The JV Guest Letter: A New Approach to Swipe Copy

I’ve never felt right using swipe copy.

Signing my name under someone else’s words and sending them out to my community didn’t feel in integrity.

So I developed a new way to promote partners.

It can be jarring to get an email in someone else’s voice signed with your name

Creating a New Way

The development of this idea began back in October when I promoted a launch. 17 emails in 19 days, and had no additional unsubscribes due to the campaign (total unsub rate was 1.8% for the month, just like the previous month).

What did I do differently?

First, I told my audience what I was doing. I sent them an email saying that an launch campaign was coming. I explained what it was and that they would get a bunch of valuable free stuff followed by an offer. Then I told them that if, at any point, they didn’t want to get that campaign anymore there would be a link to click to stop it without leaving my community.

(In case you’re wondering, I cloned the list, and gave them up a button to opt out of the campaign list without opting out of the main list.)

Then, on every message, I had an introduction that reminded them of what was going on, and at the end was a message inviting them to opt out.

The result was that I came in 10th place on the leaderboard of a major launch using a 1200 person email list.

It was good, but it felt clunky. I was still sharing copy written in the first person while explaining it wasn’t my words. Not ideal.

The JV Guest Letter

I am speaking at an event called Sell Books with Collabs, and, like most events, organizer Jess Kotzer sent me swipe copy.

But the way the swipe copy was written, it would plausibly be written by her or by me.

If it could be written by her, why not just put her name under it and say it was written by her?

I added some introduction text at the top, as if I were introducing her to my audience, and some conclusion at the bottom. In email form, I handed her the mic to speak to my audience.

And the JV Guest Letter was born. Here’s what it looked like in the first email I used it for.

The response was excellent. Very high engagement. No unsubscribes.

And why not? It doesn’t feel salesy. It doesn’t feel inauthentic.

People sign up for my list to hear from me. They sign up for your list to hear from you. When they read words that don’t sound like you but that you are signing, it doesn’t land right.

Even if you rewrite the copy, it often doesn’t feel right because you’re still trying to share ideas that aren’t yours.

But the JV Guest Letter allows the partner to share whatever message they want, while you say “this is a good person, and you should listen to them.” By endorsing the person and not the message, the communication becomes more authentic and natural.

Going forward, I will be including JV Guest Letters in all of my swipe copy, and I encourage you to give it a try as well.

If you’d like to sign up for my very authentic and all-me Resource Letter, I encourage you to use the form below…

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.