The Email Marketing Show

What's the best time to send an email? It's the multimillion-dollar question we always get asked. But is there a specific time? Does when you send an email matter? We're Kennedy and Carrie, and you're about to find out the truth about this... Ready? SOME EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: (0:33) Want to carry on with the conversation? Join our FREE Facebook group. (2:17) Is there a universal 'best time' to send an email? (6:03) The best time to send an email depends on your email list. (7:40) Why you shouldn't rely on open rates. (11:35) The best time to send an email is when you'll send that email. (16:14) Know your audience. (17:52) Create email automations. (21:05) So when's the best time to send an email? (23:23) Join The Email Hero Blueprint. (23:51) Subject line of the week. Useful Episode Resources Related episodes How To Increase Your Open Rates (They’re Wrong But…) Practical Ways To Increase The Average Click-Through Rate In Your Email Marketing. Master Your Metrics – Unleashing The Power Of Email Marketing Analytics. FREE list to improve your email marketing If you want to write better emails, come up with better content, and get your readers to click and buy, here's how. This is a list of our Top 10 most highly recommended books that will improve all areas of your email marketing (including some underground treasures that we happened upon, which have been game-changing for us). Grab it for FREE here. Join the FREE Facebook group Do you want to chat about how you can maximise the value of your email list and make more money from every subscriber? There's a way! Every business is different, so come and hang out in our FREE Facebook group, the Email Marketing Show Community for Course Creators and Coaches. You'll find a lot of training and resources, and you can talk about what you're up to. Try ResponseSuite for $1 This content is sponsored by ResponseSuite.com, the survey quiz and application form tool that we created specifically for small businesses like you to integrate with your marketing systems to segment your subscribers and make more sales. Try it out for 14 days for just $1. Join The Email Hero Blueprint Want more? Let's say you're a course creator, membership site owner, coach, author, or expert and want to learn about the ethical psychology-based email marketing that turns 60-80% more of your subscribers into customers (within 60 days). If that's you, then grab The Email Hero...

What's the best email marketing platform for your small business? Are some better than others? Will any of them do? Well, we've got some thoughts about all this. Want to find out? Let's go. SOME EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: (0:16) Grab our amazing resource Click Tricks totally for FREE! (4:10) The email marketing platform we use and recommend - Keap. (6:10) Platforms that aren't good enough for email marketing. (15:06) Find an email marketing platform that works for you. (17:38) Check out the price! (19:42) The email marketing platforms we recommend. (26:42) Check out The Email Hero Blueprint. (27:27) Subject lines of the week. [podcast_subscribe id="7224"] The email marketing platform we use and recommend - Keap People always ask us what we think the best email marketing platform is. And the one we've been using for more than 10 years is Keap (which used to be called Infusionsoft). They often sponsor our podcast and events, and we have a super close relationship with them. We think Keap is the best in class, and we always recommend it to any new business getting started with email. Keap is also the platform we know most instinctively. When we think about building email automations, for example, we think in the way that Keap builds things. Using a platform that works differently is a bit like thinking in one language and then having to say the words in another one. It’s possible, but thinking and speaking in the same language is a lot easier. Before we go into the details of what email marketing platforms we think are good, let us tell you about the ones we think you should stay well clear of! Platforms that aren’t good enough for email marketing We think that some platforms on the market don't have the basic functionality to do good email marketing. For us, one key thing that an email marketing platform needs to have, for example, is an API that allows it to connect and integrate with other platforms and tools you use in your business. If the platform doesn’t have an API, it makes it much harder for you to push data into third-party tools to run reports or create email automations. With that said, a platform we think is great for hosting a course but not good enough for email marketing is Kajabi, which, at the moment, doesn't have any connectivity. It’s a locked box, and that's a deal breaker for us. In fact, except for one (GoHighLevel), we haven't come across any all-in-one platforms that are good enough for email marketing. We can see the appeal of these types of platforms because of having everything in one place. However, putting all your eggs in one basket is never the best plan. We've heard of platforms that suddenly stop businesses in a particular niche from having an account with them. And if this happens to you, it’s not just your email marketing you have to worry about, but also your landing pages, your affiliate programme, your calendar, etc. Investing in all-in-one platforms is a false economy. And if you're trying to cut corners, it means you're not seeing your email list as an asset – you’re treating it as a liability, which is a terrifying thought! Just like Kajabi, we think MailChimp isn't good enough for email marketing. Surprised? But it's true. And that's because they make simple things extremely difficult. When we first set up our business, we used to build email automations for other businesses, and MailChimp was awful! No wonder people started to think email marketing is complicated. If the tool makes it difficult, you’re going to...

Can you use an email marketing waitlist for your next big launch? Maybe you have a membership or a course and want to generate excitement, curiosity, and demand. Can a waitlist help you do that? Also, how do you keep people on your waitlist warm? How long should you run a waitlist for, and how often should you contact people on it? We answer all these questions and much more... Are you ready to get all the good stuff? Let's go! SOME EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: (0:08) Grab our amazing resource Click Tricks totally for FREE! (4:18) Should you have a waitlist for your membership or course? (11:17) When should you use a waitlist? (14:08) How do you get people on your waitlist? (15:22) Where possible, reward people instantly! (17:50) How we use waitlists in our business? (21:18) Give people a genuine reason to join your waitlist. (22:52) How do you keep people on your waitlist warm? (30:07) What's the dual reality principle? (32:47) Subject lines of the week. [podcast_subscribe id="7224"] Should you have a waitlist for your membership or course? Between the two of us, we’ve had experience selling courses and memberships for years, both with our current and previous businesses. And one of the strategies that go with opening the doors to your new product is having a waitlist. Do you absolutely need to have one? Unless your membership or course is capped in terms of the number of people who can join, we don’t think a waitlist is strictly necessary. A waitlist helps you create demand in advance, which is why we use this strategy as a key component of a couple of the email marketing campaigns we teach. It can be a useful tool to gauge an interest. Is your audience interested in your upcoming product? By joining a waitlist, people make a micro commitment – they're deciding they want to find out more about something you're about to offer. Plus, if you’re new to the world of online memberships and courses and aren’t sure whether something will sell, a waitlist is a low-barrier entryway to help you figure that out. Once you develop more experience, you’ll develop a level of confidence and awareness of what’s likely to work. But if you’re just starting, you can build this awareness with a waitlist. Where will you talk about your waitlist? Should you talk about your launch only to the people on your waitlist? Absolutely not! If you're only marketing to your waitlist and not the rest of your audience, you’re leaving money on the table. Because there will be people on your email list who would never sign up for a waitlist. And yet, they might be interested when they see your sales page. You also need to think about what advantage you'll give to the people on your waitlist. Why are they on the waitlist in the first place? Will you give them early access? Does the waitlist serve a real purpose or are you just “dressing something up in marketing”? A great place to promote your waitlist (and your upcoming launch) is on your social media. If you have a podcast or an active social channel, you can start talking about your membership or course a couple of weeks before you open the doors. Start inviting people to jump on your waitlist - it's a great call to action and a good way of attracting those with a level of intent into your world. When should you use a waitlist? We have a waitlist for our Email Engine Accelerator, which is a capped programme. We can only take a small number of people each time we run it...

We always say email marketing can help you make more sales, more predictably, and in less time. But you shouldn't just take our word for it - that's why we regularly share email marketing success stories from our amazing students. Our client Lucas Reuterstig is one of them. After joining our programme and implementing just two of our email marketing campaigns, he saved his business, and his calendar got fully booked for 3 weeks! Want to know how he did that? Let's find out! SOME EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: (0:15) Join our FREE Facebook group. (3:32) Who is Lucas Reuterstig? (6:02) When did Lucas get started with email marketing? (7:57) What was the first thing Lucas did when he joined our programme? (10:41) How does Lucas feel about his email marketing now? (13:01) What's the plan for Lucas's email marketing going forward? (15:29) What's the one action that made all the difference? (17:13) Would you like to hear more from Lucas? (And get a special offer?) (18:44) Subject lines of the week. [podcast_subscribe id="7224"] Who is Lucas Reuterstig? Lucas runs a programme (and a podcast) called Presenter Mastery, which is a communication training program that delivers: In their business, Lucas and his team analyse s a person's presentation style and create an individualised plan for development. They also deliver weekly calls, live training, and coaching to their community of students. When did Lucas get started with email marketing? Lucas has worked with David Phillips (a public speaker for 25 years) since 2020. When they launched their first platform for communication training, they didn’t use email marketing at all. However in 2022, with a better understanding of sales funnels, they discovered another way of selling online. This was when they created the Presenter Mastery Programme, and while they knew email marketing would play a part in their business, they didn't yet know what kind of emails to send out. At first, they'd only use emails as reminders for any events they had coming up. Then in February 2023, they decided to make a change - they wanted their email marketing to have meaning and to be 'spot on'. This is when Lucas found our podcast and then decided to join our programme. What was the first thing Lucas did when he joined our programme? Lucas joined our programme (The Email Marketing Hero Blueprint) for a specific reason - he wanted access to our email marketing templates. So the first thing he did when he came into our world was to implement our Paparazzi campaign, which is our flash sale campaign. Immediately, Lucas found that our campaign was producing results, so in May 2023 he also implemented our webinar sequence to bring people to his live events and...

What's a good click-through rate? How can you drive a click-through rate increase in your email marketing? Is it possible? Why does it even matter? Let's find out the answers to these questions - and more! SOME EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: (0:11) Grab our amazing resource Click Tricks totally for FREE! (4:29) Why is your click-through rate an important metric in your email marketing? (11:33) What is the average click-through rate in your industry? (14:30) Click-through rate average and daily emails. (20:20) Techniques to improve your click-through rate. (25:06) Segment your audience. (27:50) Create a promotional strategy. (30:14) Aim to trigger different emotions. (31:59) Create calls to action that stand out. (35:23) Keep your list clean. (38:00) Subject lines of the week. [podcast_subscribe id="7224"] Why is your click-through rate an important metric in email marketing? For several reasons, click-through rates are now more important than they’ve ever been. First of all, when someone clicks on the links in your emails, it gives them the ability to get to a page where they can find out more about how to put money in your pocket. Sure - sometimes you'll send them to a page where they can register for something (rather than buying). But these are the exceptions to the rule. The second reason why click-through rates matter is that, as time goes on, engagement shows Gmail and all the other platforms that your emails are important to people. It tells them they're of good quality and relevant. This is why we built a specific re-engagement campaign to keep people engaged - it's called the LOL Revival campaign and is available inside our programme. Engagement is key. You have to determine whether someone is super engaged or has disengaged with your emails. Clicking on the links in our emails is a clear indicator they are, indeed, engaged. Technically, replying and forwarding your emails are better ways of engaging, but it’s hard to get people to do that regularly. So aiming for clicks is what you should do. Click-through rates and segmentation Another reason why clicks are important is that they allow you to understand what each subscriber is interested in. You'll start to notice that every time you send an email about a certain topic and with a specific angle, some people will click on the links in those emails. But they might never engage with other angles. Why? Because different things work for different people. And monitoring those clicks is great for segmentation. Be careful with segmentation, though. Don’t get too carried away by adding tags that are too specific. Try not to get too tag-happy, and only allocate tags that you’re going to use. Make sure you use clear links so that when people click on them, you know they're interested in a particular topic. So, for example, if you’re including a link that points to a resource about building your email list, make sure the link is something like “check out my list building course”. It shows a clear interest in that topic. A great use of segmentation with link clicking is what we call a link pool. We use this in one of our campaigns, where we ask people to vote on what they're more interested in. This allows you to...

What is familiarity exposure? Also referred to as mere exposure, there's a whole stack of theories around how the psychology of familiarity in marketing works and can help you make more sales. That's right. Become a 'household brand', and more people will buy from you. Want to know how it all works? Let's find out. SOME EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: (0:19) Grab our amazing resource Click Tricks totally for FREE! (3:18) What is familiarity exposure? (10:45) Refer to things that your audience is familiar with. (14:45) Always build familiarity with you, your brand, and what you do. (21:19) How can you apply familiarity in your marketing? (23:10) Email marketing campaigns that use familiarity. (24:45) Don't make the mistake of offering discounts upfront! (27:08) How to start using familiarity in your email marketing right now. (29:11) Join The Email Hero Blueprint. (29:45) Subject line of the week. [podcast_subscribe id="7224"] What is familiarity exposure? The idea is quite simple - we all understand it and have experience with it. Psychologically, you can increase the likelihood of people buying from you when something feels familiar to them. So if you feel like you've heard of something before, or know a particular name from somewhere (i.e. you have a feeling of vague familiarity), you’re more likely to buy. That’s why people tend to buy household famous brands, even when they’re more expensive. For a lot of products, you could buy the cheaper equivalent, and it might taste, work, or be much the same. But we pick the branded product we know (even for a higher price) because we trust that familiarity. It’s a bit like going to a restaurant and choosing a dish from the menu that you already know you’re going to like because you’ve had it before (either there or elsewhere). We like our home comforts. We like the feeling of something familiar and comfortable. It doesn’t matter how adventure-prone or how excitable you are (or aren't) – we all find it easier to choose something we’re familiar with. Because familiarity is comforting. And that's why familiarity is baked into pretty much everything we do - email marketing and more. So how can you apply this concept of familiarity exposure in your marketing? Refer to things that your audience is familiar with One of the things you can do is to use references in your marketing that your audience is familiar with. For example, for a while, everyone was using famous GIFs from Friends or other popular shows. And it worked because people are familiar with that type of content. Using Friends' references is a safe bet with most demographics. Kennedy isn’t a big Friends fan, but if someone sent him an email with a sofa in the subject line and the word “Pivot”, he'd still get the reference. That subject line would come pre-loaded with a lot of content – whether you love Friends or hate it, you’d know what it's referring to. And you'd probably want to know what the email is about. You won't be sending famous GIFs, memes, or references all the time, but if you email frequently and regularly, you have plenty of opportunities to do so. And when you use things in your marketing that feel familiar, you immediately activate the psychology that sits underneath your words. Always build familiarity with you, your brand, and what you do Another way to use this concept of familiarity is to build trust with your audience by exposing them to you and your...

Do you collect testimonials in your business? What's the best way to show customer transformations in your email marketing? Can the success stories and case studies of your customers help you convert more of the people on your email list? If you want to learn an easy way to go beyond your regular, commoner-garden testimonial, this is the place to be. Let's go get the secret sauce! SOME EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: (0:14) Grab our amazing resource Click Tricks totally for FREE! (3:33) What's the big deal about customer transformations? (5:24) The power of social proof on potential buyers. (10:19) Show people that something is good. (13:41) The importance of the before-and-after story. (17:14) Create a way to capture customer wins. (20:08) How do you collect great customer stories? (28:15) Genuinely build you your customers and their stories. (29:48) Success stories help others buy. (33:16) Subject lines of the week. [podcast_subscribe id="7224"] What's the big deal about customer transformations? Everyone in marketing talks about the fact you need to have social proof and testimonials. And it's true - you have to talk about the results you get for people. Of course, never get yourself into any hot water here. Everything you say has to be true, so you have to be careful not to use stories that imply, suggest, or outwardly state that people have had success from working with you if you can’t back that up. Whatever you say, write, or put out there, has to be a true claim that you can prove. Don’t be naughty! The power of social proof on potential buyers But why is it so important to share the stories of people who have experienced success with you? You have to tell others (especially potential buyers) about the transformations - about how you took someone from point A to point B and how you got them an outcome. That's powerful. And it's something you don't want to forget in favour of just sharing the facts about your product or service. For example, Rob’s parents just bought a car, and the salesman who sold them the car asked for a nice testimonial. Before they wrote the review, Rob and his parents had a look at existing ones already out there. And they all said that the salespeople were lovely, friendly, and helpful. And that’s all great. But none of these testimonials were anything transformative! We don’t think they helped the dealership much. So what Rob and his parents did instead was to point out how their life was transformed as a result of buying a car from that place. You have to go beyond the testimonial and focus on the transformation. And for a car, that could have to do with the feelings of increased safety, certainty, confidence, or status, for example. If people read about us that we’re fun to learn from, for example, it's great. But people don’t necessarily buy programmes to have fun while they learn! They primarily want to know they’ll get the results they’re looking for. While having a good experience in the process is important, people care about the outcome. Show people that something’s good Don't just tell people that something’s good - show them. Of course, you want to appeal to the conscious, logical side of people's brains too. So tell them what they're going to get (i.e. the deliverables). But then also show them how what you’re giving them is going to resonate. The most powerful part of using...

Want to find out how to immediately supercharge your email marketing copywriting? Then let's find out about the Rule of One. This isn’t just a technique you can use in your email writing. You can use it across any kind of writing you do for your business – sales pages, sales videos… everywhere! And it will massively improve your conversion. Ready to learn how to apply it? Let's go! SOME EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: (0:25) Grab our amazing resource Click Tricks totally for FREE! (4:21) What is the Rule of One in copywriting? (7:19) Use the same call to action across a whole email campaign. (9:18) Send people to landing pages where they can only make ONE choice. (11:26) Write your emails to ONE reader. (12:24) Give people ONE call to action (per email). (14:25) The benefits of stacking your email marketing campaigns. (15:54) Tap into the power of storytelling. (18:07) Your Super Signature is the exception to the rule! (21:03) Subject lines of the week. [podcast_subscribe id="7224"] What is the Rule of One in copywriting? Whenever somebody writes copy for us (yes, we do hire copywriters because we're not professional copywriters ourselves), the one piece of suggestion we always give is to focus on the one idea we're trying to convey. What’s the one thing we want to say? Every time you put out any type of communication (an email, a headline, the opening of a sales video, etc.) you want to talk about one idea. Equally, when it comes to email marketing, every email you send should talk about one theme. If you're sending an email about risk, the whole email needs to be about that. You don’t want to add social proof to that email – that’s a different theme for another day. And if you're only talking about one thing, you’re probably also going to use one single story. Unless you have a few stories that demonstrate that one thing you’re talking about. And you do this because otherwise, people’s brains get overwhelmed. So let's get into the specifics of this... Use the same call to action across a whole email campaign The Rule of One applies to individual emails but also to email campaigns. We often pick one call to action and effectively use that across an entire email campaign. If we’re running the Bribe campaign, for example (where we tell people that if they buy one thing they’ll get something else for free), every email we send as part of that sequence is going to have the same call to action. We lead people to that one action by using different hooks, angles, and stories in the individual emails we send as part of that campaign. Why do this? Because when you say too many things at once, people get confused and overwhelmed and end up not making decisions. The more directions you send people in, the more confused they’re likely to get. Send people to landing pages where they can only make ONE choice When we send someone to a landing page, we want them to only have one thing they can do on there. And that’s to click and buy or click an opt-in. There’s only one call to action on that page. If you’re sending someone to a landing page to opt in for something, but you also have your blog and other items under the navigation menu, you’re giving people lots of choices and other things they could do. So they’re not going to opt in! Instead, direct people to one thing and one thing only so you don't lose their attention. Because...

Are you using AI in your business? Can it save you time, make you more efficient, and deliver a better experience to your customers? Depending on what you do and how you use AI, yes. So let's talk about how we are leveraging the power of AI right now in our business. The ways we use AI might surprise you, and it's probably not what you think. Want to get stuck into it? Let's go! SOME EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: (0:13) Grab our amazing resource Click Tricks totally for FREE! (4:08) Why and how we use AI in our business. (11:38) Using the integration between Zoom & Vimeo to upload live training calls. (16:41) Getting user-friendly summaries of our live Q&A calls (ditched!). (25:00) Relating to stories to lessons to use inside your emails. (27:20) Summarising customer interviews. (29:00) Helping us overcome people's objections. (30:54) Writing engaging social media posts. (35:09) Creating a lead magnet. (38:08) Making your writing more 'punchy'. (40:10) Helping with formulas and code. (41:38) Other AI tools we recommend. (46:65) Subject lines of the week. [podcast_subscribe id="7224"] Why and how we use AI in our business AI is developing at super rapid speed, and we're testing and implementing (or ditching) different ways of using it to the advantage of our business and our customers. We're going to share a bunch of things we've tried - some of which have been successful and others not so much. We don’t sell any offers that are led with AI because we don’t find anything created with AI is good enough. And we don't even use AI to write our emails or our subject lines, so we're not going to tell you to do that. Why? Because we tried to teach AI tools such as ChatGPT or Claude.ai our methodology. But so far, we've not been able to make that work successfully. We don't believe that AI can do a better job than a human at writing your emails. Sure, there's something to be said for learning to write great prompts. And believe it or not, professional prompt writers are now a thing! But we're not that. Whatever you use AI for, it has to be good! Instead, we're going to give you ideas of how AI can save you time or make things easier for you. We're going to share how it can help by giving you new and diverse opinions and insights. The key though, we believe, is that whatever you use AI for, it has to be good! Can AI write subject lines for your emails? Can it write your emails? Absolutely. Are they going to be good enough? Probably not. If a subject line or an email (no matter who writes it) doesn't get the person at the receiving end to take action (whatever the action might be), then it's not good enough. If you're currently not doing email marketing and think you're going to use AI to do it for you because sending anything out is better than nothing, we don't think that's the case at all! Using the integration between Zoom & Vimeo to upload live training calls One of the ways we use AI in our business is to upload the recording of our live training calls into our Members' Area to make them available to our students. Inside our programme, the Email Hero Academy, we run at least 3 live...

Want to know how our friend Natalie Ellis from Boss Babe ran a super successful flash sale Black Friday campaign using a combination of social media chatbots and our email marketing campaigns? If right now you're thinking that Black Friday is far away, just know that this strategy can work for any other holiday or promotion you decide to run throughout the year. It’s something you can rinse and repeat for anything that isn’t a big launch in your business. It doesn't require creating any new content, and if Natalie's story is anything to go by, it'll also be quicker and more profitable than anything you've ever done. Shall we get into the good stuff? SOME EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: (0:09) Join our FREE Facebook group. (2:43) Did Natalie really sell something to Richard Branson? (4:08) What did Natalie's Black Friday promotion look like? (6:55) What was Natalie's strategy with her Black Friday promotion? (9:11) How did Natalie implement our Black Friday email campaign? (12:49) When did Natalie start to promote her offer? (15:06) Why tell people what the offer is about (in advance). (17:30) How did Natalie keep her audience warm? (19:21) How to replicate Natalie's success with her flash sale Black Friday campaign. (27:13) Subject lines of the week. [podcast_subscribe id="7224"] What did Natalie’s Black Friday promotion look like? Natalie’s main focus is her membership. While she has different levels to it, at the moment, you can only join annually for $997. But for her Black Friday/Cyber Monday promotion, Natalie opened the doors for people to join monthly at $97. Or, if they were already inside the membership, she offered a 50% off annual upgrade. She also had something for existing annual members, which was the chance to buy an additional bundle. You can see here that Natalie created a segmented offer with the different types of people in her audience in mind. She put together different things for non-members, monthly members, and annual members that made them all feel seen and supported. It’s also worth pointing out that Natalie didn’t create anything new content for this promotion. Even with the bundle she offered her annual members, she put together existing content. What we think Natalie did brilliantly here is to target the most profitable segment of her list - her existing customers. We see a lot of people putting together flash sales or promotions and ignoring the people who are already paying them money! So if you’re putting together an offer, what can you sell to your most profitable customers? These are the people who are going to pay you the most per head. What was Natalie's strategy with her Black Friday promotion? One of the biggest ways Natalie markets her products in the front end is through social media - mainly with reels on Instagram. She asks people to comment and then puts them through a sequence in their DMs. This is similar to an email sequence, but instead of being via email, it’s through people’s DMs, where the open rate is super high at about 90%. So what Natalie and her team did for Black Friday was to combine their chatbot strategy with an email marketing strategy. For this promotion, Natalie wanted something that felt easy and fun, so she set out to make Black Friday her biggest and most fun mini-launch of the year. And something she'd never done in the past was to use an email campaign template. For the first time in her business, she decided to grab our Black Friday/Cyber Monday campaign, and (in her own words), she said the result was freaking phenomenal and...

What's the latest in the email marketing world? Let's find out about the email marketing trends for 2024 and beyond. What can we all do to make our emails work even better for our businesses? (And yes, we'll talk about AI, but probably in the way you expect us to). Ready to go? SOME EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: (0:12) Join our FREE Facebook group. (4:57) Let's pay more attention to deliverability and verification. (7:35) The technical bits that are important for validation. (11:11) We need to focus on engagement with our list. (13:30) Put more emphasis on converting your subscribers into customers! (17:02) Use AI for analysis and to inform your decisions for list building. (20:27) Stand out by humanising your content. (24:02) Come and find out more inside The Email Hero Blueprint. (26:44) Subject lines of the week. [podcast_subscribe id="7224"] Let's pay more attention to deliverability and verification In 2024 and beyond, email deliverability is going to become more ‘problematic’. And verification is going to be more important than ever. These two elements go hand in hand. And we recommend you have all your ducks in a row to make sure your emails get into the inboxes of your subscribers. Email marketing platforms are tightening their belts around deliverability and engagement monitoring. They're doing this so we're not all building mammoth lists of people and bombarding them with emails whether they're reading them or not. Kennedy did a little experiment recently. He had a look at the emails he receives in his inbox and was amazed at how many big brand names whose emails he hasn’t opened for ages are still emailing him. These marketers aren't taking their list hygiene and verification as seriously as they should! The technical bits that are important for validation Now more than ever, you need to focus on validation. So make sure you set up your DNS SPF and DKIM records. If you’re not familiar with these, look for some simple tutorials on how to set them up. It’s a one-time job, and yes - it's boring. You can pay someone to do it for you if you want. But get it done because people need to know for sure that the person sending emails is who they say they are. And that’s why these measures are coming into force. A few years ago, anyone could have opened an account with an email marketing platform and pretended they were an ex-president of the US. No one would have batted an eyelid! But we now live in a world where people are being scammed left right and centre. So these measures exist to protect us all. You’ll have noticed how many scams you receive via text message compared to email. That's because the world of text messaging is still unverified. You can't just ignore validation because you know you’re a good, legitimate person who isn’t scamming anyone. So do that piece of work! It's similar to what's happening on social media. You can now pay a monthly fee to receive a blue tick and show you're a verified account. More people are choosing to do this because they’re genuinely finding that others are cloning their profiles! We need to focus on engagement with our list If you’re a customer of ours, we give you all the resources when it comes to re-engagement campaigns and processes to make sure the people on your list are those who are paying attention to your emails. Don't end up with subscribers who haven’t looked at your stuff in years! We might even start tightening up the window of time that we allow people before we consider them disengaged. We'll then put them through our re-engagement campaign, and if they don't engage we remove them from our list....

Should you take a break from emailing your subscribers during the festive period? And should you send something different in your New Year's emails? Whether you have or haven't taken a break from your email marketing over the last few weeks, here are some ideas you can use to get your subscribers excited about your business again (and buy from you). Ready? SOME EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: (0:13) Join our FREE Facebook group. (5:30) Should you take a break from your email marketing during the festive period? (8:30) Emails aren't just a sales tool. (12:20) New Year's emails aren't just about New Year's Resolutions! (15:10) What else can you do with your emails after New Year's? (17:52) Get people excited about your business. (20:18) Share your real-time experiences and stories. (22:27) Share lessons learnt and predictions in your emails. (24:00) Encourage people to take action and solve their problems. (26:52) Subject lines of the week. [podcast_subscribe id="7224"] Should you take a break from your email marketing during the festive period? We believe that your subscribers can choose to take a break from reading their emails over the festive period if they want to. If anyone decides they’re not going to check their emails during the holidays, that’s up to them. But we continue to email them – our email marketing doesn’t stop. Plus, if your business is B2C or B2b (i.e. business to small business), if people are anything like us, we check our emails on our phones, regardless of whether it’s Christmas Day or New Year’s Day. If you want something, you’ll probably buy it on those days too! So we don’t think it’s unusual for your subscribers to still check their emails during the festive period. And even if you’re B2B, and your subscribers use their company email address and you get an out-of-office from them, chances are they're still checking their emails from time to time. So we recommend that you don’t take a break. Instead, carry on with your email marketing during the festive period. Emails aren't just a sales tool We see two reasons for that. The first one is that when our subscribers first join our list, they go through automated campaigns. And we wouldn't dream of pausing those. There’s no need, anyway. Because those automations are designed to make sales, even during the holiday period. The second reason is that our thing is to email people every day. If you promise your list you're going to email them every day, then you email them every day! There’s no special condition for Christmas Day or New Year's Day! You see, our emails aren’t just a sales tool. They are a way we show up in people's lives to build deep relationships with the people who want to hear from us. We’re building human-to-human connections between us and the person reading our emails. So we want to be able to wish someone a Merry Christmas in real time. That way, we can also talk about the challenges or opportunities that a particular time of year may bring. If you help people with something, you don’t suddenly stop during the holiday period. There may be additional things you can help with because of the holiday season. You can use this time of year to push people towards reflecting on what it is you do and help them through the new struggles that this time of year brings. Regardless of what market you’re in, there will be something that applies to you and what you do. People still need the knowledge and the inspiration regardless of the time of year. New Year's emails aren't just about New Year Resolutions! Also,...

Do you track any email marketing metrics? How can you use your email marketing analytics to improve your email marketing? If this is a topic you've been avoiding, the great news is that looking at metrics, understanding them, and using them to your advantage isn't as hard as it might sound. Just collect the right data, and you'll be able to spot opportunities for improvement and growth. And yes, that means more money! So let's get into it. SOME EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: (0:19) Join our FREE Facebook group. (2:59) Why do email marketing analytics matter? (4:18) What email marketing metrics should you look at? (7:59) What can you do if your open rates are low? (11:55) The truth about your click-through rates. (13:25) How to increase your click-through rates? (20:51) What can you do when your conversion rate is low? (25:12) What can you do when your unsubscribe rate is high? (30:15) How can you use your email marketing analytics data? (32:44) Why you should always calculate your EPSPM. (35:46) Subject lines of the week. [podcast_subscribe id="7224"] Why do email marketing analytics matter? Email analytics help you figure out where the biggest levers and opportunities for your email marketing are. When you look at the right metrics, you can get more from your emails. Plus, the analytics you need to track and understand aren’t that complicated and can (mostly) be found inside your email marketing platform. You probably think that one of the biggest metrics we suggest you track is the growth of your email list. And while that’s something you should look at, other metrics will tell you whether you have a well-refined engine that’s working for you. By knowing which email campaigns are doing well, you'll find out where you have room for improvement. What email marketing metrics should you look at? Open rates If you find that one specific email in one of your campaigns has a zero open rate, you’ll want to look at that. As we always say, open rates aren’t reliable, as such. But they’re still a good indicator in comparison to each other. So if you see a surprisingly low open rate one day or on one specific email, you may want to investigate. Could it be the timing? Or the subject line? This matters because if no one opens an email, it means they haven’t seen the link to your offers. In other words, if no one opens your emails, you won't be able to influence your click-through rate. Click-through rate Click-through rates are shown as the percentage of people who’ve clicked on your links based on how many people you sent the email to. They used to be shown as a percentage of the people who opened the email, which isn't great and something systems have moved away from. This is because the way open rates are tracked is broken. So it’s best to look at the percentage of people who clicked on your links based on how many people you sent the emails to. Email platforms have switched to this method of tracking, so if you’ve recently seen your click-through rates drop through the floor, that’s probably why - the way they're being tracked has changed. But that's a good thing! Conversion rate Another metric you want to track is your conversion rate. How many people took action as a result of you sending an email? When we talk about 'taking action', that could mean buying your product but also registering for a webinar, for example. It's about whatever action you're asking your subscribers to take in that email. Bounce rate and unsubscribe rate You'll also want to track your bounce rate, which looks at how many email addresses weren't deliverable. And finally,...

Is it possible to get awesome results from email marketing? Can email take your business from the brink of collapsing to amazing heights and success? Yes, it can. And we're getting to hear from one of our clients - the lovely April McMurtrey from Learn Reading, who's sharing how she increased her revenue by 400% in just ONE year! Pretty unbelievable, right? But it's true. Let's get the whole story from April! SOME EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: (0:19) Join our FREE Facebook group. (2:51) Who is April McMurtrey? (5:07) When did April start using email marketing in her business? (6:42) What did April's email marketing look like when she first started? (7:54) What's the first change April made when she joined our world? (9:08) What happened when April started making changes to her email marketing? (12:55) How April got a 400% increase in sales in just 12 months. (14:32) How does April feel about her email marketing now? (16:46) What's ONE action April recommends people take when it comes to email marketing? (19:31) Subject line of the week. [podcast_subscribe id="7224"] Who is April McMurtrey? April is a Dyslexia and Reading Specialist who teaches struggling and dyslexic readers how to read. In a nutshell, April’s come up with a better, easier, and faster way of learning how to read. Isn't that overwhelmingly awesome?! After teaching reading for 30 years, April started her private practice as a reading specialist. She then got certified in dyslexia therapy and testing and went on to develop her programme after 25 years of experience in seeing what works and what doesn't. After creating her curriculum for dyslexic and struggling learners, she launched her business and programme (backed up by a lifetime of skill and expertise) in March 2020. When did April start using email marketing in her business? April started using email marketing about a year after she launched her business. She knew she wanted to do email marketing from the start, but we all know the learning curve at the beginning is quite steep. And April had no idea where to start. Like most, April is in business to help people – not to necessarily learn all the stuff that goes with running a business. When we asked her about her biggest barrier to getting started with email marketing, April told us she didn't know how to find someone who could help her learn. She had a lot of subscribers on her list but no idea what to do with them. April recognised the power of emails though. She could see all the professional-sounding and impressive emails landing in her inbox, and she knew the marketers who were sending those emails were following some sort of sequence to be able to sell. That's what April wanted to be able to do, too. But at the time, she just didn't know how. What did April’s email marketing look like when she first started? At the start of her email marketing journey, April would send an email once every couple of months just to tell her subscribers about any products she had for sale. People on April's list had no real idea who she was, and she's pretty sure a lot of them would unsubscribe as soon as they realised she was trying to sell to them. So her emails were sporadic, and she had no automation. What’s the first change April made when she joined our world? After spending some time trying to learn about email marketing through podcasts, April started binge-listening to ours. And that's what eventually led her to join our membership The...

Is there a difference between B2B vs B2C email marketing? What works best? And can we take some of the best strategies from B2C and apply them to B2B? Let's have a big ol' email showdown and find out which type of email marketing wins! SOME EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: (0:29) Grab our amazing resource Click Tricks totally for FREE! (3:23) What do we mean by B2B, B2b, and B2C? (6:50) The difference between B2B and B2C email marketing. (9:46) What about the different sales cycles between B2B and B2C? (12:13) Who is sending your emails? (16:06) How do people join your list? (19:33) What can B2B learn from B2C email marketing? (24:20) Subject line of the week. [podcast_subscribe id="7224"] What do we mean by B2B, B2b, and B2C? We believe there are three categories of businesses when it comes to selling: Most of the businesses we sell to are B2b, which means we sell to owner-run businesses or a one-person band. The owner may be working with a partner or a small team, but the business is small. And we consider ourselves one of those businesses too as unless you’re making more than $10 million a year, you're still a small business. The key here is that businesses in the B2b category behave like consumers. When buying products or services for their company, business owners tend to use their own money. So it's worth bearing in mind that at the end of your emails, there are human beings who expect to hear from you in a certain way. The difference between B2B and B2C email marketing Let's say you're a large government lobbying organisation to do with climate change. You'll be expected to show up in a way that's very different from the way we show up in people's inboxes, for example (i.e. with rude jokes full of innuendo and swear words!) The reason we act the way we do is because of our understanding of ourselves and our market. We show up in a way that’s acceptable by our market but that’s also different and makes us stand out. A large government lobbying organisation will communicate with its clients in a completely different way. They still have to build trust and authority, just like all of us do, but it’s done differently. If they started going off on a tangent about something silly (like we do in our emails), that wouldn’t give the right indicator for them as a company. And it’s not just about the words because those only contribute to a small percentage of the way someone may interpret that message. How you say something is what allows people to read between the lines and get the real essence of what you're like. You can build trust and authority by showing testimonials and social proof, but you can also do it through the tone in which you speak. If you get an email that reads as if a college professor wrote it, it'll have a different level of credibility than something jokey. The words aren’t that important. What matters the most are the campaign structures that you create, the stories you put together, and the tone you use. They can be ridiculous and funny (if you want to) for B2C but more authoritative and professional if your market is more serious. And the beauty of the campaigns we offer inside our membership The League is

Ever come across the terms landing pages or squeeze pages? Interesting phrase, don't you think? So let's shed some light on this - what are landing pages for lead generation? How can you create an awesome landing page to get more people on your email list? What should and shouldn't go on there? Let's find out! SOME EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: (0:23) Grab our amazing resource Click Tricks totally for FREE! (5:10) Do you really need a landing page to collect leads? (7:59) Why offer a lead magnet on your landing page? (12:31) Why do you need to put so much effort into something free? (13:53) Don't call it a FREE anything! (17:15) What should you include on your landing page for lead generation? (22:05) Tell them they're joining your email list! (24:52) Add social proof. (26:54) Time to start sending out email campaigns. (28:53) Subject line of the week. [podcast_subscribe id="7224"] Do you really need a landing page to collect leads? The short answer is yes. But first, let's go over what landing pages do. To us, landing pages are lead-generation tools that help business owners and email marketers capture email addresses. Some people talk about sales pages as landing pages, but we find that super confusing (and our students do too!) Let's think about this for a second - your sales pages are what you're sending people links to in your emails. And if you're emailing people, you already have their email address! So for the sake of clarity, what we're talking about here are opt-in pages, where the only thing someone can do is to put their details into a form to either register for something or grab a thing for free. The reason why you want to collect someone's email address can be wide and varied - it could be a free class, a webinar, a master class, a report, or a lead magnet. Ultimately, a landing page is a lead-generation tool. So you do need one. Because otherwise, how are you going to collect email addresses? Why offer a lead magnet on your landing page? If someone comes into your world, you want to get them on your email list, right? And that’s what lead magnets are for. You give them to people at the start of their journey with you. Once they’re on your list, if you create new lead magnets, you don’t need to send them to your existing subscribers. The only exception is if you’re doing a product launch and want to create a waiting list by asking your existing subscribers to qualify their interest for that product in advance. You're essentially asking them to raise their hands. This is useful for segmentation, or if you’re having a slight change of direction and want people to pre-qualify for something. For example, we could use a PDF or Google Doc to help us pre-qualify some of our existing subscribers for our Accelerator programme, which is a higher-ticket, more intensive, high-calibre programme. We could create a document that outlines what’s involved in the programme, and ask people to tell us they're interested so we can inform them when the doors open again. That particular lead magnet would serve a marketing collateral purpose. But we wouldn't it to our whole list. Lead generation pages are also useful to send people to a specific location. If you're doing a talk or a podcast interview, you don’t want to send people to your website. Because that’s full of information that will get them distracted. Instead, you send them to a landing page where all they can do is give you their email...

Can email marketing help grow your business and make more money? What if you have a membership? And what if you help people in teaching and education? Yes, yes, and yes! So let's hear it from our client Cheryl Hatch from Preschool Plan It, who implemented only two of our email campaigns and increased her membership conversion rate by a whopping 84%! And there's a lot more to come for Cheryl. Want to get the full story? Let's go. SOME EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: (0:22) Join our FREE Facebook group. (3:13) Who is Cheryl Hatch? (5:58) When did Cheryl get started with email marketing? (7:37) What was Cheryl's biggest barrier with email marketing? (9:16) What are some of the changes Cheryl made when she came into our world? (14:07) Implementing her first automated campaigns. (18:30) What results did Cheryl get with her email marketing? (22:50) What does this increase in conversion rate mean for Cheryl? (26:12) How does Cheryl feel about her email marketing now? (28:13) What's the one action that had the most impact on Cheryl's email marketing? (30:10) Subject lines of the week. [podcast_subscribe id="7224"] Who is Cheryl Hatch? Cheryl serves preschool teachers who work with 3 and 4-year-olds in a group setting. With two decades of experience in the education space, Cheryl launched a website jam-packed with awesome resources back in 2010 to help preschool teachers create their lesson plans. She managed to grow her audience by adding ads and affiliate links to her website. Online traffic went crazy (those were the days!), and the teachers in her audience started asking for more resources. That's why, in 2016, she turned her website into a monthly recurring membership, complete with lesson plans and professional development training. When did Cheryl get started with email marketing? When she first started her email marketing, Cheryl didn't have a lead magnet. She'd simply ask her website visitors to join her newsletter. For a long time, her email marketing consisted of sending out a monthly newsletter packed with lots and lots of information. Around 2015, Cheryl started doing more research on how she could give her audience more and perhaps launch a business. Although she had no product yet, she realised she had so much information in her newsletter that she could send it twice a month instead. That would give her a better chance to drive people back to her blog for ads and affiliates. What was Cheryl's biggest barrier with email marketing? Was that a comfortable transition for Cheryl? Not at all. Increasing the frequency of her emails was a true barrier for Cheryl - she was quite worried about annoying her audience. After all, she'd promised them a once-a-month newsletter when they first signed up, and she felt she was breaking a promise. It took her a long time to change her mindset and understand she wasn’t sending emails for the sake of sending them. She was sending emails because she could help people! And by sharing more bite-sized information, she was also giving her audience a chance to go and implement her tips in the classroom and make a difference. But until she truly realised that, emailing more frequently was her barrier. What are some of the changes Cheryl made when she came into our world? The first thing Cheryl did when she came into our world was to re-write her welcome sequence by implementing our 4-day Getting to Know You sequence. Because of the psychological tips that are at the basis of all our campaigns, Cheryl managed to increase her engagement. People started responding to her...

Ever heard the terms cross-selling and upselling and wondered what they have to do with email marketing? Aren't these 'marketing things' that happen at checkout? Can you even do cross-selling and upselling with email marketing? Oh yes, you can. And when you use these strategies in the right way in your business, you'll start making loads more sales. So let's find out how, shall we? SOME EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: (0:11) Want a FREE resource to get more clicks on your emails? Check out Click Tricks. (4:05) What's the difference between cross-selling and upselling? (7:23) How we do cross-selling and upselling in our business. (12:33) Sell fast - turn subscribers into customers. (18:10) Maximise the value of your customers (quickly). (21:32) The biggest mistakes people make with cross-selling and upselling. (27:44) Putting together your cross-sell and upsell offers. (30:47) Create systems to turn customers into repeat customers. (32:46) Subject line of the week. [podcast_subscribe id="7224"] What's the difference between cross-selling and upselling? When it comes to the difference between cross-selling and upselling, in our business, we use the terms fairly interchangeably. And that probably upsets a lot of people in the marketing world. So here are some definitions for you: Upselling a perceivably larger thingCross-selling selling people other thingsthat are around the same hierarchydifferent offers of the same product For example, you could sell a full-price membership but also a lower-rung type product for people who don't want to pay the full price. They pay less but also get less content or value. Fair, right? How we do cross-selling and upselling in our business So let’s talk about what cross-selling and upselling look like in our business. When people come into our world, we want to sell them our core product, which is our membership The League. We then upsell our members one of two things. Agency But in all honesty, terminology doesn’t matter that much to us. It’s more about maximising how much someone is able to spend with you. So if people are in a transaction, you want to encourage them to upgrade their order and spend more money with you than they’d originally anticipated (in a totally ethical way, of course). That’s an upsell. But if the transaction is complete, and you’re offering this customer other products over time, that’s cross-selling territory. What we think makes a difference is that we built a business that's sustainably profitable and manageable where we don't have to create new products all the time. We have a good ecosystem whereby people join our email list (either free or paid) and go through a sequence of...

How do you run the perfect sales email campaign? Should you try and sell in every email you send? When do you send live, broadcast emails and when do you create automated campaigns? These are only some of the questions we answer for you today. And we're willing to bet you can't wait to get all the awesome sauce on this. So let's just get into this, shall we? Let's go! SOME EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: (0:09) Join our FREE Facebook group. (3:59) How often should you sell in your emails? (7:40) When should you send out an email sales campaign? (12:54) What kind of emails should you include in your sales campaign? (16:50) What should you talk about in the emails inside your campaigns? (20:51) What if people unsubscribe from your sales emails? (23:31) What results should you expect from your sales emails? (24:33) How to create an 'email engine' of sales campaigns. (28:59) Join us for a FREE web class! (29:41) Subject line of the week. [podcast_subscribe id="7224"] How often should you sell in your emails? We have a controversial answer to this question. Because email marketing has a cost – every time you send an email, some people will unsubscribe. You may not be selling directly in an email, but you always have to direct people to something they can buy. Because if you're not doing that, you might be losing people through unsubscribes and not making sales! But also, if you’re not selling or directing people towards your product, you’re adding more overwhelm and distraction to that person’s world. And no one needs more of that! What you want to do is to stay in your lane. You have a specialism, so take everybody on your list and on your social media through the beliefs and understandings they need to buy from you. Anything you do and say outside of selling is just more shiny object syndrome. The person is going to get distracted from what you’re talking about, which doesn’t serve you or them. Remember that the people on your list have made the decision to share their email addresses based on something they saw from you. They know you have a solution, and they're interested. So make sure that in all your emails, you send them information that moves them towards buying. Email isn't the same as social media! The big misunderstanding is that every time you send an email you’re bothering someone - they're going to get annoyed. But even if you're selling to people (or moving people towards buying) in every single email you send, you have to remember email isn’t the same as social media. Social media platforms are a great place to teach people, and not traditionally a place where you sell. Email is different. It's designed for short, useful communication that nudges people in the right direction. It's not the place to be putting long articles or to be referring people to free content all the time. Because people are on your list to solve a problem. And the faster you can help them to get to a solution to that problem, the better. When should you send out an email sales campaign? Our daily emails Let’s talk about the differences between day-to-day email marketing and sales campaigns. Fundamentally, our business is based on the idea that we email our subscribers every day of the year. We send a short email every day with a few hundred words in it. And it’s usually (although not always) some sort of story from day-to-day life with some kind of lesson (like a teaching moment or some inspiration) that segues into an offer. Sometimes we might ask people to go and listen to a podcast episode, for example. But...

Is it a good idea to launch a holiday email campaign to acknowledge Black Friday, Christmas, New Year's, Easter, Mother's Day, Father's Day, Back to School, and any other holiday or occasion you can think of? It could even be Tacos Tuesday if you want! Yes, indeed it is. So let's talk about holiday email marketing campaigns. Because you want to do these right. Ready to find out how to get your subscribers to buy like crazy when you launch your next holiday offer? SOME EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: (0:08) Join our FREE Facebook group. (3:32) Why are holidays a good time for email marketing? (6:40) The psychology behind deals and promotions. (9:20) Why holidays are a tricky time for email marketing? (10:55) Create a dedicated offer for that specific holiday. (14:40) Prep people for the offer in advance. (17:13) Launch your holiday offer and surround the market. (20:24) Running a successful holiday email marketing campaign. (21:00) Get people to click on the links in your emails - check out Click Tricks! (22:24) Subject line of the week. [podcast_subscribe id="7224"] Why are holidays a good time for email marketing? Psychologically speaking, when you launch a promotion or a special offer to mark or acknowledge a holiday, you're creating momentum and giving people a reason to buy. A lot of copywriting advice emphasises the importance of using the word “because” in your copy. And we often talk about that too. If you're running a discount or a special offer, give people a reason why you're doing it. It could be anything, but make sure to have a reason. And a holiday is a reason in itself! A great example of this is Prime Day. Amazon went and created their own time of year and reason for having a sale! And it’s no coincidence that they run it in October, which is typically a quieter time for retail. They've effectively manufactured a holiday! Another example is Boxing Day, which is big in the UK but not everywhere in the world. A lot of people will wait until just after Christmas to buy discounted goods in the Boxing Day sale. And why wouldn't they? The psychology behind deals and promotions So why are holidays so good? Because people are in proactive, spending mode. It’s the actual opposite of when they’re scrolling on social media, and they suddenly see an ad – this is called interruption marketing. When a holiday is coming up, we're all out there looking for deals. And a holiday promotion (or a sale) is giving your customers an excuse to buy and justify to themselves why they’re buying something. Think about 3 for 2 deals, for example. When we see those types of promotions, we end up buying 3 products instead of the one we originally wanted! So spend more money but still feel like we got a great deal. We got something for free, right? Would we have spent that much money in the first place? Probably not! This shows the promotion worked - we spent more and feel great about it, too. It's because of the self-justification that happens when people grab a deal. And as business owners, we can tap into that. Holidays are the perfect opportunity to get customers to feel good about their purchases. And that’s not in a scammy, unethical, or dodgy way. Because you’re definitely selling them something worthwhile, and they feel happy with that purchase. Why holidays are a tricky time for email marketing? Obviously, holidays are busy times when it comes to people's inboxes. As a consumer, you must have noticed the increase in...