I love Trojan Horse-style emails, landing pages, and video sales letters.

The reason is simple: they’ve made me millions of dollars.

That’s because, at first glance, these emails appear to be valuable content—news articles, newsletters, or reports.

However, they have a hidden agenda: to sell you something.

Much like the ancient Greek tale of the Trojan Horse, these emails are deceptive, designed to infiltrate your inbox and subtly push a product or service.

The term "Trojan Horse email" borrows from the famous story where the Greeks used a giant wooden horse to infiltrate the city of Troy.

The more you can make your promotion look like valuable content, the better. As it lures your reader down the page, it gets them salivating like a dog to a cookie, eventually leading them to reach for their credit card.

Here’s How to Create a Trojan Horse Email/Landing Page/VSL

1. News-Style Headline: The email starts with a catchy subject line designed to grab your attention. It promises insights, solutions, or interesting information that is directly targeted to your prospect.
 

2. Valuable Content: Your content should include high-quality, engaging material. Your goal is to provide real value to the reader, establishing credibility and trust.
 

3. Subtle Transition: As you lead your reader down the page, your content slowly starts to mention a product or service related to the topic. If you follow my approach, it will go unnoticed until they're so deep into the pitch, they can’t help but reach for their credit card.
 

4. Call to Action: Like any sales promotion, yours will end with a call to action (CTA), urging them to click a link, download a resource, or sign up for a service. It really works like magic because, by this point in the promotion, they’re already so heavily invested, they can’t help but buy.

Here’s Why They’re So Damn Effective

1. They Build Trust and Authority: 

By providing valuable content upfront, these emails build trust and position the sender as an authority on the subject. When the sales pitch appears, it seems more credible and less intrusive.
 

2. Higher Level of Engagement: 

Quality content keeps readers engaged. 

The longer you keep them engaged, the more likely they are to do a swan dive to the order form. Trojan Horse emails leverage this by hooking you with information and then reeling you in with a product or service.
 

3. Subtle But Powerful: 

Because your sales pitch is slowly but surely woven into the content, the call to action is the natural result that someone would take after opening your email or watching your VSL. 

This is why I find it far more effective than overt advertising, which people often ignore or find annoying.

The Bottom Line

Trojan Horse promotions are a sophisticated marketing tool designed to capture your reader’s interest and convert that into a sale.

By understanding the mechanics of these content-focused promotions, you can better navigate your inbox and make informed decisions about the messages you receive.

All good wishes,

DD

P.S. If you are looking for winning Trojan Horse samples to add to your swipe file, you will find no better resource than my $100 Million-Dollar Copywriting Formula Swipe File.

Each sample has been hand-picked by me to give you a bank of winning headlines, leads, transitions, and arguments that you can turn to whenever you need inspiration for your next Trojan Horse email, landing page, or video sales letter.

 

Here’s the link to learn more, along with a special discount offer.