Health Email of the Week #4: Built With Science
Updated: Sep 17, 2021
I’m a fitness nerd and love searching the internet, watching videos, and reading articles about weightlifting and nutrition. I recently came across a YouTube page for Jeremy Ethier and his Built With Science brand and I really liked it.
Jeremy focuses on, you guessed it, scientific methods to teach others. His videos are filled with actual studies, including easy-to-understand graphs for viewers to view.
And I was pleasantly surprised with his email marketing strategy, so, here we are, kids. Built With Science is the Health Email of the Week. Let’s roll…
Don’t forget -- if you have some great health email(s) that you want me to review, forward it to me! If it’s good, I’ll buy you a drink the next time we hang out. You can forward the email(s) to: nick@iamnickyates.com.
Make sure you review the selection criteria first though…
Here’s How I select the Emails to Review
1. They must focus on text-based emails. Sure, you can use the occasional image and GIF (bonus points for good GIF usage), but I’m not reviewing one of those walls of graphics with 25 buttons and 45 total words.
2. It needs to excite me deep in my loins. Sorry, was that too much? I’m an email nerd, I get excited about this stuff, give me a break… Long story short, I’m going to review emails that catch my attention. I’m not reviewing a crazy hypey email that sells a product that makes you shit oil slicks and “lose 61 lbs. in just 3 weeks!!!”
3. They need a bit of strategy (just a little, please!) I don’t plan on reviewing the soul-crushing companies that spam their list with neverending BUY MY SHIT types of offers. Those types of “churn and burn” lists cause me physical pain. At least put a little effort into your strategy and I’ll toss you a review, capiche?
Overview
When I first stumbled across Jeremy Ethier’s YouTube page it really drew me in because of the amount of research he put into his videos. And this research goes perfectly with his brand positioning for Built With Science.
As someone who has pretty much seen it all in the health and fitness niche, the effort that Built With Science puts into its videos, programs, supplements, and articles is a breath of fresh air. It’s rare to find fitness brands that aren’t pumping out a bunch of repurposed (or blatantly stolen) bodybuilding routines that don’t fit everyone’s needs.
One thing I really liked about their website was the fact that they are driving everything to a quiz funnel. This is really solid for segmentation and customization of offerings for website visitors. It also makes them feel as if they’re getting a boutique offer, not just another “Male who wants to get jacked” fitness routine.
This is something everyone should consider for their business if they want to give their audience a more customized experience.
So, for this breakdown, I focused specifically on the case study emails that Built With Science uses in their marketing strategy. I absolutely love using testimonials and case studies in the emails I write so I was excited to see this.
Subject Lines
Overall, Built With Science focuses a lot on “how to” and simple curiosity subject lines. This is a solid strategy but I think it could be better which I’ll share after the examples below…
Now, let’s take a look at these subject lines they used for their case study emails…
Email 1 subject line: Case Study: The Stubborn Fat Solution
Email 2 subject line: Case Study: The Skinny Fat Fix
Email 3 subject line: Case Study: Captain America Results
Email 4 subject line: Case Study: Shortcut to your dream body (not steroids)
These are all solid subject lines as they are direct and also involve a bit of curiosity as well. For example, I really like the “(not steroids)” copy in the email 4 SL.
One thing I believe would be worth testing is the use of actual quotes from the case study as a subject line. I LOVE doing this. Here’s what that could look like…
Subject line: “My girlfriend said I looked just like Captain America!”
Subject line: “I happily admit to eating cakes, cookies, pancakes & popcorn DAILY”
Etc.
See how that looks and feels different?
One thing to note, make sure you use the actual quotation marks. It doesn’t seem like a big deal but I’ve noticed a difference. It subtly lets the reader know that this isn’t just you, the brand, saying it. It’s coming from a peer, like them so it’s much more enticing.
Body Copy and Overall Strategy
As I mentioned, I’m focusing on their case study emails so let’s take a look at one of them now…
The first quote starts with a great belief-shifting quote from Patrick, the client…
I really love this quote because of the powerful relationship it builds with the reader. Who hasn’t started a diet and quickly realized how much it SUCKS to eat the same, boring food every single day? Yeah, that’s literally 99.99999% of us.
Chicken, broccoli, rice, oatmeal… *dry heave noise*
Most people believe you have to be miserable to actually lose weight and eat right but that isn’t the case and Patrick’s quote does a great job of demonstrating this and relating with the reader.
Next, they use an incredible transformation picture:
This is a really amazing transformation...
One thing I do recommend for a lot of fitness brands is to not ALWAYS use the super jacked person in their pictures. It’s nice (and much more relatable) for readers to see someone who was extremely overweight and now they are still overweight but they look real.
Here’s another example they used in a different email that I really like since it shows the actual progression of their client:
Notice how that is so much more believable and relatable than the first picture?
When any reader looks at this, they can most likely identify with one of the first two rows and think, “ok, that’s about what I look like now…”
Now, back to the original email.
After the transformation pic they move into another quote from Patrick:
Another great, relatable quote. Personally, I’m a HUGE foodie so I love that this is so relatable to me. It makes me realize that I don’t have to give up one of my favorite things (trying new foods) to get in great shape.
Great line.
Lastly, they move into the close, and I love what they did here.
They throw in some very specific curiosity copy that relates directly to Patrick and what worked specifically to take him from chubby guy to the jacked guy you see in his photo above.
And the CTA here is extremely “low risk” since they don’t actually ask you to buy anything, it’s just a simple, free quiz to see if they can help you out.
That’s it.
So here’s the basic formula for a good testimonial/case study email:
Introduce your case study client
Talk about their problem
Explain how their life was BEFORE solving the problem
Detail the solution (your product)
Explain how their life changed AFTER solving the problem
Add a CTA to your product
Pretty easy, right?
Easy… yet very, very powerful.
Conclusion
As you can see, these types of emails are super powerful and also very easy to write. If you do a good job of gathering testimonials from your clients, these emails practically write themselves.
Just make sure your product actually works and it won’t be too difficult ;)
That’s a wrap on Health Email of the Week #4.
If you have any health and fitness emails you’d like to submit for any upcoming Health Email of the Week posts, please forward them to my email: nick@iamnickyates.com
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