Make them at the heart of all your emails. This means understanding their problems, wants and needs.
If you donât know, stop writing further emails and go back to the audience research phase. Make sure you nail this part. If not, email marketing is useless for you.
Remember, itâs always about them. Itâs not about you. Itâs not about what youâre going âto doâ to them.
When I was in elementary schoolâŠ
My teacher asked: âwhat do you want to be when you grow up?â
âPolicemanâ
âFiremanâ
âSupermanâ
âDoctorâ
⊠and different answers kept coming in.
Even when we were kids, we were asked what weâd like to become.
What about your business? What would you like your business to become? Why are you in business?
Surely, it must be more than just mahhhney?
Same thing with your emails. Why are you writing emails?
Whether your emails are selling your offer, or asking subscribers to consume new content, or asking them for feedback...
Every email must have a goal.
So don't write another email until you know its goal. Donât write emails for the sake of writing emails. You donât get paid for writing emails. You get paid for writing STRATEGIC emails that ânaturally leadsâ to your paid offer.
You want your content to âtie in nicelyâ with your goal. It has to be the next logical step your subscribers take.
This is where many people do it wrongly. They write the email first, then they decide on the goal.
This leads to content and goal mismatch. The content doesnât naturally lead to the goal.
No sales.
Goal of your email:
Ask people to buy your âboost memory online courseâ.
The email could:
- Educate why boosting their memory is beneficial to their lives (work, college, etc)
- Showcase testimonials and case studies of past students
- Tell them the discount is only valid for the next 24 hours
As you can see, it naturally leads to buying the course.
Every single one of my emails always have a goal -- itâs either:
- educating and entertaining you in the email (so you know, like and trust me)
- asking you to test drive BirdSend free
- inviting you to my email marketing community
More examples:
Email goal: build relationships
How? Give access to lead magnet. Introduce how you can help them. Tell them your story as it relates to your business.
E.g. how you used to have a very poor memory and how you overcame that and became a memory expert.
Email goal: warm them up to you further
How? Give another tip.
Email goal: get them to trust you (to warm them up for your next email where you blatantly sell)
How? Case study of how you help one of your clients boost their memory.
As you can see, itâs very important to strategically decide your goal before writing your email.
Everyone is already providing value. Theyâre already providing tips & tricks to help solve some of their subscribersâ problems.
What makes your emails different from them? Why should someone read your emails over theirs?
The answer is to also provide entertainment in your emails -- which 99% donât do.
Hereâs how to entertain subscribers
A/ Inject humor and personality to make your emails fun
Tonality: personal and fun
Write in a personal, casual, and fun tone, like you would when talking to a friend.
Write specifically to that 1 friend, as if youâre talking face-to-face and one-on-one.
You wouldnât be formal with your friend, so donât be formal with your subscribers.
Of course it depends on the industry youâre in. But even for the most âseriousâ industry -- for example you run a headhunter business that supplies high level executives to Fortune 500 companies -- Iâd argue using a little humor can go a long way.
Business is run by humans, and humans like humor, no matter if youâre a CEO of a large corporation or the chairman of publicly-traded company.
We want to open emails from friends, but not necessarily from businesses.
You want to push this âpersonal, casual, and funeâ vibe when subscribers read your emails.
If youâre thinking âIâm not a comedian or I canât crack jokes or Iâm an introvertâ, donât worry. To entertain your subscribers, you donât need both. You just need to be willing to learn how to write emails that are fun to read (read: not boring).
There is a methodological approach anyone (even if theyâre an introvert like me) can learn if they put their heart and mind to it. Thatâs why we have this chapter.
...because David Beckham imitated his âcraneâ pose:
When trying to convey the point that we should be personal and fun with our audience, I took this opportunity to take this pic and include it in my content:
An email example thatâs the opposite of fun:
The tone of the email is too formal. Youâd never write to a friend like that. Donât ever write something like this to your subscribers.
Come up with funny / weird / memorable slangs
Coin 1 or 2 funny slangs. You can use these not only in your emails, but in your sales copy, profile, social media copy, etc. Basically anywhere you want to build a personal brand.
Email Mahhhhney â which plays on the word âemail moneyâ
Sales Slaves â my way of explaining the power of email sequences
Impress A Stranger series â email welcome series / sequence
Quuu uses âThankQuuuâ to replace âthank youâ:
Pics with funny captions ON the pic itself
Not captions below the pic, but ON the pic itself.
Why not captions below the pic? Because everyone uses captions like that = donât stand out = boring.
B/ Hook people in with stories
Why do you need stories?
Same reason. Because most are not using stories in their emails. Theyâre either just selling all the time (everyone hates that), or educating their subscribers in a VERY BORING, âfactual - you need to do X to get Yâ kind of way.
Boring = donât stand out. People forget you. They ignore you and donât read your emails.
Stories = stand out. Folks eagerly await your emails. Engage with you. Eventually like and trust you â sales.
You need a good way to introduce freshness and suspense, so that people keep coming back and wanting to read your emails. You achieve this by telling stories.
We are social creatures. We like to interact with one another. Like it or not, we are busybodies.
Think back to your school daysâŠ
When your teacher is explaining some theories or concepts, you yawn and daydream.
But when he starts telling a story: âThe other day, this boy came to me and...â
The entire movie industry is built based on stories.
â
Will he finally defy all odds and become the hero?
Will the villain finally be caught or will he continue to evade the law and kill more people?
Is the company going to go bankrupt or will the owner come out of adversity and turn things around?
Will the ghost keep haunting Dalton?
Will Georgie be back alive?
â
Stories hook people in like drugs.
How to come up with story ideas
Answer: use everyday events, then tie them to whatever youâre selling.
You do need to be a little creative when tying events to your business. It might seem hard if youâve never done this before. But once you get the hang of it, itâll be fast.
Pay more attention to the events/stories happening around you.
It doesnât even have to be your own events.
It could be other peopleâs stories as you saw them through your eyes (you were in a cafe or walking down the street and unintentionally overheard a conversation) or heard them from your friends.
Immediately write down your ideas when they come. So that you have a repository of ideas to choose from when writing your next email.
Story: You had lunch with an old friend. He was late because his car had a flat tire.
Your business: you run a hypnotherapy business that helps people overcome their fears and addictions.
How to tie the story to your business:
Yesterday I had lunch with an old friend. He showed up late because his car had a flat tire. He was extremely frustrated and kept on cursing âwtf why did this happen to me!?â
This friend of mine has a bad temper. He is easily angered.
If he had known how to control his emotions, he wouldnât be so pissed off.
Yes the fact was that he had a flat tire. Shit happens. Thatâs life. The show must go on.
If he had been a patient of mine attending my hypnotherapy sessions, it could have been a totally different story. He would know how to control his anger, stop blaming, and move on.
What about you? Do you have any personal issues or fears or addictions that youâre trying to get rid of but couldnât? You need help.
I could help you. Call my number here to set up an appointment.
E.g. 2
Story: Iâm writing this with my laptop with no internet connection because the electricity in my house just got cut off about an hour ago (happens often in my country). True story by the way (let me do a quick selfie for you)âŠ
(I typically use my desktop to work, but since the electricity is dead, it doesnât serve as an excuse to not work. So I use my laptop -- battery is at 38% as Iâm taking this pic)
My business: Iâm trying to convince people to join my email marketing tool.
How to tie the story to my business:
I was just about to start working by writing my emails when kappoooofff no electricity.
I could have stopped my work (email writing) but I didnât want to let the situation take control of me. I already made a target to write a few emails today to be dropped in the email sequence for you.
But even if I decide to take a day off and stop writing emails today, my other emails (that Iâve written) would still be sent out to you and other subscribers.
So regardless of whether I work or not today, Iâll still engage with you.
But to do that, you need an email marketing tool.
And BirdSend is THE email marketing tool you want to use so that you achieve high email opens + save 3 - 5X in expenses every month.