The "Are you still that person?" trick 🪞

Say *this* to convert more leads.

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Are you still that person? 🪞

My friend Dean got a weird email from a company called Couchsurfing.

I think it’s absolutely brilliant:

He hasn’t used Couchsurfing in years - they’re trying to get him back.

See how NOTHING in the email is about the product? Everything there is about Dean’s identity. It’s the perfect way to get churned users back.

My favorite part is the button “I’m Still That Person”. Clicking it means agreeing with a compliment. Genius. 🧠

They also put an offer (one month free) at the very bottom of the email:

That’s smart. A discount up top makes the visit all about the “deal”, so people exit the email as soon as they open it. But down here - the free month feels like a bonus just for him.

The marketing idea 💡

An email that compliments someone’s identity (with a hit of nostalgia) is very hard to ignore.

Send it to your own dead leads and churned customers:

1. Open with 2-3 short lines about who they are at their best (”You’re the kind of person who ships fast”)

2. Make the button an identity claim (”I’m Still That Person” / “That’s still me”)

3. Put the offer at the bottom, if at all.

That’s it! ✅

This is “Identity Marketing” (I wrote about it in 2024), and the science behind it is pretty crazy:

• → Asking people to “be a voter” instead of “to vote” raised turnout by 15%

• → Asking kids to “be a helper” instead of “to help” made 50% more of them clean up

More quick wins to try 🧪

Little copy tweaks = big identity nudges:

• 🔁 Swap actions for identities in your CTAs: “Help us improve” → “Be a beta tester”. “Refer a friend” → “Be an ambassador”.

• 👴🏻 Show “member since” in your product. Amex prints it on the physical card. ChatGPT made it brag-able.

• 🫆 Give your users a name: Salesforce customers (proudly) call themselves “Trailblazers”.

• 🎉 Start an emoji movement: Ship30for30 students put 🚢 in their X names, Beehiiv employees use 🐝.

• 🌈 Show users their identity according to usage: Spotify Wrapped tells you who you are (”your listening personality”) based on how you use their product.

One more thing if you try the Couchsurfing idea: don’t send people to a login page. Atlas Privacy pre-created accounts for 160,000 dead leads → one click and you’re already inside the product. 8-12.5% converted.

Have a great week ✌️

Tom