What's your experience of the typical email you get from an “expert” you've subscribed to?

A riveting read?

Or dull, dull, dull.

Or perhaps just annoyingly full of showing off, teasing the secrets they know, but never actually revealing anything useful?

Usually one of the last two in my experience. And it annoys the heck out of me.

It's just not that hard to provide value and be interesting.

All it takes is…

…oh – hang on…

…that's not what this email is supposed to be about…

…the first few paragraphs were really just an example of an easy way to write an interesting and entertaining email…

…I just got a bit carried away…

So here's the point: one easy way to write entertaining emails is to have a bit of a rant.

Like I just did.

It's an age-old technique used in comedy writing to come up with funny topics.

Just have a rant about something that's annoying you.

In our case, if we make it about a topic in our field: some common bad practices or things we disagree with. Then it becomes valuable too.

We're really just harnessing the power of our own emotions.

But it's surprising how interesting (and sometimes how funny) rant emails can be.

Don’t make it too much of a habit of course. No one wants to hear from someone who grumbles all the time.

But as an exception, it's an easy and interesting email to write that your subscribers will get value from and be entertained by.