I Give a Crap about Who Gives A Crap (Because of Their Emails)
My ORs are way higher than average. Probably around 75%.
I follow what’s trending in the email game, the occasional sexy SLs, the discount rates chosen by email type and occasion, y’know… Nerd Marketing stuff.
Here’s what I see most often in SLs:
- Final hours!
- Don’t miss it!
- Last chance!
- X% Off Ends Tonight!
- Exclusive!
To be clear, no hate here. These drive sales. Customers are strapped for cash and looking for discounts.
Although perhaps we could collectively agree to exclusively reserve “exclusive” for… exclusivity?
Email insides tend to be similar. Unwordy. Clean product/ICP imagery. Quotes from reviews. Lotsa gold stars.
And sure, they work on me, too.
When I’m ready to restock, or when something really catches my eye, I’m a reliable click - cart - purchase.
Sometimes, the hour is late, you’ve had an adult beverage, and that stainless steel pan you’ve had your eye on is 25% off.
But here’s what I crave: marketing that makes me feel things.
Stories. Connection. Personality. Brand building.
It’s why I open every single one of Who Gives A Crap’s emails.
WGAC is an eco-friendly toilet paper/home paper staples brand that distributes half their profits to charities that improve sanitation and build toilets for those in need.
AND I SAVE THE EMAILS.
I saved their emails for years before I ever thought I would write about them.
Their emails spark joy. They make me chuckle. They remind me of the business and keep me engaged while, honestly, rarely pushing hard on sales (granted, this is related to their vertical). They keep me up-to-date on their philanthropic mission. They make me feel like whoever’s writing the emails is someone I’d want to hang out with.
I first purchased from WGAC during 2020’s Great TP Shortage because they had stock when every grocery store was devoid of paper products.
While I liked the more sustainable TP, I stayed for the brand and the emails.
Here are 5 reasons they’re so effective.
1. Super entertaining brand building + product education
I was honestly having trouble breaking this piece into separate “reasons” because everything WGAC does tends to hit all the marks.
But it all starts with the brand and product.
WGAC makes two main claims in their onsite messaging (not in the following words):
- We’re fundamentally charity-oriented (brand)
- We’re better than traditional TP (product… and also brand)
To point 1 (brand):
WGAC’s founding story is compelling.
Three friends who founded a company to “uncrap the world,” donating 50% of profits to sanitation and toilet-building charities.
This is a phenomenal mission and cause to rally around.
And they keep that mission as a drumbeat in their emails.
If a customer purchases WGAC’s TP or their other paper products, they’re helping people be happier, and safer.
And WGAC convinces people (and their bums) to help other people (and those other bums) to do it in fun, entertaining ways.
This was an email whose SL was simply, “Bums rule.”
It’s less than 70 words, it’s incredibly easy to read, the color scheme + images pull your eye down, it’s funny, and it’s an extension of the rest of their tone (on-site and elsewhere).
But to the point, it hammers home WGAC’s mission (“...every time your bum uses our toilet paper it’s helping donate 50% of profits to help provide access to clean water and toilets”) right before the CTA.
This is the case with many of WGAC’s emails, where the mission is woven into creative, silly (in a good way), uber-digestible content.
And to point 2 (product):
WGAC humorously but clearly pits themselves against Big TP:
They’re rallying customers against Big TP’s environmental impact, and they’re making a distinction between themselves and Big TP’s products, often taking into consideration the relative similarity among toilet papers in general:
They’re not selling a wildly different product. When you buy from WGAC, you’re not upgrading from an $8.03 Shein button-down to a $750 bespoke tailored button-down from Saville Row.
There’s a bit less difference in this War of the Wipes.
So, they maintain the email drumbeat of “we’re better than Big TP” for a variety of reasons.
Which is brand building too.
2. Humor (+ purposeful humor)
Y’know when you text “hahahah” and your mouth is a literal straight line, so you have to write, “Ok, I actually laughed” when… you’ve actually laughed?
Just me?
Other emails I’ve read (often my own) are “hahahah,” but many of WGAC’s emails, and this one in particular, actually make me laugh:
Naturally, a brand with crap in its name lends itself to humor, but I think they nail a particular combination of gentle self-deprecating humor, relatability, non-vulgar / lighthearted potty humor, as well as a general vein "silly," which is always tied to brand building and product education.
That’s kind of summed up perfectly in the bottom graphic of the email, underneath the CTA:
There’s an art to this, and not every DTC brand should go for laughs (or at least, not do so all the time), but when it works, it’s a delightful reprieve from the urgency, fear, and PRESSURE that is used in so much of other marketing.
P.S. The element of adding names of team members made this one resonate even more.
3. Creative CTAs
Two aggressively overused CTAs:
- Shop Now
- Learn More
Again, no hate or shade in using these. On the software side of things, I’ve written my fair share of Learn Mores.
I'm trying to be better, I swear.
But there’s definitely room to be creative.
Which WGAC is. I don’t think I’ve seen a generic CTA in one of their emails. Even their “refer a friend” email is in-line with their branding and humor.
I really dig specific CTAs.
As marketers, we’re always space-limited, and the CTA is a teeeeensy bit more room to add flair, meaning, connection, humor, whatever.
Or even just [SOMETHING THAT ISN’T “SHOP NOW”], like in this nurture email:
“I see what you did there” is clever, and it’s a zillion times better than Shop Now.
If you spend 30 minutes writing a zingy email (or a zingy anything), and then use a ho-hum CTA, you’re doing a 10/10 olympic gymnastics routine and intentionally faceplanting in your landing.
4. Timing (using data)
From a DTC marketing standpoint, likely the most important data point is time between orders. It’s key to sending the right offer at the right time.
This goes double for CPG brands with consumables.
Naturally, WGAC has a subscription program, and they frequently drive email addressees to it, but for those of us not subscribed (sorry, WGAC team), they send replenishment emails.
And speaking as a WGAC customer for the last ~5 years, they’re accurate on their offer timing (it’s usually within 1wk for our house).
The emails are useful reminders, and they’re always enjoyable.
Actually, I’ll go ahead and say that they created the best replenishment email of all time:
Their other replenishment emails are pretty great, too (and often feature a puppy):
Bottom line (is that a relevant pun?), they’re touching base when they need to touch base, and they’re keeping me on top of my TP supply.
Because I forget to check on our personal TP inventory from time to always.
And I know others do, too.
5. Holiday messages that (actually) stand out
Inboxes are packed to the gills over the holidays, with a thousand promotions, limited offers, and best-deal-evers.
For a third (and final) time, no hate on this. Those drive sales. Urgency (artificial or not) works. Countdown timers work.
I’d love for a brand to run a test to see whether something off the wall drives sales, too, though.
WGAC sometimes writes poems in their emails:
Over the holidays, when inboxes look a bit like this…
… it’s a breath of fresh air.
6. Okay, I wrote there would be 5 things, but I decided I wanted to add one more thing. Look at this product launch.
This is part of an email launching WGAC’s bamboo tissues:
When you’re selling consumer staples and need to stand out, great product marketing is needed, and this is great product marketing.
I’ll never buy Puffs or Kleenex again. I gotta buy the Desniffilator 3000.
“Absorb what is useful (like great TP). Discard what is not.”
That Bruce Lee quote (book source) with my own addition felt relevant here.
There's a lot we (all) can from WGAC's emails and general messaging angles, though everything won't, of course, apply to everyone.
But(t)... In the end, everything they do is what every brand should be doing: making customers like me give a crap about them, their brand, and their mission.
And they make me feel like I’m part of it all.
How can you do the same?
