RIMMER: You know, it could have worked. It really could. Where’s the CAT?
LISTER: He won’t be long. He’s…you know… in the bushes.
LISTER and RIMMER wait for a bit. Suddenly, they both realize something awful and look at each other.
LISTER: We’ve got to stop him!!
I physically winced watching that scene the first time.
The Red Dwarf posse is about to jump into Starbug … to find the “swirly thing in space” … and fly back to their own time.
Just before they do, Cat ducks off into the bushes to relieve himself.
(If you’ve not seen it. You’ll get it in a second.)
You see…
They’d found themselves on a “Backwards” version of Earth.
Time had hit the end… bounced off… and was now running in reverse.
It’s an Earth where buying a beer means you FILL the cup as you “drink.”
Imagine! … or NOT!
And “eating” pies means… well… you can guess.
You’ve probably already “clicked” about the repercussions for poor Cat!!
😬
Now, there were some other sucky things about this Earth…
I mean…
Santa Claus was the bearded git who climbs down chimneys and steals all the kids favorite toys.
And going through puberty again — in reverse?
But not everything was awful.
Take World War II…
As Kryten says:
“Millions of people will come to life. Hitler will retreat across Europe, liberate France and Poland, disband the Third Reich, and bog off back to Austria!”
So backwards ain’t all that bad.
And, you know…
Doing it backwards has its place in email marketing.
In fact, it can be jolly GOOD for making sales email writing a LOT less stressful!
It’s like this…
When you start by asking:
“How can I tell a story about the product I want to sell?”
…it’s playing the game on HARD MODE.
Much easier and FASTER to write a story FIRST.
And it can be ANY story (just about). Have some fun with it. Write about your favorite space-comedy episode. Enjoy email-writing bliss! 🍸
The call to action? That’s figureoutable later.
And often becomes clearer as you write the email.
Now… fair enough…
Sometimes you DO have to start with the end in mind. Perhaps for a special promotion.
So you may just have to slog it out to find an opening that links well to the call to action.
But MOST of the time? … NAAAH!
This approach works great when writing story-based emails more often.
And is ideal for daily email, like I do. Because I’m not so glued to a promotional calendar.