Step 5, Lesson 2The List Builders Lab

Creating a WeeklyEmail Marketing Plan

Hey there, welcome back. We’re going to continue our conversation all about email marketing. Specifically, Creating A Weekly Email Marketing Plan. We are going to answer the question: I have an email list…Now what? What do you do with all of the people that are on your email list? It’s definitely something we definitely need to explore.

Here’s What You’ll Learn

! What to Do About Unsubscribes. We’re just going to start there right away. When people unsubscribe from your list it can be a really terrible feeling but we are going to talk about it.

! How to Create a Weekly Email Marketing Plan. ! How to Showcase Your Content Inside Your Emails.! Copy and Formatting Tips and Tricks. I’m going to talk a little bit about copy

writing and, specifically, some resources you might want to look into if copy is a thing you want to dive into even more. We are also going to talk about what you’re emails should look like and how to get your emails opened up. That’s the first challenge so we are going to go there.

What Does It Mean When Someone Unsubscribes From Your List?

It may seem weird to you that I am already jumping to the unsubscribes but I am doing that because I know many of you are heartbroken when someone unsubscribes from your list. When you start to see three, four, five, ten people unsubscribe it can be a really terrible feeling.

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There are a few reasons people unsubscribe:

It Usually Means One of Three Things

! #1: They were never a good fit for your list in the first place. If that’s the case then you don’t even want to worry about that. It’s a great thing when people unsubscribe if they are just not a good fit for your content because, remember, when your list starts to grow you are paying for every single person on your list. We don’t want to pay for people on our list if they don’t want to be there. I don’t worry about the people that just weren’t a good fit in the first place. They probably should have never signed up.

! #2: They only wanted your freebie. There are two people here. If they just wanted your freebie and never intended to stay on your list anyway there is nothing you can do about those people (they are just ready to get it and leave). But there is a second set of those people who wanted your freebie and if you can grab their attention quick enough and give them some great valuable content they will stay there. This unsubscribe really comes down to making sure you grab their attention from the get go.

! #3: They have lost interest. This is where we actually have some true control. We need to make sure once we have attracted the right person to our list that they feel they belong there and that they are really excited to hear from you on a regular basis. You can combat this if you have really engaging content that you are putting out on a regular basis. One of the easy ways to lose interest on someone’s email list is if you’re not hearing from them for a very long time. I’ve read statistics that basically 40% of your list will become inactive if you don’t email them in 30 days. I don’t know if that stat is true but I have seen for myself (because I have been down this road) where I stopped emailing my list for two months in my early days when I didn’t know what the heck I was doing and when I tried to get them reengaged it almost felt impossible. The biggest lesson I want you to take away from email marketing is consistency, just like the biggest lesson I want you to take away from social media is posting regularly…consistency. The biggest lesson I want you to take away from content creation, you guessed it, consistency. If we can do this on a regular basis you will definitely not see as many unsubscribes. Speaking of seeing unsubscribes, I personally think you should not get a notification every time someone

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unsubscribes from your list. On a weekly basis you can look at your stats and see how many people joined your list and how many people unsubscribed from your list. It’s important that you are aware of these numbers. But please do not get an email every single time someone opts in or every single time someone opts out. It’s distracting and the opt-out part can really throw you for a loop. You can’t be personal about this. You have to have really thick skin and if you are seeing a sudden unsubscribe from the list, an actual rise in unsubscribes, look at it to see what you can change and what you can do. Maybe it was a certain email that put people off. Look at that email. Where did it not really jive with your messaging and what you have been putting out? You can diagnose it but please don’t do it on an individual basis because it will drive you nuts.

How to Keep Your New Subscribers Excited to Hear From You Every Single Week How To Keep Your Audience Engaged

! My recommendation: Your email marketing plan is to send one email to your subscribers each week. (These are non-promo, value-rich emails). When you are inside a launch you likely won’t be emailing your list every week with value-add content. You will take a break from that and move into promo mode. We will talk about that in the final video, the video that’s up next. But when we are talking about a period when you are not promoting anything, that’s when I want you to be emailing your list every single week.

! To create a consistent email marketing plan, you must have a core content platform. Your email plan will consist of sending weekly emails to your original content. We already talked about this. Have some place where you are in control of the content. It can be a website with a blog site or a website where you are posting your show notes for your podcast or a website where you are posting your videos. You need to have the core platform that you own. It is so very valuable.

! At the end of each month, batch your next month’s emails. All you need is four emails, so it’s not as daunting as it may seem! Before the next month rolls around I want you to sit down and think about sending out four emails. Decide on the topic for each, some stories you can write about, details

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you can add, and I would really love to see you sit down and write all four emails. It may take a day or two to get all of them ready. That’s okay. This is important stuff. These are the people that will eventually buy from you so spend the time here. It’s definitely worth it.

You don’t always have to send out an email that links to your new blog post or your new podcast episode, although I think that’s valuable. You could have an email that is a lesson in itself, a mini training inside an email, or five steps to XYZ and have them read it all inside your email. Sometimes I think that’s valuable. I personally like to have them click and go somewhere (always to my blog). I have them check out my latest podcast, an epic blog post, or whatever it might be. You have to get down your style, but you need to send a weekly email.

Make Your Email Strategy Your Own

! Take some time to find your own communication style through your emails. Make your communication unique.

! These emails are your opportunity to build affinity, trust, and true connections with your subscribers. The more you do “you” the better. That’s where the real connections actually happen.

! The lack of consistency will kill your connections. All the hard work will go away instantly if you don’t email your list for a month or two months or even more. If you skip a week here or there it’s not going to be the end of the world. But I don’t want you to give yourself permission to even do that. I want you to say, “Starting now, once a week, come rain or shine, that email is going out.” Believe me, I have definitely struggled with it but I am so glad I do it because I have seen a huge increase in my open rates and my response rates from those that are getting my email.

I want to show you what it might look like. This is purely an example (on the slide screen). I created this for one of my students that was struggling with putting some content together. I wanted to show her what it might look like if you were sending out weekly emails (all value-add – not promoting at this point).

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Someone joins your list and they sign up for a cheat sheet. You deliver your cheat sheet. Then the email that comes next might be, “Here are my five best tips to stop your next sugar craving.” You are linking to a blog post and you add, “P.S. I just want to make sure you check out that cheat sheet.”

After that you might make a quick video, “Little Known Ways to Make Sure You Never Binge Again.” They are now seeing you on video so they are connecting with you a little bit more. In the next email you might tell a story and the subject line could be, “I can’t believe what I just overhead at the supermarket.” You are telling a story of you out in the real world so they can connect with you in that way.

You may do a case study next, “Here’s how John lost 10% body fat in 30 days.” You talk about someone you worked with but make it into a blog post. Each week you are connecting in a different way. It’s all your free, valuable content. It’s stuff you can talk about for days and days and days.

Because you already know your audience well you know what kind of stuff they want. Does it take a little time to pull all this together? Of course. But this is the foundation of your business. Core content is so very important.

As you have probably realized by now, the way you have a really good email marketing plan is that you have consistent content. You talk about that content in your emails. You either tease at it or you give it all away in your emails, whatever way you want to do it. But this is the way you are building that bond with your audience.

Bonus! Take Advantage of My Swipe File!

I want to give you a few different examples of value-add emails. I have created a swipe file. A swipe file is basically examples I have used in my own business and a few examples that I love from other people’s businesses as well. I just want to show you what the emails actually look like. I think if you start to see emails in other people’s voices and how they are talking about and positioning their content and how they are linking or adding tips inside the email, I think you need examples to see how it’s done.

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I have created this swipe file to do just that. You will find it where you are watching this video.

Ask Them To Reply

One of the really cool things I have seen done and that I have done (I did it in my earlier years when I didn’t’ have a big list) is ask your audience to reply to one of your emails. I like to put this at the beginning of your autoresponder. When you sent out your freebie, that’s where you might want to request that your new lead actually hit reply on that email and start a conversation with you.

I want to show you how it’s done by one of the masters, Derek Halpern. When you opt in to his list you will get an email that looks like this (on the slide screen)(at least right now as of this recording). It is one of the very first emails he sends after you get his freebie.

The subject line is, “You’ll think I’m crazy…” That is such a good subject line. He says, “But here’s the deal Danny (the email was sent to a guy named Danny). I’m Derek Halpern, founder of Social Triggers. Each week, I’ll send you an email with proven tactics and strategies.” He is setting expectations right away. He then asks if you want “this” and “this” and “this” and if you do, you are in the right place. Remember when we did our solution-driven content statement and one of the parts of the statement was, “if you are this, this, or this you are in the right place”? You take that content and put it right into one of your very first emails to introduce people to who you are and what they can expect from you. Do you see how it is all starting to come together?

He goes on to link to some of his free valuable content. This is his introductory email after he delivers the freebie. But then he says, “I’m getting ready to create more videos, podcasts, and training materials for Social Triggers. If you would like me to answer your question on a video or podcast, please fill out this short survey.”

He has a really short survey where you can ask a question. He says, “I obviously won’t be able to answer every single question but I’ll do my best.”

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Another way I have seen this done is that people will say, “I want to learn more about you so hit reply to this email and tell me about one of your biggest struggles related to XYZ,” where XYZ is your brand or niche. There are different ways you can do this but having them reply either literally by clicking reply to the email or clicking a link to give you some more information is a great idea. This is a great idea to learn more about the people that are joining your list. It will also help you come up with content ideas.

We are all about creating original content. Hearing from the people that are joining your list is a great way to know what to create. So if you do have them hit reply, I think it is important that you either send back an instant email that you have set up in advance that says you received their email, “thanks so much. I can’t respond to everybody but I want you to know I will see it.”

If you are in the very early stages of list building, reply back. Spend an hour or so a week replying back to all of the emails. Believe me, if you want to grow a list that cannot wait to hear from you again, personally reach out to them. You can’t do that when you are getting hundreds of hundreds of people each week. But if you are just starting out and it’s kind of slow in the beginning, try it out. You will be amazed at some of the conversations you will be able to have.

Confidence in Copy Writing

We want to talk about copy writing. In fact, I have been talking to you about copy writing throughout this entire course. I have shown you tons and tons of examples of people communicating in their own voices, being funny or being witty or really serious or direct or whatever their style is. You’ve seen it in all of the lead magnet opportunities I’ve shown you, the opt-in page opportunities, the feature boxes, the pop-up boxes. You have tons of examples in this program about copy writing.

In addition to that, I want to give you some resources because copy writing is a thing that I have struggled with for years. Over about the last two years I feel really confident in this area. It wasn’t until I took the time to really survey my audience and get to know them but I finally found my own voice. I could have done it sooner if I had studied copy writing sooner as well.

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I know I said this earlier in other videos, but to make sure we are on the same page, copy writing or copy are the words that you are using to connect with your audience. The headlines in your emails, the words you use in your emails, the things you put on Facebook, the words you use on Twitter, the words you use in video scripts, all of it is copy. I just wanted to make sure we were on the same page there.

Your Copy Can Move Mountains

I’m not talking about changing the world although we know words can change the world. But, in addition to that, you can move mountains with your perfect avatar. Remember, you are just speaking to one person every single time you write anything.

! To influence and engage your audience, you must “get” your audience. You have to care enough to understand who they are and what moves them forward. You already know this, you’ve done the exercises. You have taken the time to understand your avatar. You will never write amazing copy that moves people until you understand them. I just want to make sure you know my audience exercises weren’t something to just skip over and get to later. They are a necessity in order to create amazing copy.

! CPR: Clarity, Personality, and Resonance. I have learned from the best of the best when it comes to copy writing, Ray Edwards, Nikki Elledge Brown, and Marie Forleo and Laura Belgray. Those are four people who have taught me how to write copy. I recently went through a program called The Copy Cure. I’m not an affiliate for this program but I absolutely love it and highly recommend it. Inside The Copy Cure, Laura Belgray and Marie Forleo teach you how to create copy that is in your authentic voice and is perfect for your ideal audience. In that program they talk about the three components of copy. I want to make sure you keep these three words (clarity, personality, and resonance) in mind every time you create copy. Clarity means getting to the point and making it very specific; adding the details you need to add to get your message across. You have to be clear. You also need to infuse your personality. It needs to be in your voice and needs to be authentic and real. Finally, it needs to resonate with your ideal audience. They need to say, “Yes, you just got into my mind” or “This is such perfect timing for me.” Clarity, personality, and resonance. Everything

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you write should be taken through the CPR model to make sure you are hitting all of the major important areas.

! Don’t try to mimic someone else’s personality in your own copy. You’ve got to find your own style! You don’t have to be sassy or funny or (fill in the blank) in your copy. They take you through an exercise inside The Copy Cure that is hilarious because they act out all of these different personalities. The moral of the story was that you don’t have to be sassy or funny or gangster or anything like the copy you have seen that works really well. The sassy, funny, gangster, or whatever is their personality. You can’t copy someone else’s personality or you will hate writing copy in the end. You do need to do “you” while you are writing for that one perfect person that you want to work with.

! Check Out: The Copy Cure by Marie Forleo and Laura Belgray. If you go to the website you will actually get their free video series. It’s an opt in, imagine that, and it’s beautifully done. You can get immense value without paying a dime for the program. But if you like what you see, I joined the program and highly recommend that you join the program. It’s not astronomically priced or anything like that. You need to invest in copy. I really do believe that. Again, I love Ray Edwards’ stuff and Nikki Elledge Brown, and I love The Copy Cure. I will list all of my favorite copy resources inside of the resources page inside the program. If you wondering what you should move on to next, and if copy is the thing where you get a little bit stuck, I would definitely move on to studying copy.

Email Marketing Tips and Tricks

Let’s do some of the fun stuff, which is moving into email marketing tips and tricks. I think these tips and tricks are going to help you immensely as you start to pull your emails together.

Be consistent – Email your subscribers once a week with value-add email. If your emails are full of value, subscribers will start to look for your emails.

Focus on your subject lines – The subject line is also called the headline. It is the first thing people see when they go into their emails and decide what they are going to

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open. Spend as much time on your subject line as you do your email copy. The first objective is to get your email opened! Grab, hook, entertain, surprise, and most importantly, create curiosity. You don’t have to do all of that at once, but these are words you want to think about when you are creating headlines. Most importantly, you want to create enough curiosity that they think they have to open your email.

Let me give you some of my favorites: Ray Edwards always has great subject lines. I suggest you subscribe to his list just so you can get his emails and see the kind of headlines/subject lines he uses. I love this one, “Do you MEAN this?” How could you not open up to see what the heck he is talking about?

This is a promo email (on the slide screen) that was brilliant.

“I’m going to write and publish a book.”

Do you MEAN that? Or are you just TALKING?

It’s okay either way. But if you really MEAN it…

He then says you had to join a webinar he is doing about a product he was selling. That is a great subject line.

Here’s another one: “READ THIS BEFORE YOU GO ON A DIET.” Sara Jenks talks about loving yourself no matter what size you are. She has so many great emails that she literally teaches inside her email marketing. So, if you are marketing to women and you want to really see how to connect with women through stories, Sara Jenks is a great one to follow.

There are so many more I could have gone on and on. I love Jon Morrow’s subject lines. He is a master at them. You can get on his list. I have talked about Jon inside this program a few times. Really, what I want you to do is find the people you love to hear from, pay attention to what you open up and what you don’t open up. You have to become a student of subject lines because this is where it starts.

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Write For The Scanners

Subject lines are important. Subheads are equally important. A good subhead should create curiosity, surprise, show personality, or evoke emotion. I don’t know about you but I am the queen of scanning. Before I read anything, a blog post, an email, I always scan through the whole thing. I want to know how long it is and I want to know the main points. When you add some good subheads into your copy you can help the scanners, which most of us are, know right away if they want to keep reading or not.

This tip usually applies to a blog post. So, when you are writing a blog post, really good subheads are so very valuable. But I like to apply it to my email marketing as well. If I’m going to write a longer email you can bet I am going to have some subheads in there to make sure I grab their attention and they know what’s coming next.

Your subhead should at least create curiosity but I would love to see it do one more thing like the surprise or have your personality in there or evoke emotion. Inside of the swipe file I am going to include an email where I have included a lot of subheads. I usually tend to do this with my promotional emails. That’s the one I have included. But you will get the point of it for sure.

Jon Morrow is the king of headlines, subject lines, and subheads. This (on the slide screen) is an example of one of his blog posts where he has really great subheads. As you can see, “Why You Haven’t Caught the Eye of an A-List Blogger – Yet” and “The Totally Wrong Place to Focus If You Want to Get Noticed.” These create curiosity. You can use subheads inside of your emails to create curiosity too.

Subhead How-To

If you want to create subheads that keep people reading, I want you to check out a blog post www.boostblogtraffic.com/subhead-blunders. It is an excellent article. Remember, they are talking about subheads and blog posts but I use them inside my emails as well. You can translate this for email or for blog posts. Use it for both.

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Use Your Name

Use your name as your “From” address. People want to do business with people, not brands. If it’s possible, make your emails come from a real person vs. the name of your business. You never want to use your business name. You want to use your first and last name. I would never say an email is coming from Amy Porterfield Inc. It is coming from Amy Porterfield. They will usually just look at the first name. Emails don’t come from brands, they come from people. Make your emails more human by using your name.

Keep Your Email Width Under 600 Pixels

Studies show that if your lines of text in your email are too long, most people will not take the time read your copy. This is interesting. It is important that people keep reading and that’s why I wanted to talk to you about subheads. But make the email more narrow as well. This is something that works really well. I would narrow up the actual text. It might be a longer email but it is easier to read.

Stick To One Font and Limit the Font Styles

If you have too many fonts and styles of font in your email, it will start to look too busy. The busier it looks, the less likely your reader will read all the way through.

Use The Word “You” Often

It’s human nature to appreciate others making us a priority, so when you feel the email is about you and not all about the person who wrote it, you are more likely to pay attention. Remember, you are just speaking to one person so using the word “you” is easy since you aren’t saying, “Hey everyone” or “This is for anyone who…” You are speaking to one person.

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Repeat Your Call To Action

It’s not enough to mention your call-to-action just once in each email. It might take a few mentions for it to warm your reader up to taking your intended action. Here is a great example from Neil Patel (on the slide screen). I love following Neil’s content and his emails. He is another one that I would subscribe to and just see how he does things.

Notice how many links are in his example. They are all going to the exact same spot. I know some marketers that do not love this strategy. I personally do, especially when it’s a short email, the goal is to “click here, check it out”, this definitely does the trick.

Become A Storyteller

Your audience wants more of YOU. Invite them in with your stories, insights, and experiences. You will be pleasantly surprised how well stories convert! I gave you an example from Sara Jenks, the master storyteller. She really gets her audience. She is a great example. Once you have a lead your leads will convert into sales.

The “Pursue Simple” Rule For Crafting Emails

Know your audience intimately and always write to just ONE person. No exceptions. Stick to this rule and you will instantly make a connection.

Next Steps

Start a swipe file of emails you love to receive. Pay attention to their flow, their voice, and how they weave in their sales messages. Learn from those you resonate with most. This is one of the first things I did when I decided I would become a student of copy writing. I started my swipe file. I actually created a new gmail account only for those different websites, people, and brands that I wanted to opt in for. I then used that as my swipe file folder to learn how to create great subject lines, subheads, and just to get daily inspiration. That is something I want you to do right away. Now it’s time to move on to the final lesson of Step #5. I’ll see you there.

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