Today, I wanted to share a sneaky lucrative marketing tactic with you.
This tactic, or more specifically, campaign angle, is so powerful yet so underutilized that it feels like pulling an ace out of your pocket in the middle of a high-stakes poker game.
I’m talking about global events.
If you didn’t know already, earlier this week, Amazon Web Services (AWS) experienced a 15-hour power outage.
Over 1000 apps using AWS, including Klaviyo, Slack, Asana, were shut down for hours.
Millions of businesses lost hundreds of thousands in revenue because they couldn’t access their tech stack, and consequently, their customers.
Pretty crazy, right?
Later that day I saw a post from a brand founder named Isaac whose business had also been affected.
But his post wasn’t a sob story or a rant about how he’s going to hunt down Jeff Bezos.
Far from it.
Instead, Isaac used this unfortunate situation to launch a limited-time offer to his email list.
Check this out:
Now, you may look at this email campaign and think this is silly.
A fifth grader could write something like this.
But this is exactly what peak email marketing looks like in 2025.
In fact, there are 3 simple reasons why this email campaign works so well.
I call this OCU:
1) Offer
The email mentions a clear offer – 15% off. It’s simple and easy to understand.
2) Context
Tying the offer to the AWS outage gives context to the sale.
This is super important, and something that Daniel Throssell preaches.
Every time you launch a sale, you need to ask yourself:
Why am I running THIS exact offer at THIS exact time?
Without a compelling reason, your offer will lose its meaning, and you’ll condition your list to never buy at full price.
In Isaac’s case, the brand’s website was down for a couple of hours, which meant no one was able to place any orders.
I can guarantee you, had they run the exact same offer without any explanation or acting as if nothing had happened, the sale wouldn’t have been nearly as effective.
But there’s one more thing:
3) Urgency
Give people time to think, and they will take it every single time.
Give them a reason to buy now, and you’ll make sales.
What this means is, if possible, you should attach a deadline to your offer.
In his email, Isaac mentions the offer is only valid for 12 hours.
This creates urgency and gives a reason to act right away.
But the bigger lesson is this:
Setbacks are really setups for your next big opportunity…
Only if you have the right tools and mindset.
If Isaac didn’t have an active email list (tool), and hadn’t thought of using this marketing angle (mindset), he would’ve never made that money back.
His business would’ve lost thousands of dollars, leaving him at the mercy of external factors.
That’s a pretty dangerous place to be in if you ask me.
And the same goes for you.
If you want to rely less on factors that are outside of your control, like social media algorithms, or random network outages, then building an email list is the best thing you can do for your business.
Talk soon,
Siim Pettai
P.S. If you enjoyed my analysis of this email, you can read the full version here (and learn about a scary blackout I experienced myself earlier this year).
