If your brand has to bribe people with 20% off just to make a sale, you don’t have a pricing problem. You have a copy problem.
Discounts are short-term dopamine hits that slowly drain your margins – and your brand. They train your audience to wait, not buy. And worst of all, they hide the fact that your emails aren’t converting.
But what if the words you used made people click without the coupon? What if your emails made sales because they told a story people actually wanted to finish?
Let’s fix the 7 mistakes keeping your emails from doing the job they were built to do: sell.
Mistake 1: Writing Like a Brand, Not Like a Person
Most DTC emails sound like they were written by legal.
Clean. Polished. Dead.
But you’re not selling to robots – you’re selling to humans. Joanna Wiebe says, “Clarity beats cleverness.” But even more than that: conversation converts.
Write like you’d talk to a friend. If it wouldn’t sound normal out loud, it shouldn’t be in your email.
Mistake 2: Starting With the Product Instead of the Problem
Nobody wakes up thinking, I need a new face serum. They wake up thinking, Why do I look so tired lately? That’s where your email should begin: with the problem already in their head.
Chase Dimond’s top-performing flows don’t lead with features – they start with friction.
You’re not selling what it is. You’re selling what it solves.
Mistake 3: Forgetting the Power of the P.S.
If your CTA is the main course, your P.S. is the dessert. Val Geisler says it’s the most-read part of your email – yet most brands treat it like an afterthought.
This is prime real estate: reinforce urgency, inject personality, or echo the hook.
It’s the last line they see. Make it the first thing they remember.
Mistake 4: Treating Sales Like a Transaction Instead of a Story
“Buy now” is not a strategy. Storytelling is.
Val’s “before/after” technique paints the transformation: here’s your life now, here’s how it could be.
No one buys the product. They buy the possibility it unlocks. So stop writing sales emails. Start writing transformation arcs.
Mistake 5: Overloading With CTAs
You’re not Amazon. You don’t need a dozen links, product carousels, and “Learn More” buttons.
You need one goal. One link. One clear action. Chase Dimond says the more CTAs you add, the less people do.
Make the next step obvious. Then get out of the way.
Mistake 6: Sending Without Segmenting
Blasting your whole list with the same message is digital shouting. And shouting is not strategy.
Chase’s highest-performing emails are segmented based on behavior, timing, and lifecycle. An abandoned cart needs urgency. A loyal customer needs love. A new subscriber needs trust.
Talk to everyone the same – and no one listens. Personalization isn’t a “nice-to-have.” It’s the price of entry now.
Mistake 7: Hiding the Offer in a Wall of Text
You’re not writing a novel. You’re writing for people who are standing in line, on 4% battery, and skimming with one eye.
Joanna Wiebe teaches that the offer should be instantly scannable.
Bold it. Bullet it. Break it up. Make it unmissable.
Because if they have to work to find the offer, they won’t.
Conclusion
If you’re relying on discounts, your emails aren’t working. But if you write like a human, tell stories that stick, and guide the reader toward one clear action, you don’t need to lower your prices.
You raise your words instead.
So here’s your challenge: Write your next email without a single discount – and watch what happens.
If this resonated, here’s what to do next:
→ If you’re tired of content that fills space instead of driving sales, let’s talk. Schedule a quick demo.
→ If you’re ready to turn product pages, email flows, landing copy, and more into silent salespeople for your brand, subscribe to either our Unlimited Standard Plan or Unlimited Professional Plan to get started.
Your story deserves better than generic copy.
We make it unforgettable.