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Comment by scoot | Hacker News Reader

So for those curious, but not curious enough to sign up for WPengine's "course", here's the first email:

"I just wanted to say hello and thank you for your interest in WP Engine. I saw that you filled out our speed test form, and wanted to let you know that there is a real person over here, and that I'm interested to hear how you feel about us so far.

Do you have any questions or concerns? Can I help you make a decision either way?

Thanks!

Trafton Esler Lead Developer Champion"

There are so many things wrong with this email I don't know where to start. My only hope is that they inserted this email into the sequence /after/ Patio11's involvement; otherwise it's a warning sign (along with the awful video on the sales page) that his course is not all it's hyped-up up to be.

Good luck anyway, there's a sucker born every minute.

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Hello! I'm Erica, and I consulted for WP Engine at the same time as Patrick. I worked side by side with Patrick during the week he was at WP Engine--Jason (their CEO) hired me to jump-start their entire marketing department for 3 months, vs. Patrick's specific "email drip feed" task.

I'm intimately familiar with the details of the open rates and conversion rates from WP Engine's email series; in fact, I was the one who helped sequence them and proofread/edit some of them after Patrick left.

I can tell you with 100% authority that you are dead wrong. That email converts extremely well. In fact, it used to go directly to Trafton's inbox and he had fun showing me all the responses people sent to him every day.

If you want the spoiler details, it converts well because people love to know there's a real human behind all this nonsense that we call "the Internet." (And it also converts well because Trafton is a machine who seems to never sleep and responds to everyone's questions quickly...another key ingredient. Everyone was always asking Jason how they could "hire a Trafton.") It speaks well for the people Jason hires, as well as the effectiveness of the email itself. There you have it, from the horse's mouth.

That email got me to reply, and moved our business to WP engine faster. Trafton gave me some info that helped convince our tech guy.

And then I stole that email in our campaign (with some modifications), to great results. I even got lots of "Wow, you guys are real humans and not robots" replies.

I'm interested to hear what you say is wrong with the email, because you haven't yet.

edit: The lead developer champion bit wasn't in the email they sent me.

Hey Scoot, sorry the emails didn't grab you. I want to echo Erica's comments below. She and Patrick laid an amazing groundwork for transparent and human communication that Trafton, and when I joined the company during SXSW this year, I was able to build upon and make it easy to communicate with our customers when they have questions or just way to say hey.

It's been working so far :-)

If you have more thoughts about the email, I'd love to read them and learn from your perspective. There may be a perspective here that I am blind to, and you could teach me something.

What's wrong with the email? If you don't know where to start, just pick the thing that's most wrong.

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