Email Lists and Marketing
In this episode Liz Wilcox and I discuss the power of your email list.
By listening to this episode you will learn how to turn your email lists into customers.
Hello, today we’re talking with a very special guest, Liz Wilcox. And she’s going to be sharing with you how we can turn your email list into lifelong customers. So if you are a coach or an online business owner, and maybe your email list is small right now, but you’re growing it, or maybe you want to convert that email list, this episode is for you. And Liz, I’ll let you give your background and how you even got into teaching email marketing. First, and then we’ll go from there.
Awesome. Thanks, Hailey for having me. I am so excited about this. Yes. So I got into email marketing, a little different. Hailey and I were talking before the show, and most people that talk about email marketing, honestly, they start off as copywriters. And that’s kind of what I kind of did. And then they start their own thing, right? They start their blog or their email list. But I’ve kind of started backwards. So a few years ago, well, I guess about four or five years ago, I got it into my head that I wanted to travel the country in an RV, my then husband of the time he was in the military.
So obviously, you know, how are you going to do that our income is based on you know, them telling us where to go, not us, you know, free flying all over the country. And so I said, Oh, you know, I googled how to make money online. Of course, everyone and their mother told me, You can be a millionaire in 18 months if you just sign up for my webinar.
So of course, I said, Oh, awesome. I’m gonna be rich in a year and a half. This is so great. And so I started an RV blog. And the one thing that all those webinars said, all these podcasts, like this one said was, you know, I wish I took my email marketing seriously, I wish I took my list building and, you know, emailing and all of that, I wish I took it more seriously, because that’s, you know, that’s really where the money’s at, quote, unquote.
E-mail Marketing Timeline
So I said, Oh, well, I’m, I’m no fool, I’m gonna, I’m gonna listen to that. And I’m gonna go headfirst into email marketing. Within six months, months, I had launched my first product, within like, the first three years, I’ve launched something like a dozen, a dozen digital products. And I just want to say, like, I was selling to people, our viewers that don’t want to pay for electricity, but somehow they were buying my books, my I had an RV maintenance course, I’ve never changed a tire in my life. But I knew that’s what they wanted.
And I was able to do all that see success where others didn’t, because I was so familiar with my list. I was, I made email marketing, you know, as much as I, you know, don’t like the bro marketing. You know, they taught me, hey, email marketing works. And so that’s what I did. You know, I, you can’t see me right now, if you’re watching the, or you’re listening to the podcast, but I kind of have my own style.
I’m wearing this crazy headband. I have my insync Sure. And earrings on. And so I did, you know, I did it my own way. I was able to, you know, see great success. And a few years in, you know, everyone was asking me, how did you do that? How did you do that? And I said, Oh, well, this, this is my framework. This is what I do with all my emails. And I ended up selling that blog about a year ago in March of 2020. And now I teach people email marketing, how to make it fun, simple and profitable for a living.
Wow. So that is a fun background. And I would love to hear first. I mean, I have so many questions that have come from that. But what was it like traveling around on an RV? What was like your biggest takeaways from that journey?
Oh, my word. Thank you for asking. It was hard as hell. Most people, you know, you go on Instagram, like, just go on Instagram right now. Hashtag RV life, you’ll see all these beautiful pictures. Okay, that’s not reality. We all know that Instagram versus reality. Like, it ain’t like that. There’s a reason why, you know, I’m pointing to my back right now. There’s a reason why I’m in a condo. I mean, I loved it. But building a business and traveling, you know, it, it actually turned out that my real dream was to build a business.
E-mail Marketing and Scheduling
And so actually, less than a year ago, I settled down, I got into a condo on the beach. And now that’s my dream. But it, you know, it was fun, but the biggest takeaway was to be flexible as heck, you know, when you’ve got to send out your newsletter, or you’ve got, you know, you scheduled this webinar for your people. And it’s, you know, Tuesday at 8pm.
And all of a sudden, the campground internet turns off, you know, you got to, you got to get in the car and go, you know, Park in front of a library at a, you know, eight o’clock at night that you’ve got to be flexible, and that’s one of the things I think it’s right there. On my homepage, I said, like, if I can do this from an RV with no stable internet, like, there’s no excuse what, you know, whatever you’re trying to do you, you’ve got better resources and a better idea than me. Wow.
Yeah, I mean, and to be honest with you, what is interesting about your story is that, you real you, you are allowed to have dreams that evolve. And you’re allowed to have a phase in your life where you try something and you commit to it. And it’s a journey, and you’re glad you did it. But you’re allowed to say, okay,
I’ve lived that chapter. And now I’m moving on. And I think as well, going back to the Instagram versus reality thing, I think we always in our business, part of what you’re saying earlier, when you’re like, signing up for all these webinars, and doing all these things, we always think that once we get to a certain place, flowers are just going to bloom out of nowhere.
We’re going to be rich forever. And we’re not going to have to work again. Like oh, and really, it’s about enjoying the journey learning continuing the consistent things you’ve got to be consistent with. And, and so I just thought that was an interesting point to your story as well. But what I want to hear from you now, before we go into your framework for for emails and stuff, I also want to ask, because I’m sure there’s a lot of people curious. How did you get to a place where you could sell your blog? And what was that? Like? Did somebody come to you? How did that work?
Yeah, so um, like I said, the dream was evolving. I love that you say that? And yes, I’m so glad even though it was kind of a disaster. I’m, I’m so glad that I went and I did it. Because the, you know, the appetite is satisfied, right? So whatever you’re thinking about doing right now, and you’re like, Oh, I can’t do it. It’s too hard. Like, just go for it, girl. Anyway, um, yeah. So I knew when I started my RV blog, I knew I wanted it as a business. It wasn’t you know, a lot of people start blogs, oh, this is a hobby. I’m so passionate, you know, even even coaching businesses, like oh, I give all this health advice, I’m going to start a coaching business, I, again, kind of flip flopped it, I was like, I need to make money.
Goals for Your E-mail List
And this is what I’m going to do. And so I actually started it as lizwilcox.com you know, that’s what everyone suggests, right? just buying your domain name and go for it. And then I realized about nine months in, I didn’t, I didn’t want this forever, I didn’t want the RV life or the RV business forever. And so I actually changed the name to the virtual campground shout out to them. You know, I started making the blog making the business about the virtual campground about my audience about my email list, you know, it was very much a community even, you know, the virtual campground that invokes like community vibes, right.
And so I started building assets, like I said, you know, more, more than just, oh, I need a product because I need to make money because I need gas money to get from Michigan to DC next month. It was about building assets, I knew I was building a company I, to my own horn here, like, I am a true entrepreneur.
And so I realized these, you know, these products, their assets, right, so I’m trying to, you know, build them up, do all the things, quote, unquote, you know, for assets, and I realized, what I really needed was a course, I had a lot of great affiliate relationships. And but I knew, wanting to sell it, you know, the affiliates, that’s not you know, that’s not as big of a selling point. So I actually built my own course. Um, and like I said, it was an RV maintenance course, I’ve never changed a tire my freaking life. But my husband was an RV mechanic. And I knew that’s a great pain point, right? You’re stuck on the side of the road, even if you own a car, right? Who’s ever been stuck on the side of the road?
You’re just basically like banging things together, hoping it starts again, you know, but with RV life, it’s like 1000 times more stressful. So I actually paid him to create the course for me create the content. And I promoted it. You know, I knew I had a very strong email list at the time. And I built that entire thing for the sake of it being an asset to my company to my business. And so once I got, I think I had something like almost 300 students in the first like nine months, and then I said, Okay, I’m definitely selling this thing. I’m totally over it. I know, I’m the bottleneck. Like, have you ever been doing something? You’re like, I know. It’s because I don’t want to do this, that this isn’t growing.
And so that’s when you know, I, you know, staked my flag. I said, Okay, I surrender. You know, I’m gonna sell this and I actually sold it in a Facebook group. There’s a lot of RV groups. Yeah, yeah. Hailey just went Wow.
Yeah, I was not where I thought you were going with it. Okay.
Yeah. Um, so of course, you know, it was a small it’s not like I’m not, you know, I didn’t sell it for Six, seven figures are anything you know, it’s just a tiny little blog. So I went straight to you know, my people again, I knew, you know, there’s lots of our viewers that want to start blogs, they have no friggin clue how to do it. I have one a quite a successful one like, Hey, why don’t you just take that off my hands sort of thing.
And I found the most perfect buyers. Debbie Berry. I love you guys. And they’ve grown the company. You know, the email list has something like tripled in the last year. Yeah. And I mean, I’m the email lady. Right. So that was kind of a blow out my heart. But I knew that it was because I wasn’t passionate about it any more. Thought it just, you know, was starting to get stagnant.
Making Connections
Yeah. Okay. So you went to a Facebook group? And were you just like, Hey, guys, anybody want to buy my blog? or What was your? I mean, how do you have that’s exactly what I did. Like, that’s my style. I like to keep things simple. Like my my number two rules in life and in business. Keep it simple and have fun. So you know, of course, everyone says, like, Oh, you need a broker go on this website, that lever. If it takes more than three steps, your girl is not doing it. I’m not gonna do it. And so I was like, you know, what I’ve, you know, there’s this really big group, it’s full of RV entrepreneurs, I’m just gonna go for it.
And so I posted I was like, hey, as some you know, some of you might know, I’ve always you know, I’ve been building this website, whatever, I’m looking to sell it. I’m looking to go into email marketing full time and teach people how I actually built this blog. Does anybody want to buy it? And you know, I got something like, maybe less than a dozen inquiries, and one was really super serious. And in less than 60 days, it no longer belong to me.
Amazing. reading this. And one other question before we move in the emails. When you said you have 300 course members, first of all, I think the first thing we need to know that made you successful is that you were constantly listening to your audience. And you would figure out a way to deliver what it is that they want. Even if it wasn’t your area of expertise, you found you partnered with your husband who knew how to do that.
Right. And you made it work, right. So I think one of the takeaways you guys listening can use is pay attention to what your girl, your guy, your niche avatar needs, and find a way to bring the solution to them. Even if it means you’re not the only, you know, show person in your course or in whatever it is that you’re going to offer. And Liz, so how did you go about getting 300 course members? Did you do this is all email marketing was this? ads? What Tell me more.
Promotion Points
Okay, I’m so like, I’m getting so excited, I got to sit up. Okay, so, like Hailey just said, I pay attention to my list. And this kind of goes so we can, this all goes into email marketing, because this was email only. I don’t do Facebook ads, I refuse to give Facebook my money. And, I love my money. I don’t want Facebook to have anymore It has enough. And I think I have enough of a personality to just go for it myself. That probably sounds way more coffee than I meant it to sound, but I’m going for it anyway. Like Hailey said, I really knew my people at this point in the game, I’d had an email list for maybe almost three years.
And I just, I call it a very simple launch email only. But what I did was I just started hyping it up. If you’re thinking about launching something, you’ve got to hype it up. And this is not my like, you know, this is not my original idea. You can get the book Jeff Walker’s launch, I think it’s just called launch by Jeff Walker. Um, and he kind of goes through this, and this is just my modified version. So basically, I just hinted that, you know, hey, this is something I’m thinking about, I think I can convince ed to, you know, do it. Let me know, if you’re interested. And you can check this out on my homepage. I share like screenshots and everything.
And I had 141 people click that they’d be interested in an RV maintenance resource. And so over the next 100 days, um, I just started sharing like, okay, I had said, Yes, okay, we’re gonna start filming on this day. Okay, what do you think should be in this? And just kept asking them questions, kept, you know, sharing pictures in my email. I think at that point, I was on Facebook, I was on Instagram or anything, but just just organic Facebook posting and my emailing. And oh, okay. And I had a live show. So every Tuesday, I would go live.
And I would I started at I’m kind of like rubbing my hand right now if you can’t see me. I started agitating the pain point like I made a funny segment about you know, what’s the worst thing that worse maintenance thing and so people would send an audio record. recordings of, oh my gosh, we were stuck on the road, our slide would come in whatever, right? And so I’m really like bringing out like, Whoa, RV maintenance this, this happens all the time, right? This is a real problem, in case they already don’t know that, right? Um, and so I just started sharing. And then I was like, Okay, this thing is coming out. It’s a course it’s called. It’s called fix it yourself, you know, whatever, whatever, right.
And so by the time that I launched it in March, so about 100 days had gone by maybe a little less, remember, and 141 people that clicked that said, they were interested. And by the time the cart closed, I had a seven day cart, I think five or seven days, I can’t remember. I had 141 sales. So that’s a pretty crazy, that’s my mic drop moment. Just picture Liz Wilcox dropping a mic. Now, I’m not saying everyone on the waitlist. But But I was able to build so much hype, I was able to get people involved so much, because I knew them because I’ve been emailing them. And that, you know, by the time it actually launched, people, you know, they had their hand on the mouse, right?
Power in Pain Points
They were ready to buy. I did all the objections upfront, I was agitating the pain points, I was, you know, sharing what was going to be in the course, I was talking about, um, I think I said everything but the price, right, which the price was only 100 bucks. At the time when I launched it. You know, I had shared every frickin detail. And I had agitated the point point so much right? that by the time I launched it, they were already convinced. And so the sales emails, they didn’t have to do much convincing, right? I had showed up, I was consistent. I had just really hyped it up.
Does that make sense? Yeah, so it sounds like hype was 100 day process for you, right? And you were just agitating the pain points, overcoming objections, sharing what you were working on, as you were building the course, bringing people’s comments and problems into your live shows every week. And one of the things like were those people who are on your list already? Did they find you through your blog and Google? Or did they? How did they turn out?
Um, you know, at the time I was doing, I got a lot of Pinterest. But honestly, the majority of the leads were coming from a free Facebook group that I had that somehow Facebook have picked up that this was a hot topic, it was RV renovations. And you know, on Facebook, you can ask what’s your email or whatever, and I was getting, you know, probably like 70% of people were giving me their email. Sweet. Okay, so
tell us more about the framework that you use. And once you were done with the hype and use, you know, open the cart, what was that process? Like? What were those emails like? And just kind of continue?
The Framework of Email Lists
I’m enjoying Yeah, sure. So the reason why I’ll go, I’ll go back into the framework, and then I’ll talk about a little bit of the sales emails that I used. So as far as, and I’ve used this, I’ve owned three businesses. And I’ve used this, you know, and I’ve helped dozens and dozens of people like set up welcome sequences. And this is what I this is what I use. So basically, first you have a follower, right? They find you on Instagram, Facebook, you know, wherever you get them on their list. And then once they’re on the list, you turn them into a friend.
Now I’m not talking about your best friend that you know, you call at midnight because your kid won’t stop crying or whatever, you know, just maybe a friend like picture, you’re at the grocery store and you bump carts with them. And you’re like, Oh my gosh, Hailey, I haven’t seen you since senior year. What’s been up? Oh, I’m, you know, I help fitness coaches, you know, be be actual business owners. Oh my gosh, so do I like that’s great. Let’s talk, here’s my email, that type of friend where you have this one, like really niche thing in common, and you’re gonna email back and forth about that really niche thing. So friendly, right?
And then once they’re your friend, you can turn them into a customer because you can basically ask them, Hey, are you interested in this? And chances are they are because you’ve been talking to them, you’ve been friendly with them. So you actually, you know, you create a product or you sell a product whether it’s affiliate or whatever, you know that you know that they’re going to like right?
Follower, Friend, Customer
It’s not mismatched. So that’s the framework follower friend customer you can go right on my website. I think this you don’t even have to opt in to get that info like it’s right there on the homepage because I think it’s just so important so important to simplify email marketing for people um, so anyway, then I go into that’s called the email staircase and then basically All you’ve got to do is this four plus one method. So four welcome sequences, and one newsletter a week. So you know, how do you turn them into a friend, you’ve got to have a killer welcome sequence, right? And so number one, and I’m going to go right into this. So take notes if you’re a note taker.
So the first email is going to be the freebie the opt in whatever the heck you call it ethical bribe, right? However, you got them to opt in address that give them that. And just a quick intro, the biggest mistake I see is when people want to go into their life story when you just they just signed up, right? Like they don’t care. They just want the freebie. They do not know you like that you are not their best friend. And, they, they don’t care where you live or what you know.
The Impact of Introductions
But do a quick intro like for me. I say something like, Oh, you know, by the way, my name is Liz Wilcox, if you don’t know anything about me, is that I’m obsessed with insync. But I’m even more obsessed with email marketing. TTY, oh, you know, like, talk to you later. You know, that is it. That’s one sentence get in and out as quick as possible. The second one is Show me your best content. And this isn’t where you write like a 2000 word blog post and copy and paste it to your email. But for me, I like a lot of humor. I like a lot of pop cultural references. So that email is going to be, you know, sort of littered with that. I think right now mine is actually a video because I want more people to watch me on video, right?
Content Creation
I want them to get used to that. So whatever your best content is, whether it’s like a carousel on Instagram that you just really like and people, you know, people really responded to it, you can put that in the email, or you can link to it, whatever your best content is. Number three, and this, this is the money and this is what I see. A lot of people missing is newsletter expectations, that third email is literally just tell them like, Hey, I’m, you know, kind of get that, like, she gets me feeling right, like, oh, Hailey, she’s the one for me, she totally gets what I’m saying. So put some language in there and then tell them what to expect.
I’m going to send you an email every Tuesday, I’m going to go live on Facebook every Wednesday. You know, and then here it is, if you listen, like I wish I had a sound effect ding tell them you are going to offer them free and paid products. Even if you don’t have a product yet. This just kind of an I’m pointing to the back of my head right now it kind of just flips a switch in their mind that you’re a business. Even if you you know you don’t have the funnel, you don’t have a tripwire, all that stuff everybody says you have to have.
Product Options
But you know, eventually you want to sell to this thing list. Like that’s the point of the list. That’s why you pay ConvertKit $30 a month or whatever. Like, you know, eventually I’ve got to send them a sales email, just put, I you know, I’m going to offer free and paid products to get you whatever write to get you to finally start exercising at least three times a week, you know, whatever your big promises, right? And then you know, and then Oh, if this sounds good, hit reply with I’m in or whatever I say hit reply with too legit to quit, which it seriously warms my heart. Every time someone actually hits reply with too legit to quit and all caps. It just makes me laugh. But anyway, um, does that make sense?
Yes, sorry.
I was taking some notes myself there. So what about Okay, so you have this for sequence or use it sets for emails? Right, right. So what’s the fourth? So fourth email, you got to email three? What’s the fourth email?
Yeah, so after you’ve given those expectations, right, and remember, those literally just say free and paid products, and it just flips that little switch. And then the next day, just give your big why. And this doesn’t have to, again, like these, this person doesn’t know you like that. So, you know, it’s not this 1000 2000 word. But as, you know, as with as much brevity, as you can just share why you’re doing this, like why you got into coaching. And I think, you know, with your people Hailey, this is, you know, usually pretty personal, right? Like, why you got into fitness, why you decided to become a coach or you know, life coach, whatever your business is, and just share a little bit of that piece. And that’s when you start to really create that friendship like,
Oh, I have a similar like, if I’m reading your email, I have a similar story, or that resonates with me because x right and so just share part of your why. And then you go into the weekly newsletters, and I say weekly, I know it’s like, oh gosh, I don’t know what to say, whatever. But really, to be a friend, you’ve got to do three things. You’ve got to invest your time. You’ve got to share with them in a relatable way and you’ve got to stay top of mind. And that’s like friendship in real life like IRL, or, you know, in online, right? And that’s, that’s how you, that’s how you do it in email to like, invest your time, show up every week, create that welcome sequence, like spend a little time on them, right?
Relate to the Audience
You know, even even just Instagram, right? Like, just dm them, however, you’re talking to your people now plus the email, share in a relatable way. Like, like I said, this isn’t your best friend, you’re not going to talk about, you know, something inappropriate or has nothing to do with fitness or, you know, obviously, if you’re telling a story, and you can segue in, but you don’t have to do that share in a relatable way. And, like, oh, today, I really wanted to go for a run. But I live in Texas, and it’s snowing, and there’s no power grid, and I wouldn’t even be able to take a shower. Like, you know, by the way, here’s my link or whatever, right? I just wrote your entire newsletter for you that took 30 seconds.
And then stay top of mind. That’s why I say once a week, the internet is noisy as heck, they are going to forget about you. And that’s not that’s nothing against you. That’s that’s the human mind. Right. Like, we’ve got a bajillion things, especially in 2021. Like, we’ve got a bajillion things. If you don’t, you know, if you’re not consistent, they’re gonna forget about you, not in a nasty way. Just, those are just the facts.
Timeframe for Emails
Right? Yeah. And how so? How long would you say you need to build a friendship before you ever insert a sales? Email?
Okay, so that’s a great, there’s two camps? Great question. Um, you know, there’s the camp that you have to, you know, you got to email, you’ve got to have this 12 month funnel, and, you know, pitch them at 90 days, and again, you know, whatever. But the, there’s another camp that says, like, hey, they’re actively searching for a solution. So why not just pitch them right away. And so the sequence that I just broke down, that is, you know, that is the most basic sequence that is like, Hey, listen, I could do this simply like, here you go.
That’s how to do it simply. Now, if you do have a product, I recommend pitching it right away. And you can even do this before they get the email and a tripwire, I highly recommend a tripwire, I’ve got one, you should get one. They’re great. And you can also do it in, you know, the PS of the first email, like PS, if you, um, you know, if you want to know how you can work with me, you know, here’s one way or the other, you know, 123 links, whatever you can do that. You can share it in the newsletter expectations. When you say free and paid product, put the link hyperlink the word paid to a product. Does that make sense? And so, you know, I
I’m definitely in the camp. Like, if you have a product, you should definitely give it you know, tell people about it. A SAP.
Love it. Yeah, totally. And what about when you feel like I was just talking to somebody today? And she said, You know, I don’t know, if my I get it? You know, I use common phrases I hear from my audience. I am really like, feeling like my, it’s getting a good response. But it’s not converting. And I don’t know if my message is landing. I don’t know what’s not converting. What would you say? When somebody’s saying, Well, I’m okay, I’m doing the things. I’m building friendships. I’m, you know, try to use their language, but start converting.
Yeah, so you need to, I don’t know, you have to ask your audience. And I, of course, then I get the objection. Well, nobody answers me. It’s like, well, then you need to go back to the beginning and look at your welcome sequence and find out where you can insert places for them to reply to you. And this is an you can go to my website, and you can get my actual welcome sequence that I just broke down, you can see the way that I wrote it. Those are called swipe files. But anyway, you’ve got you’ve got to get them replying. Just the same way as showing them your products. You’ve got to get them replying ASAP. And obviously, if you’ve got 100,000 people on your list, this is a little different advice.
What to do with Disconnects
This is for you know, someone who really like you said, it’s not converting there’s there’s a disconnect, but we’re not sure why. And so if they’re not answering you now you’ve got to go all the way back to your foundation, go to your welcome sequence and insert phrases like hit reply, and, or you know, just like I was talking about, like the too legit to quit, right? Like that’s a fun way of getting someone to reply. Because here’s the thing, if they reply in those first few emails, number one, it’s going to you’re Email is going to go to the inbox, right.
And that’s going to help the, you know, this is kind of a tangent, but that’s going to help the your email credit score, so to speak, right, that’s going to make you favorable to the internet Gods is what I say. And then number two, it’s going to make them remember you right, it’s going to turn them into a friend way more quickly.
So that when you know, you launch an E book, or you know, you put out an affiliate sale, or you know, whatever your thing is, you launch a new program, and you hear crickets, you can actually ask, Hey, girl, why don’t you buy this, and you can literally send out an email. That’s three sentences, you know, hey, Hailey, I noticed that you were clicking, and you were interested in the program, but you didn’t buy I’m really trying to make this thing work. And I don’t want to create something that nobody wants.
Making Sense of Surveys
Can you please just hit reply? And let me know why you didn’t join right now? Or you can put it in a survey, right? If you don’t want to be as I’m, I’m direct. So I’m just gonna straight up Hey, girl, why didn’t you buy? Like, how many of those emails but if that feels like in your gut, if you just heard that you’re like, Oh, my gosh, Liz, I would never do that. You can put it in a survey.
And you know, you can just google like, why didn’t you buy surveys, and you can look up those questions. But you know, basically, like, you know, what was your major hesitation? What would make this a no brainer? Was it the price, you know, you can ask those types of questions. Um, but if you’ve got a firm foundation, that sort of welcome sequence, that really tells them what they can expect from you, you know, tells them a little bit about you, not a lot, right? They’re not your friend yet. Not a lot, but tells them like, Hey, I’m a human, I’m a real person.
And, you know, give them some of your best stuff that’s going to help you later, you know, when you launch something, and you’re like, oh, that didn’t quite land. And I need to know why. You know, it could be it could be your sales page. It could be this, it could be that but chances are, there’s some sort of disconnect, that your, your audience doesn’t trust you enough to buy like I just two days ago, I was going to write my newsletter, I didn’t know what to write.
And I thought, Hey, I’m going to launch a new membership. And in one email, I got 45. signups for a new membership. I don’t even have any of the content yet. But that’s because I’ve built I have such a firm foundation for when a new person comes in. They’re greeted in such a way that you know, that know, like, and trust factor is built like very quickly.
And so here’s another thing, like, if you learn nothing else from listening to me today, like I hope, you know, people buy from people they trust. That’s why I do the follower, friend, customer. People trust their friends, right? And it becomes very simple like, hey, do you want this? It was just my idea for a membership. I was like, I don’t know, if anybody’s gonna buy this. Here’s what I think would be in it. And you know, if I get if I get like, 20 people, I’ll you know, I’ll start it, right. But it’s because they trust me that they bought right away without hesitation. Does that make sense?
Yes, absolutely. So you build that trust. And once you go into, you know, the friendzone you have your like, going back to your course you had your Okay, doors are open, the course is here, right? How many of those Do you do typically? And when, you know, what do you do after the launch? So after the launch, it sounds like what you might do is a survey, like why didn’t you buy type of thing, but is there anything else you need to do afterwards? To really fine tune this whole process?
Oh, yeah, you didn’t ask that question. Sorry. I get so excited.
I just, I’m great. And, I just feel like so many email marketers out there. They just don’t know, quote, unquote, what it’s like, like, it’s kind of ironic. But they talk about email marketing, but they never had to do it other than email marketing. Like there are a lot of copywriters, you know, anyway, anyway, I just feel like this is available to everyone if we just simplify it. So yeah, so when when you launch the product, obviously, there’s certain sales emails, you know, there’s basically and I’m doing this off the cuff.
So I think five so right, you know, the open cart and for me, because you’ve done so much hype, right, because you’ve said like, Oh, my gosh, this is coming. It’s coming, it’s coming, it’s coming. Oh, my gosh, tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow, you know, because you’ve done so much of that the first open cart email can just be holy crap.
Presenting the Offer
It’s finally here. I worked so hard on this, please click this link. I mean, you don’t beg them. I’m kind of sound like I’m begging Like, click this link and check out this sales page. Um, you know, I hope you I hope to see you on the inside. And just, you know, it can be in five sentences, you know, maybe a little fun gift or, you know, I think sometimes they say like, it’s Monday morning, the coffee’s brewing, the kids are off at school.
And, you know, email marketing membership is open, like, click the link, I’m so freaking excited, right? Then the second email, let’s answer those objections, like get some FA Q’s, right. And the FAQ email, the first two questions should be the main objections or what you think, right? If you haven’t launched this yet, then it’s just, you know, you kind of have to guess.
But normally, it’s time and money like this. I don’t know if you know, 297 is worth it. And I really don’t have time for this. You know, those are the biggest objections pretty much for most things. I did find side note with my online course for the RV years, the biggest objection was, I don’t know what the f an online course is. Because they were all people in their 60s was my main audience, right? So I was I was like, Oh, I’m gonna have to explain this. But anyway, so there might be little surprises.
But the FAQ email, um, oftentimes in the middle of the week, you know, that’s when it’s going to slow down Monday, Tuesday, pretty good Wednesday, Thursday, in the middle of the week, you know, maybe you want to do some sort of surprise bonus for them, like, Hey, you know, to get people incentivized to buy now, right, every email, should you should be thinking, why should they buy today? They didn’t buy yesterday, they didn’t find the day before?
Like, why are they buying today. And so, you know, you can have a surprise bonus, like, Oh, my gosh, I’m gonna offer this, you know, PDF, or a live call, or I’m going to add, you know, whatever you add, right. Then, in on Thursday, I’m trying to think that’s usually like an emotional or logical argument, like, Okay, I see, you know, I know, you know, this is going down this week, here’s, here’s why you should buy it. And it’s, you know, like, maybe you have a 30 day refund, like you have time and the next 30 days to check this out. If you love it, great. If you hate it, I’m going to offer you a refund. So it’s basically risk free, whatever kind of arguments you can make, to make it risk free.
Also, maybe like, you’ve been on my email list for at least six months, and you know, that I, you know, my stuff is stellar, then you know, this is going to be even beyond that, because it’s, you know, what I’m giving you love when I’m giving away for free, like, you’re super-duper gonna, you know, you’re just going to be blown away. I just pictured someone with their socks literally being blown off. So, you know, try to frame it in that. And then of course, the last day, I send two to three emails, hey, last chance, maybe a little bit more of that logical argument.
Um, and then, you know, quick, like, don’t forget about these bonuses, you can add an email that has like, Hey, this is everything in here. These are the values, right? Like, this is worth 1000. It’s only $100. You know, whatever that is. And then just a last chance, you know, a few hours before cart close, like, hey, short and sweet, quick reminder.
Does that make sense? Absolutely. I love this. So once they do that, and they do their first round of this, and, you know, they got some sales. They’re excited, right? What? Do you have a like a ritual or anything you do to be like, Alright, am I going to do this again? Do I? What do I need to improve?
Yeah, yeah. I love that. And I remember you asked, What do I do after so yeah, you can send out Why don’t you buy kind of email or survey? I definitely recommend doing that. Especially if it’s the first few times well, I really anytime, right? You really want to know what like I said, sometimes you kind of have to guess at the FAQs. That survey is going to tell you exactly why someone didn’t buy and hopefully, you know, help you improve the course the product, the bonus suite, whatever it is that you need to do. So that’s super valuable.
And then just go back to your regular weekly newsletter, right? Of course, I I’d love to see you creating some sort of, you know, the next newsletter being like a big thank you like, Hey, thanks for hopping along on the journey, like, you know, and you can share a little bit you know, we were able to get 50 students or 50 people got the ebook, you know, share your results.
I’m just like, number one, it’s awesome to celebrate and your people, you know, part of being a friend with your subscribers sharing your journey, they you know, and the more you share, even if you don’t have something to sell to them, the more they’re gonna To trust you, so when you do come back again, they’re gonna be like, Oh, yeah, their last launch was successful, I want to be a part of that I want to join to, you know, um, and so what I do I of course, I do a launch debrief with myself.
And that’s actually I’m going to pull it up because I don’t if I could find it. Well, I that’s gonna take me too much time. But I asked myself certain questions like, number one, what was my goal that the launch and you know, was my goal to make $10,000 was it to make, you know, 50 sales, whatever my goal is, wasn’t clear wasn’t just to see if anybody would buy, right, like, whatever your goal is. And then also, one of my main goals is always did I have fun was I able to turn off my computer and have dinner with my kid, because let me tell you something, I love sales. I love selling, if you can tell, I love selling like, I get so freaking stoked about it.
And I will become obsessed with it to the point that I forget about everyone and anything like the other day when I was doing that, that impromptu like surprise launch, like I was some hip hop artists with an album out, like all of a sudden, right? I was on Instagram to like 9pm my iPhone told me I was on like, 50% more than normal. You know, I was like, posting it blasting it out. I was answering emails. But to me, that was fun. But when you’re doing a bigger launch, you know, that’s five days, maybe 14 days, like that’s freaking exhausting. And you have to set boundaries.
And so one of my goals is always to like, have those boundaries in place. Did I have fun? Or like, did I push myself so far? That, you know, maybe I made a few sales that I’m not proud of? Because I was using language that I should I should have just let that person not buy even right? And you know, so those, those are part of my launch debrief, too. And so then I go through and I’m like, What worked right? Like, and I go through every email, okay, I got this many sales on this day. This is what that email looked like, this is what that social media looked like. Okay, how can I? How can I do that again, and just sprinkle it on top. Okay, that email, barely anybody opened it?
Nobody clicked like, Okay, what sucked about that email, right? So I do that for every launch. And I think that’s what makes you know, the next one even more successful, so it’s really important. Well, number one, take some time off, take a few days, your people will wait, they are fine. They’re not going to ask for a refund, if they don’t hear from you. 48 hours set up an automated email that says you’ll talk to them in two days. And then number two, like set time in your calendar to do that debrief. It’s really important.
Yes, Liz, this is amazing. And I think the other thing is give yourself permission to make mistakes. And know that this is a thing, you’re going to constantly be refining your audience, you know, their desires are going to change over time, their language is going to change over time, our culture, like our marketing, the markets going to change over time. So I think the fact of the matter is, or what you were saying is at the end, you got to be willing to look back at what was good, what was bad.
How can I keep improving and refining and don’t get upset with yourself if it didn’t work out the very first time. This is something that you guys have been doing over the years. So thank you so much for being on the show today. I think this was super practical advice. I’m so excited to share this with the audience. And where can people connect with you and find you?
Yeah, thank you so much. I’m so glad you said practical because I know I talk a lot and I tell a lot of stories, but I really want to get down to brass tacks and be like, Okay, this is actually what you need. Okay, so that’s good. Um, you can find me thanks for asking. Um, Liz Wilcox, calm. I was talking about those emails. You can, you can actually just get them like, if you’re like, Well, that sounds like a lot of work. You know, you can just get my swipes, which swipes or just, you know, it’s literally Google Doc, it’s all written out. Of course, it’s in my voice, which is not your voice.
But you can take it and make it your own. Use it as inspiration, a sort of like pseudo template and you get so you get those four emails, but also, I’m going to give you three newsletter examples, because I know that can be like really tough, like, oh, what do I write every week. So you can see examples and hopefully, you know, even Further inspiration, and then I’m going to give you 52 subject lines that all for me have gotten over 40% open rate, and I’ve seen them out in the wild quote unquote, and I love seeing them use and people say they’re awesome.
And so you, you know that also, despite being a good subject line like that can prompt you Oh, I’m gonna write about this. So hopefully that helps. That’s my mega swipe file. You can just go to lizwilcox.com on my homepage, I think there’s like five places for you to click and get them because that’s what I really want you to do. Love. Yeah, thank you so much for having me. This was so fun.
Yeah, really fun. Thank you so much, and we’ll talk soon. All right.
About Liza Wilcox
In 2010, Liz got fired from her fried chicken job. After hours of blasting Cry Me A River in her VW Jetta, she hardened up and realized she never wanted to put her fate in someone else’s hands again. Liz knows how to write a newsletter really quick. She also knows how to get people on email lists to buy stuff.
Resources
- Complimentary Business Consult
- Health Coach Nation: Marketing, Business, & Mindset for Health Coaches
You can find Liz on her website here.
Find Liz on Social Media: Facebook
