. If your click-through rate is good but nobody buys, the problem is on your sales page or in the offer itself — the email did its job, but the destination did not close the deal.

The Street’s email sequence — multiple emails over several days, each with a prominent CTA and a deadline — is designed to push as many people as possible through each layer of that pyramid. The first email catches early movers. The second email catches people who opened but hesitated. By sending the same offer multiple times with slight variations, you maximize the number of subscribers who eventually click through and see the sales page.

Analytics: Every Click Tells You Something

One of the more overlooked points Alston makes is about how much information each email campaign generates. Every email platform — whether it is ClickFunnels, Mailchimp, ConvertKit, or ActiveCampaign — tracks exactly who opened your email, who clicked which link, and who forwarded it. That data is not just for vanity metrics. It is how you get smarter with each campaign.

When Alston clicked a link in The Street’s newsletter about Elon Musk and the SEC, The Street’s system logged that click. Now they know he has an interest in those specific stories, and future campaigns can lead with content in that area. The same thing happens with every subscriber on your list. If you have three links in an email — one about affiliate marketing, one about social media, one about email list building — and 40 percent of the clickers go to the affiliate marketing link, you now know that is the topic your audience wants more of. Your next campaign leads with affiliate marketing.

Over time, a skilled email marketer can look at their list and know with reasonable certainty what percentage of subscribers will buy when a particular type of offer goes out. That predictability is the difference between guessing and running a real business.

Conversion Rates: Why Email Still Wins

Alston makes a concrete claim in this video: email marketing converts at around 20 percent — meaning roughly 20 percent of engaged subscribers who receive a targeted offer will buy. That number is higher than what you get from people landing on your website from search, higher than what you get from social media posts, and much higher than what you get from any kind of traditional advertising. Email has been winning this comparison for decades, and that has not changed.

The reason is trust. A subscriber opted in. They gave you permission to enter their inbox. That act of permission raises the baseline relationship above anything you can achieve with a cold audience seeing your ad for the first time. The email sequence compounds that trust over time by delivering value before asking for a purchase. By the time you send a promotional email, the subscriber has already seen you show up consistently with useful content, so the buying decision feels safer.

How to Run Your First Email Campaign: A Step-by-Step Plan

Use this sequence to build and send your first real email marketing campaign.

Pick one problem your audience has. Do not write a general email about your business. Pick one specific pain point from the IDM framework — what is motivating your subscriber right now?
Choose one action you want them to take. Buy a product, click to a blog post, sign up for a free training, or watch a video. One email, one action. More than one ask dilutes the campaign.
Write a subject line that names the pain or the payoff. “How I saved $125 on investment research” is more compelling than “Our newsletter is back.” The subject line must earn the open.
Open the email by naming the subscriber’s situation. Start with something they would say to themselves — not something you want to say about your product. Make them feel understood in the first two sentences.
Build value before you ask. Give them something useful inside the email itself — a tip, a short insight, a piece of information they did not have before. Then introduce the offer as the next step.
Place a prominent CTA button with a clear label. “Claim your discount,” “Start free,” “Watch the training” — the button label should tell the reader exactly what happens when they click. Make the button a color that stands out from everything else in the email.
Add a time limit or a scarcity signal. A real deadline (the offer expires Friday, only 50 seats available) gives the subscriber a reason to act today rather than saving the email to read later and forgetting it.
Send a follow-up email within 24 to 48 hours. The follow-up catches everyone who opened and hesitated. Lead with a new angle — address a common objection, add a testimonial, or remind them what they are missing by not acting.

Honest Drawbacks of Email Marketing

Email converts well compared to other channels, but it is not without real challenges you should know about before you commit to building a list.

First, list building takes time. You do not start email marketing with a thousand subscribers. You start with ten, then fifty, then a hundred. The campaigns that convert at 20 percent are being sent to lists that were built over months or years of consistent content and lead generation. If you are expecting fast results from a tiny list, you will be disappointed.

Second, deliverability is a real problem. Spam filters have gotten more aggressive, and there are technical requirements — domain authentication, proper sending infrastructure, list hygiene — that you have to get right or your emails land in the spam folder rather than the inbox. A great campaign that nobody sees converts at zero percent.

Third, the 20 percent conversion figure Alston cites is for targeted, well-built campaigns sent to engaged subscribers. A cold list, a poorly written email, or an offer that does not match the subscriber’s interests will convert far lower than that. The 20 percent is the ceiling you can reach when you have done the work of understanding your audience, not a baseline you get automatically by sending any email.

Fourth, subscriber fatigue is real. Sending too many emails, sending too few, or sending emails that consistently deliver no value will drive people to unsubscribe. The examples in this video — ClickFunnels sending back-to-back emails on Tuesday and Wednesday — work because the second email adds something new. A second email that just repeats the first with no new angle is annoying rather than persuasive.

Find Your X

Email marketing is one of the highest-converting tools available to anyone building income online, but a great list is only as valuable as the offer behind it. Before you start building campaigns, you need to know what you are actually selling — and more importantly, what skill or experience you already have that people will pay for. That is the question finder.platformproof.com is built to answer. Run through the finder and walk out with a clear match between what you know and what the market wants.

Frequently Asked Questions

How often should I email my list?

There is no universal answer, but the examples in this video suggest that for a promotional campaign, emailing two to three times over three to five days is normal practice. For general list nurturing, one to two emails per week is sustainable for most audiences without causing high unsubscribe rates. The key variable is whether each email delivers value. An email list that gets one genuinely useful email per week will stay engaged longer than one that gets five emails a week full of hard sells.

What if my click-through rates are low even though my open rates are decent?

This usually means the email body is not delivering on the promise of the subject line, or the CTA is buried or weak. Audit two things: first, does the opening paragraph immediately match what the subject line implied? Second, is the CTA button visually prominent and labeled with clear action language? If either of those is off, click-through rates will suffer even when the subject line earns the open.

Do I need ClickFunnels to build an email list?

No. ClickFunnels is one option, and Alston mentions it favorably for people who want an all-in-one platform with landing pages and email automation built together. But standard email service providers like Mailchimp, ConvertKit, and ActiveCampaign also handle list management, automation, and basic landing pages. The platform matters far less than the quality of your offer and the consistency of your emails.

Is a 20 percent conversion rate realistic for a beginner?

Not immediately. The 20 percent figure reflects what experienced email marketers achieve with targeted, well-curated lists after a significant period of audience building and campaign testing. A beginner sending to a small, early list should expect much lower numbers and treat them as feedback rather than failure. Each campaign teaches you something about what your specific audience responds to. Conversion rates improve as you accumulate that data and refine your IDM understanding.

How do I avoid ending up in the spam folder?

Use a reputable email service provider rather than sending from a personal Gmail account. Set up proper domain authentication (SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records) for your sending domain. Keep your list clean by removing subscribers who have not opened an email in six months. Avoid spam trigger words in subject lines. Send only to people who explicitly opted in. These steps do not guarantee inbox placement, but they give your emails the best chance of arriving where they are supposed to.

What is the difference between a broadcast email and an automated sequence?

A broadcast is a one-time email sent to your whole list (or a segment of it) at a specific time — a product launch, a weekly newsletter, a promotional campaign. An automated sequence is a series of pre-written emails that go out on a fixed schedule to each new subscriber after they join your list. Most effective email marketing uses both: a welcome sequence that delivers immediate value and builds trust, plus periodic broadcast campaigns for promotions and time-sensitive offers.

How do I know what my subscribers want to read about?

Watch which links they click. If you send an email with three different topic links and the majority of your audience clicks one specific topic, your next email leads with that topic. Over time, your click data builds a clear picture of your audience’s most active interests. You can also ask directly — a short survey email or a reply-request (“hit reply and tell me your biggest question about X”) will surface desires and motivations that your campaign data alone cannot.

Can email marketing work if I do not have a product to sell yet?

Yes, and in many ways starting your list before you have a product is the smart move. You can spend the early months delivering value, building trust, and learning what your audience actually wants. By the time you launch your first product, you have a warm list that already knows and trusts you. Alston’s approach in this video — breaking down real campaigns and teaching the principles behind them — is itself an example of building an audience around a niche before monetizing it directly.

Sources

Alston Godbolt, “Email Marketing Tricks Anyone Can Try!” YouTube, Platform Proof channel
TheStreet / Jim Cramer email campaign (real campaign analyzed in video)
Burlington email campaign (real campaign analyzed in video)
Walmart email campaign (real campaign analyzed in video)
HBO email campaign (real campaign analyzed in video)
ClickFunnels two-email sequence (real campaign analyzed in video)