Marisa Shadrick [00:00:13]:
Hello, and welcome everyone to another episode of Amplify Your Authority podcast. I’m Marisa Shadrick. I’m an online marketing consultant, and once a month, I am joined by Kathy Farah, ConvertKit strategist, and we talk about copywriting. Welcome, Kathy. How are you? Hello. I’m doing great. How are you? I’m doing well. I think our subject matter today is gonna be really, really helpful because a lot of people have a lot of promotions that they wanna do in the fall.

Marisa Shadrick [00:00:48]:
And, of course, during the holiday season, they may wanna do Black Friday or something like that. But we’re gonna talk today about email marketing, which is something that you love to talk about, right, Kathy?

Kathy Farah [00:01:01]:
I love emails. Yes.

Marisa Shadrick [00:01:06]:
You love emails. So, yeah, in case anyone doesn’t know, a little, just tell them a little bit about you in case they’re just tuning in for the first time and how we kind of came together. I think it’s good to kinda recap that because we’re always getting new listeners.

Kathy Farah [00:01:21]:
Yeah. So I am, as Marisa said, I am a ConvertKit email strategist, and I help or small businesses hire me to help them with their sequences, reengaging their audiences, cleaning their list, and kind of eliminating some of the tech headaches that are surrounded with email marketing. And Marisa and I met through, I’ve been participating in her group in Amplify Your Authority. And so she and I had met, and we when we would meet 1 on 1 to have different conversations, we would end up just talking and talking and talking about marketing strategy in general, and then email marketing and copywriting and all the things. And so that’s kind of what brought us to this point of realizing, hey, we actually like talking about this stuff. Why don’t we do it live?

Marisa Shadrick [00:02:15]:
Yes. We both geek out is basically what she’s saying because not everyone I mean, when I talk to my husband, he goes, oh, yeah. Okay. That’s really nice, Marissa. Not everybody, like, gets excited about this stuff, but Kathy does. So she’s a wonderful geek just like I am. Yes. And she loves research like I do.

Marisa Shadrick [00:02:37]:
And so we geek out together, and she loves technology and so do I. I mean, it’s a match made in heaven. Right?

Kathy Farah [00:02:44]:
That’s right.

Marisa Shadrick [00:02:44]:
That’s right. Oh my gosh.

Kathy Farah [00:02:46]:
But Everyone else’s eyes glaze over, but we are totally engaged.

Marisa Shadrick [00:02:51]:
I know. We try

Kathy Farah [00:02:53]:
get into those deep conversations.

Marisa Shadrick [00:02:54]:
Yeah. And we try to keep these segments really simple and actionable and really step by step because we realized that some people are at different stages. And copywriting is so important Because especially the online space, I mean, you can do video, but even video, what are you saying on the video that’s copy? And you need captions, that’s copy. Your website, that’s copy. Your email campaigns, that’s copy. Your sales pages, that’s copy. All of it, even a PowerPoint, what you put on it is copy. So it’s such an important piece.

Marisa Shadrick [00:03:31]:
And when we talk about headlines, we emphasize it because it is like the starting point, because you’ve gotta catch people with a headline, and there’s so much that could be said about headlines alone. And so, I know that some people think, well, I’m a good writer. I could just, you know, put something in there or put something in chat gbt, but it’s so much more. And I think some of the past episodes, we’ve covered some of that, Kathy, where we’ve talked about the importance of that. So hopefully you’re getting some value from this. Email marketing is the next step once you’ve captured their attention. And they are part of your ecosystem, they are in your email, and they’re part of your email list, email community, then what do you do?

Kathy Farah [00:04:19]:
Right? Right.

Marisa Shadrick [00:04:20]:
So I think Kathy, you’ve discovered as I that some people forget, or maybe procrastinate to communicate to their list. Have you tried that to be true?

Kathy Farah [00:04:34]:
Yeah. I I would definitely because I think people, you know, often worry about what to say. You know, it isn’t always that easy. And really, if you have a good understanding, thinking about the services that you provide, and you’re providing value and sort of sticking to speaking to 1 person, one topic, one call to action. Don’t make it overwhelming and put everything you know into an email, you know, and just really being able to focus. I think you’re right that a lot of times people just feel like I’ve got to put cram everything in and really just breaking things up piece by piece leading eventually to maybe your paid offers, is kind of the key thing when it comes to email marketing.

Marisa Shadrick [00:05:25]:
Yeah. And it it all begins with really understanding what your message and copywriting, which I love the power of 1. You know? I am just an advocate of that. But again, thinking, what is it that I want them? And this applies to email marketing, because we’re gonna get into this. We were talking about copywriting. So what do I want them to think? Or what do I want them to understand? What do I want them to feel? What do I want them to believe? And what do I want them to do? And we wanna narrow that down so much that it just is streamlined and it’s clear. And that brings clarity. When we’re clear that our message is clear.

Marisa Shadrick [00:06:07]:
When we’re not clear, then the message can get kind of foggy and hard to understand. And if you confuse, you lose as the cliche goes, and it’s very, very true. So for email marketing, let’s just start, Kathy. What if we just start with what you don’t need for email marketing and what you do need? To keep it really simple, to show them how simple this can be. So what we don’t need, what’s one thing they don’t need to be effective in email marketing?

Kathy Farah [00:06:38]:
A website. You don’t need a website. We stress about that of having this perfect website and you don’t really need that to start collecting emails.

Marisa Shadrick [00:06:48]:
Yeah. In fact, if you’re not quite sure what direction your messaging is, like your brand and everything else, you know, you might want to have a really great live page that will attract people to give you their email, and you give them a resource and start surveying your people inside your email, so your email subscribers, but you don’t really need a website. Now if you had one, it’s great because you can level up and you can do other things and you can create, you know, podcasts and blogs, but not everybody starts there. Right? So there’s a lot of people who have been very successful, growing an email list to without having a website. Right.

Kathy Farah [00:07:36]:
Because I think it takes some time. Right? Yeah. And so I wanna kinda highlight that to take a little bit of pressure off of yourself because as you’re starting an online business, you may be trying to dial in exactly what your services are. And so it does take some time to write the copy. It just doesn’t flow immediately. You’ve got to, you know, having an email list and starting to see what people kinda click with and and what seems to get their attention may help you start to dial in what you need for your future website.

Marisa Shadrick [00:08:11]:
Exactly. So you don’t need a website. Secondly, you don’t need a budget. You just need one live page. So whatever you’re going to use eventually for your website, you don’t have to build a homepage, about page, and all that stuff. If you don’t have the time and you’re not sure what to put on it, don’t let that stop you from growing an email list. Now we keep saying this and people are wondering, why is that such a priority? Let’s explain and unpack why it’s important to grow your email list from the get go?

Kathy Farah [00:08:43]:
The key thing is, is that being able to communicate with your future audience, your client base, it’s you build deeper relationships through email marketing versus what we kind of all know going into, you know, communicating, we wanna do everything on social media. And and the truth is, is that it takes a lot of work, a lot of post. I mean, oftentimes, it’s 1 to 3 posts a day that you’re just having to kind of inundate and put out there. And that’s just putting a little drop in a huge ocean of people that are looking at information. With email marketing, you’re able to narrow that down to people that are truly interested in what you have to say. So you’re not just hitting the masses. You’re helping to try to narrow into your true ideal audience. And then you go from there to build a more direct relationship with

Marisa Shadrick [00:09:44]:
that with that person. And the people, historically, for me, the people that buy from you are the people that are in your community, in your email list. Yes. So if you wanna sell, if you wanna make money, you’ve got to grow your email list. Because if you don’t have an email list, you don’t have anybody to sell to. And so they are the ones who have already, like Kathy said, you’ve built a relationship, you’ve given them value, you stay in touch, you stay top of mind. And so they’re discovering not only what you do, but why it’s important. They may not have known.

Marisa Shadrick [00:10:23]:
Their level of awareness might have been well, I knew it was kind of important, but I didn’t know why. And as you communicate with them, they’re realizing, oh, now I get it. I really need to dial this in. I I need more information on this. So if you want to sell, you’ve gotta grow your email list. So it’s and I Kathy said, it’s more expensive and harder to just go straight social media, cold audience to sell. It’s more even if you use ads, it’s gonna be more expensive.

Kathy Farah [00:10:56]:
Right. And you really don’t get the return on your investment as quickly with with social media. Certainly not through organic. You almost have to only use ads to really see any return, and it’s pretty low compared to email marketing.

Marisa Shadrick [00:11:10]:
I I look at social media, and I don’t know if you do, but whatever I’m creating, I use it as, like, another source to just kind of throw it on there.

Kathy Farah [00:11:21]:
Right. Throw it on so to have some appearance and presence.

Marisa Shadrick [00:11:24]:
Some appearance and take what I’m already doing Yeah. And putting it out there, putting it out there on social and using schedulers. But, and then if you even post more than once, you’re competing against yourself on your own platform, so it’s gonna hurt your reach. And so we end up this is what we were told, right, for years, and we wore ourselves out going, wait, but this isn’t working. And so

Kathy Farah [00:11:49]:
now And here’s the truth. So I was doing some research recently. You’ll be excited to know. And social media, what I realized is you have about 2 seconds to grab someone’s attention. So it actually means you have to have stronger copywriting. Yes. To grab someone’s attention in that 2 seconds in a sea of people. With email marketing, the typical use of people is that if you and you could think about even how you interact with your emails versus social media.

Kathy Farah [00:12:21]:
Oftentimes, the first thing that people are doing are checking their emails.

Marisa Shadrick [00:12:25]:
Mhmm.

Kathy Farah [00:12:25]:
And if they recognize who you are, then you could possibly grab their attention. And you still have to have a good subject line, but you get 3 minutes of their time.

Marisa Shadrick [00:12:35]:
Mhmm.

Kathy Farah [00:12:36]:
That you have an opportunity to be able to connect and be able to share information in 3 minutes with somebody that genuinely wants to hear from you. So you can think about exactly how you engage with your own emails. When you see something that comes from somebody that you know, you’re more apt to open if the subject line is relevant to what may be of interest to you right then. But with social media, I know this is how I am. It’s just scroll, scroll, scroll. It’s it’s harder to grab my attention unless it’s a cute dog. Like, it’s not

Marisa Shadrick [00:13:11]:
like And we’re not selling dog food either.

Kathy Farah [00:13:14]:
So what I know is and that’s not true of everyone, but the truth is you do have about 2 seconds to grab someone’s attention. So you really have to write well-to-do that effectively if you’re not using ads and having that pop up for you.

Marisa Shadrick [00:13:30]:
For sure. And, and again, it’s really mastering the copywriting and see if you could target the audience, through ads and stuff where social me I mean, it doesn’t hurt if you already have it. If you already have a lead magnet, if you’re already then it doesn’t hurt at all to put it on social media, and it doesn’t hurt to have some kind of frequency of appearance on social, but don’t think that that is what’s gonna bring the revenue. Right. That alone. So, growing that email list is really, really important. So you don’t need a website. You don’t need, huge ad budget.

Marisa Shadrick [00:14:05]:
So you can do this with content creation. So you don’t need an ad budget necessarily, and you don’t need, you know, a huge team in the beginning. Later on, it’d be great. But

Kathy Farah [00:14:19]:
Yeah.

Marisa Shadrick [00:14:20]:
I mean, it’d be great, but some people don’t want a huge team. Right. See? That’s the thing. What is it that you want? Some people like just working as a solopreneur. Maybe they just only wanna make 300,000 or 500,000 a year. So making, you know, half a mil. Wow. Wow.

Marisa Shadrick [00:14:36]:
That’s so little. Wow. So sad. No. I think that’s awesome. You know? I think that’s awesome. Everybody’s talking about 1,000,000 and 7 figures and all this other stuff. I don’t want that because I know the responsibility it’s gonna take, you know, to to handle a business of that size.

Marisa Shadrick [00:14:54]:
So you make 300,000 or 500,000 a year. Hey, that’s awesome. That’s great. Yes. I mean, right? Why would you want more? I mean, maybe you do, but, you know And

Kathy Farah [00:15:07]:
everyone’s a little different. Right? But, I mean, if you if you know that isn’t what you’re looking for for yourself, then, you know, then that you don’t have to have a massive team behind you you and a huge budget.

Marisa Shadrick [00:15:19]:
I mean,

Kathy Farah [00:15:20]:
you think

Marisa Shadrick [00:15:20]:
about it because you don’t hear that a lot. You don’t hear somebody saying, oh, that poor person, poor Jane, she only makes 300,000 a year. That’s so sad. Right. You know, you don’t hear that. That’s that’s wonderful. So you create what you want. You create what you want, but you don’t have to have a large team.

Marisa Shadrick [00:15:38]:
So, so those are the things you don’t have to have. But what you do need in order to stay compliant with the laws that that of email marketing, you need what, Kathy? Why don’t you share

Kathy Farah [00:15:51]:
with us? Email service provider

Marisa Shadrick [00:15:53]:
Mhmm.

Kathy Farah [00:15:53]:
Needs something that is designed to handle the email marketing specifically. So you don’t want to do something like blind copy a list of people through a free email account like Gmail. Like, that’s not gonna be nearly as effective. You want the ability to have someone be able to unsubscribe if they’re no longer interested. So an email service provider or CRM system will handle all of that for you very easily.

Marisa Shadrick [00:16:24]:
Yeah. You don’t wanna appear as like a spammer just using your own personal email and sending them out. An email service provider means they’ve opted in, and you’re not swiping emails and just sticking them in there. Right. They opt in. They don’t do that either. No. No.

Marisa Shadrick [00:16:40]:
No. Just because

Kathy Farah [00:16:41]:
you have an email address somewhere sitting on your desk, don’t add that to your email list.

Marisa Shadrick [00:16:46]:
No. They need to opt in. And so, yeah. And so you need and now, Kathy and I, like we said before, we see eye to eye in many things, but we use different email service providers. Yeah. Right? So what do you use, Kathy?

Kathy Farah [00:17:00]:
I use ConvertKit, for my email service platform. And part of the reason why I’ve enjoyed ConvertKit is it’s very straightforward. It allows me to do the automation in a very straightforward forward way. So for me, that works really well for my audience. It lets me create the sequences I wanna create, and automate the processes, and let me have the insights I need to know what’s working, what’s not working, and it’s just kind of a straightforward

Marisa Shadrick [00:17:31]:
process. And I use, ActiveCampaign, which is a CRM customer relations management tool, which allows me to combine not only the email marketing, but also I can have landing pages if I want, and also my appointments go on there, and there’s a, a funnel, so to speak. It goes on a pipeline so I can track clients, especially coaching clients. I can track at what stage they are in, and I can put even reminders and follow ups to myself because I’ll forget. So it’s a little bit more robust. Not everybody needs that. I do because I do do done for you copy, but I also do coaching and I do individual coaching and group coaching. So to manage all that, it helps me to have a CRM.

Marisa Shadrick [00:18:17]:
But it’s a little bit more robust and they have templates and things like that in there, but you don’t need that. I mean, you can

Kathy Farah [00:18:24]:
see this.

Marisa Shadrick [00:18:24]:
You could even start with Mailchimp if you if you you know, depending on funds of what you have, and then Kathy can help you switch it over to ConvertKit. Right.

Kathy Farah [00:18:33]:
I was gonna say, I often end up getting clients to switch to ConvertKit for the for the straightforwardness of it. And it does have free landing page templates and forms and things like that. So there are some of those elements too that I forgot to mention. And ConvertKit right now actually has, like, a free newsletter plan. So they’re, at this point, maybe even a little less expensive than Mailchimp than some of the other ones with the more competitive, newsletter plan that they’ve just started.

Marisa Shadrick [00:19:06]:
So, you know, we should do Kathy. We should put a link to ConvertKit and ActiveCampaign in the show notes. Let me put

Kathy Farah [00:19:12]:
a link.

Marisa Shadrick [00:19:13]:
The choice. Yeah. And you guys go check it out. Just you all those tools, check it out. Make sure you like the customer service. Make sure it integrates with your other tools. Make sure it fits your budget. Whatever works for you, we just want you to take action.

Marisa Shadrick [00:19:28]:
So if taking action with something else, I think ActiveCampaign has a 14 day free trial. So, just shop around. This is when you do your little homework and you research Yes. And you see which one fits because it’s not just price alone. It’s what are some of the features. So you do one, in this case, look at some of the features. So the other thing you do need to do, and, I was trying to figure this out in how to because people don’t like to hear it, but I think you should dedicate about 10% of your weekly time to just writing writing. And writing your thoughts, writing tips, writing because those can eventually be blog blog posts.

Marisa Shadrick [00:20:10]:
They could be social media posts, and you can repurpose those, and they can also be part of your email campaign. You know, if you’re just sending something out, if you’re always just writing a little bit, then you’re not gonna be, oh my gosh. What am I gonna write? I gotta put something out for tomorrow. I think if you just get in the habit of always writing, or maybe it could be part of your journaling time if you journal, you know, some things you’ve discovered or maybe you got inspired from a book you’re reading or a podcast you heard and you take little notes down, you know, keep that. Do you do that? Because I do that.

Kathy Farah [00:20:45]:
Oh, my goodness. Yes. The you’re speaking my love language. I have notebook after notebook that I’m listening. Most of the people that know me, I’ve got several books on audiobooks, actual hardback books, the so yeah. So and so, yes, I definitely get ideas from all those different sources.

Marisa Shadrick [00:21:03]:
Yeah. And so do that and just spend 10% of your time. So whatever time you spend a week working on your business, allocate a certain amount of time for writing, and that writing will make the rest so much easier. So and yeah. Go ahead, Kathy.

Kathy Farah [00:21:20]:
I was just gonna say and just to, you know, keep keep reminding yourself that the objective is one topic. So you’re really just focusing on one thought for the email. So if you’ve got a lot of ideas that come to you, you know, you could really that could be a lot of pieces of content. You could end up with a month’s worth of emails by just focusing on the one topic. I think a lot of times, we mentioned this earlier, but I think a lot of times people get a little overwhelmed even with all the ideas. They wanna put everything into an email to share all the things they know. And if you split that out a little bit and just look at, okay, I’m just gonna follow this one topic all the way through. It’s easier for people to understand, especially if you’re trying to help them the things that you do for people, then it just it

Marisa Shadrick [00:22:09]:
and it makes it easier

Kathy Farah [00:22:10]:
to write, frankly. Yeah. Yeah. So scale it back. Most of the time,

Marisa Shadrick [00:22:13]:
people put too much. So scale it back, keep it simple. Yes. And keep it, you know, the frequency and how long and how short you’ll know as you check your analytics, you’ll know and you’ll adjust. But for the for the most part, just stay in communication with your email list. So Be consistent. Be consistent. Now there are other optional tools you can use for email marketing.

Marisa Shadrick [00:22:41]:
I’m gonna just mention them real quick and then we’re gonna go into the 3 because, we’re like running out of time here. So you could you could use, of course, AI tools if you want. Never just copy and paste from an AI tool, and there’s there’s a a season of learning that it needs to do. So use that with wisdom if you do use that. Also, there’s tools like subject line.com to kinda test your subject lines, but just because it says it’s okay, it may not be okay. You just make sure it makes sense for your audience. If you like emojis, there’s a place where you can get emojis and put that in there. Some of the email service providers already baked that in so the emojis are in there for you.

Marisa Shadrick [00:23:27]:
There’s also those little, is it pronounced Giphy? Those little, those little moving Yeah. Moving little images. There’s a site there where you can add those once in a while. It really just depends. I’ll put a link to all these resources in the show notes, but it’s just to to catch attention like Kathy was saying, because we want to have a pattern interrupt, like whatever they’re expecting, give them what they’re not expecting. Right. You know? And the beauty about emails though, it’s different kinds of headlines than say a lead magnet. Because a lead magnet, you gotta tell them what it is, right, for them to be interested.

Marisa Shadrick [00:24:07]:
But with a subject line, Kathy, we could put a little curiosity in there and not tell them everything so they click and open it. Right?

Kathy Farah [00:24:15]:
Yes. Questions. Have a few questions where it gets somebody thinking about it. Can I add one other element too that I’ve noticed, more recently is also having a business email address? So even if you don’t have a website, having a business domain where you set up through your, you know, domain provider like a GoDaddy or something like that that Mhmm. That you have a business email address because that’s more effective than, say, a free email address like a gmail.com in with your email service provider.

Marisa Shadrick [00:24:51]:
Oh, I see what you’re saying. Yeah. Yeah.

Kathy Farah [00:24:53]:
Yeah. So you want it to say, like, mine is, like, kathy@kathyferro.com. I’ve taken my domain, my Mhmm. My business website that I didn’t start off having a website, but I did start off with having that email address from day

Marisa Shadrick [00:25:08]:
1. Yeah. I do the same thing. Mine is marissa@marissa shadrach.com. No Gmail at the end of it or MSN or Hotmail or whatever those are. You know, have the domain, and that’s easy to do when you get your domain. So that’s a great point. I’m glad you brought that up because I didn’t even think about that.

Marisa Shadrick [00:25:27]:
So Yeah. Anyway Yeah. That’s why we cover each other’s back here. So and and the nice thing about emails too, is, and you can do this with social media posts, but I love, automations. I love scheduling things. So I love that a lot of the stuff, Kathy, we can create it, automate it Mhmm.

Kathy Farah [00:25:51]:
And forget about it. Yep. Especially when you have busier times. I mean, I think one thing that I’ve noticed with my clients during the summer, it’s it’s, you know, there’s a lot happening during the summer. And and so if you’re kind of starting at the beginning of the month and you’re planning out your content, your weekly content, then as long as you’re picking a consistent day and time to send an email, you could schedule all of that out for several weeks in advance to where then it gives you a little bit of a break in, you know, make it you don’t have to be rushing to your computer every Tuesday at 8:30 to send, you know, get the email ready to go.

Marisa Shadrick [00:26:30]:
Yeah. And then if you do have a post that you’re doing on instagram or linkedin or something and you thought, that was a really good post, grab that thing and turn it into an email,

Kathy Farah [00:26:42]:
repurpose it. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely.

Marisa Shadrick [00:26:46]:
I do that all the time. Right. So anyway and it keeps growing. It’ll start with a post and then it’ll grow and get tweaked for the email newsletter and then it’ll grow and get tweaked for a blog post. So it just it keeps building like a gross

Kathy Farah [00:27:00]:
And really, if you’ve created some great stuff, you know, months ago, re you know, repurposing that and just tweaking a subject line and tweaking some, you know, maybe a little bit of the copy. Sometimes that’s sufficient. People don’t always remember. You know, that’s the you worry that your audience is gonna go, oh, they know I sent that 5 months ago. But new people are coming into your list. And even for the ones that have been there a while, if you’re changing a couple of the elements, it still is relevant.

Marisa Shadrick [00:27:30]:
Mhmm. And they’ll forget. Right. Because you said, oh, remember I sent that out, like, 3 3 weeks ago. Uh-huh. What? Yeah.

Kathy Farah [00:27:37]:
Yeah. Exactly. Even 3 weeks ago. You’re right.

Marisa Shadrick [00:27:40]:
Yeah. I mean, I do that. I I forget. Yeah. Sometimes I download a resource, and I’ve already downloaded it. I forgot I downloaded it. Right? So we all do that. Yeah.

Marisa Shadrick [00:27:48]:
So anyway, we’re gonna fly through these. We’re gonna talk about the the purpose of the welcome series, the purpose of a webinar series, and the purpose of a promotional series. We’re gonna talk about the the purpose, what’s the purpose for it? Remember, we’re talking about one purpose. What’s the purpose? And maybe, 2 or 3 little elements of this type of email campaign to help you out. So, let’s start with the welcome series. Kathy, tell us what’s the purpose of the welcome series. Somebody opts in, you know, there’s a lead magnet, they like it, they grab it. What’s the welcome series for?

Kathy Farah [00:28:25]:
So the welcome series is is basically welcoming someone into your email list and and into your community. So it gives you an opportunity to kind of introduce yourself and get, you know, basically kind of say hello so that you’re not just having someone sign up and then nothing happens. You want, they or they get the freebie, and that’s the end of it. You wanna be able to start to nurture the relationship a little bit. The same way you would if you think about it, like someone comes to your home, you wouldn’t just open the door and then turn around, walk away and not welcome them in. Yeah, you would show them around a little bit. Right?

Marisa Shadrick [00:29:04]:
Yeah. Yeah, for sure. It is the first step of that relationship. So we’re trying to avoid all the stranger danger. And we wanna make sure that we have an opportunity to, you know, introduce them to our brand and who we are, maybe set expectations, maybe unpack a little bit more value on something that they’ve downloaded. So you could make a welcome series. I don’t know what you typically do. I typically go 3 emails, sometimes 5 depending on the lead magnet, but typically around 3 emails because then they jump on to the regular flow of receiving the the Monday marketing memo and then they also receive the podcast on Wednesdays.

Marisa Shadrick [00:29:49]:
So what do you typically do for a welcome sequence?

Kathy Farah [00:29:52]:
I’m right now, I’m testing a little bit of a longer sequence. Mhmm. So I I think mine’s about 6 or 7. Mhmm. But so I’m I’m testing out a daily during the welcome sequence period, a daily email, which I tell them at the beginning. So they know going into it that it’s going to happen daily, and then you’ll get a weekly email. So this is not my typical flow, and that’s what I kind of explain right out of the gate. And then I lead them to a paid offer, you know, so that that way they have the opportunity to be able to work with me.

Kathy Farah [00:30:27]:
So right now, one of the things I would say about any of your sequences, I think have some freedom to test different things that might work with your audience. I have done shorter sequences. I’ve done a little bit longer right now. I’m in the process for testing something a little bit longer. We’ll see. I just look at the analytics later and decide whether or not those emails are relevant. Do I need to pull some things out? You know, so I just kind of Yeah. You know, look at and decide where I’m gonna go with the next one.

Marisa Shadrick [00:30:55]:
And it depends on what the lead magnet is because I’m working on a lead magnet Yeah. For the fall that’s a challenge, an email challenge. So that one, I’m still debating. I think it’s gonna be a 5 day challenge, but they will receive 5 emails. So it makes sense because that is the lead magnet. So, so it just depends. But for the quick, like, like the checklist and those kind of things, there’s really not a whole lot of explanation to it. So I usually keep around 3.

Marisa Shadrick [00:31:24]:
So it really depends on the lead magnet. Yeah. So it depends. A webinar is a lead magnet, and we can kinda segue into that. And the webinar is a lead magnet, so you’re gonna probably have more emails. Mhmm. So, the the purpose for the webinar is, obviously, if you’re sending them an invitation to a webinar, you want them to register. Right? Yes.

Marisa Shadrick [00:31:49]:
You want them to register. So, again, webinars have changed a lot. Have you noticed that, Kathy? Yeah. Yeah.

Kathy Farah [00:31:56]:
Yeah. As far as what seems to be working or not working

Marisa Shadrick [00:31:59]:
and Mhmm. Yeah. Yeah. So, for all these emails, you know, you wanna just keep it very take off your marketing hat. Just be you. Use the words you use in conversation. If you’re inviting them to some training, it’s okay to bribe them with freebies. You know, if they show up or if they register, it’s okay to do that.

Marisa Shadrick [00:32:25]:
In fact, more and more people are doing that because it’s getting harder for them. Well, not so much to to register, but to show up live. So there’s 2 separate email campaigns there. There’s one to get them to register. And once they’re registered, you need a separate campaign to follow-up to get them to show up live. So it’s a little bit like a part b part to that. But, the main thing, you know, for if you’re having a webinar, you’re obviously training on some type of problem or struggle that they’ve had. Right? So talking about that would be a good idea.

Marisa Shadrick [00:33:02]:
You know? Yeah.

Kathy Farah [00:33:03]:
Helping to help them understand the value of coming to the webinar and seeing you teach whatever the topic is.

Marisa Shadrick [00:33:13]:
Mhmm. So you wanna think, I wanna tease them. I wanna tease them about what’s to come and what they’re gonna discover inside this training, this live training. And so, you may have to introduce the topic again, level of awareness. It’s a copywriting principle. Where are they in the level of awareness? Is the webinar going to help them become more aware of what they need that they don’t know they need yet? Or is it a no brainer? So all of that has to be taken in consideration when you’re writing these because they may look at the email and, well, I don’t need that. So maybe the emails need to have a little bit of reasons why this is so important. So again, level of awareness would have a lot to do with that as far as the registration.

Marisa Shadrick [00:34:00]:
And I think to the the flow of it, like making it really streamlined, too. So it’s not clunky. There’s something that’s important to to

Kathy Farah [00:34:09]:
write. Yeah. Yeah.

Marisa Shadrick [00:34:11]:
Let them know what’s yeah.

Kathy Farah [00:34:12]:
Yeah. I think I think honestly throughout any of your emails, helping someone understand what to expect Mhmm. You know, is is important because it just makes people go, okay. Especially if things like this where there may be several coming at a different rate of how you normally would send emails. So if I normally send an email weekly, Tuesday at 8:30 AM, then if I’m doing something different for a webinar, helping them understand you’re gonna see daily emails until we get up to the webinar or, you know, kind of giving them a little bit of insight on what to expect, then they know, and we’ll send a reminder before the webinar begins and and that type of thing to 1, it helps to ensure they remember to show up. And 2, it kind of just helps them know that this is a little different than what I may be typically emailing.

Marisa Shadrick [00:35:04]:
Yeah. And mix it up. You could throw a video in there. Right. Throw a video in there and see and see, you know, you can mix it up to see what resonates with them because hearing you talk about this training and your excitement and your tone and your personality could do a lot, which text doesn’t always translate in that way. So, you know, you do a video to get it all hyped up and let them know that they’re gonna receive this great resource once they register And maybe, you know, the emails afterwards to get them to show up live, you offer another little bribe. That’s okay. So you think of ways that you can make them aware of the importance of value like Kathy said, and then the expectations.

Marisa Shadrick [00:35:49]:
And I think that just comes from being very, very clear, like date and time and all of that to make it really, really clear for them. So I think that’s important to get those, people to register.

Kathy Farah [00:36:00]:
Yeah. And I think all of these sequences, just remember that you need white space and, you know, kind of headers and things like that help to divide a little bit of your copy so that it’s just easy to skim, get the important elements that they need to know, to take the actions that you want them to take.

Marisa Shadrick [00:36:20]:
Yep. And lastly, let’s talk about promotional series. If you’re going to sell and you’re selling something, creating a campaign to sell, I hope that’s not the first email they have received from you. So in other words, they joined and all of a sudden you’re selling some kind of $5,000 program or something to them. Let’s talk a little bit about selling on via email because it’s important because that’s why we’re growing our email list. Right? Because eventually, we’re gonna sell them something.

Kathy Farah [00:36:54]:
Right.

Marisa Shadrick [00:36:55]:
So there’s lots of things like segmentation, like surveys, like things to figure out, you know, who to send the email to. Let’s kind of unpack that for them a little bit, Kathy.

Kathy Farah [00:37:04]:
So stepping back for just a moment and kind of at a at a welcome sequence point. If you have a little bit, use an opportunity to start to segment your list or start to think about how you might divide or offer services. Surveying your list to help them identify what’s most important for them will make it easier down the road when it’s time for you to want to promote something to them. So if you know that they’ve signed up for a certain, you know, free guide, then they may be more there might be certain services of yours or a certain offer that might be more relevant to that group of people than just your general broad newsletter. You know? So having kinda knowing on in in preparation of your promo what offers may be relevant to to certain people will ensure you’re gonna get a better result than just kind of mass sending things. Now if you’re still kind of starting and you’re trying to figure some of those things out, it’s okay to send things to all people. But just know that your results may vary if

Marisa Shadrick [00:38:08]:
Yeah.

Kathy Farah [00:38:09]:
If the offer is not something that’s relevant.

Marisa Shadrick [00:38:11]:
Yeah. Or you can even ask them in an email, a short email. I’m thinking about, you know, creating this course or this training. If you’re interested in this is something that you’d like for me to send you more communication on it.

Kathy Farah [00:38:22]:
There you go.

Marisa Shadrick [00:38:23]:
Click here. And that way, you begin to segment even if you didn’t do it, because maybe you’re thinking, Oh, my gosh, I got 5 1,000 people in my email, I never segmented. You could still do it. Yes, you could still do it. It’s possible. So you could do something like that. And then I would also like whatever newsletters or information you send out weekly, I would start talking about that topic, kinda dropping the seeds about that topic Yeah. Before you sell.

Marisa Shadrick [00:38:51]:
Yeah. So they’re thinking about it. Yes. So right now

Kathy Farah [00:38:55]:
starting to see the value of it.

Marisa Shadrick [00:38:57]:
Yes. Yeah. I mean, right now, like, for example, I’m talking a lot about lead magnets because I’ve got this membership that I’m updating with a course and everything I’m creating. So right now, it’s not done yet, but I’ve been talking about this for the last couple of months. So you talk about it. So and from different angles Mhmm. Again, level of awareness so that when you do promote, it’s not like something that just came out of the left corner and going, oh, why are you talking about that? So it makes sense. So those are little things that you can do.

Marisa Shadrick [00:39:29]:
Like, if you’re gonna even now, when this podcast goes live, I would start thinking about Black Friday. If we’re gonna sell something for Black Friday, what would it be? What would the bundles be? Those kind of things, and maybe start talking about it way earlier, not wait till November. Right.

Kathy Farah [00:39:46]:
Right? Right.

Marisa Shadrick [00:39:47]:
I would start really figuring out Mhmm. So that by the time November comes around, everything is done. November 1st, it’s done. Yeah. You’re not you’re not having to scramble. You’re enjoying Thanksgiving. You’re enjoying the holiday season, and you’ve already got it all set to go out. So that’s what I mean by that.

Marisa Shadrick [00:40:06]:
So talking it up and creating interest in in it. And, of course, with with selling copywriting principles, you want to really leverage the copywriting. In other words, urgency. Why should they do it now? Yeah. Right? Create some kind of urgency or scarcity. They might think, why you? So what would you put in there? You know, if if they’re wondering, oh, I don’t know. Will this work? What would we put in emails that would show them that we are credible? You know, so those kind of things. What do you normally do? Do you put, social proof or testimonials?

Kathy Farah [00:40:51]:
Yes. So I do, like, I try to address, you know, kind of talk a little bit about, is this kind of you? Is this the pain points you’re experiencing? And then sort of flip how those pain points can be addressed as benefits with the solution that I might be offering.

Marisa Shadrick [00:41:11]:
And

Kathy Farah [00:41:12]:
so I try to divide those types of things up where I’m helping them see themselves in potentially this you know, that that I could help you solve that particular problem. And then, yes, I do put in some testimonials and let them see as far as, like, how other clients have experienced success in using these different services.

Marisa Shadrick [00:41:35]:
Yeah. One way to look at it, and this is how I’ve looked at it, I use it as a starting point, is a typical sales page. People kinda know the structure of a sales page, you

Kathy Farah [00:41:47]:
know,

Marisa Shadrick [00:41:48]:
it begins with an opening story and some struggles, and then it kinda transitions into the possibility of a better life or better future, and then benefits of that, and then features of that. I take the the idea of a sales page template and I flip it on its side. Okay. And then I create emails that talk about those little sections in an episodic way. Yes. Just like Netflix, like an episode. Here’s episode 1, email 1, here’s episode 2. And ITs in the one email of what’s coming in the second email Mhmm.

Marisa Shadrick [00:42:26]:
To create that anticipation. So, it’s obviously not identical to a sales page, and you can’t just grab it and paste it into an email, but think of it that way as the structure flipping it on its side and creating a nice seamless campaign that gives them all those points they need. Again, I’m looking through a copywriting filter here, And then it makes it a little easier to

Kathy Farah [00:42:53]:
And I think yeah. And I think that’s a good way of being able to then scale things down to one topic at a time Mhmm. By taking that approach. And it kinda goes back to that whole idea of really staying to one topic and then really one call to action. You know, what is the one thing that you’re wanting them to do? Don’t send them everywhere. And, oh, by the way, you know, follow me on social and do this. You know, you want it to be just kind of stays and sticks with the, you know, where you’re wanting to go that relates to the promotion.

Marisa Shadrick [00:43:26]:
Yeah. Well, now you can see when we said we geek out on this, we geek out. We’ve just talked for a long time. So we’re gonna bring this to a close because Kathy and I can get going on this stuff and there’s so much more that we haven’t been able to touch, but we were trying to give you an idea of how important email marketing is. If you want to sell, you really need to grow your email list. So, we’re gonna kind of bring this plane down for a landing. If you want more information on this, I have a blog post that I just went live, and you can go to marisashadrick.com/email, and it gives you a few tips in there. It also gives you another article on how to build your lead magnet because you you need to have an effective lead magnet so that you can grow your email list and so that you have somebody to email to.

Marisa Shadrick [00:44:18]:
Right? So the resources are gonna be on there, as well. So I’m gonna put, let’s see. I’m gonna put the 52 lead magnet ideas in there. And then one of the tools I mentioned today that subject line.com, I’ll put in there as well. Kathy, if they already have an email list, and maybe some of it’s a little dead or old, what should they do?

Kathy Farah [00:44:43]:
They can go to kathyfarah.com/reengage and get my reengagement, strategies to win back those inactive subscribers that may be on your list. I I think everyone that has an email list has some inactive subscribers on the list that maybe either you haven’t been as consistent or you’ve kind of evolved in your services or just people have gotten busy. And it’s a good opportunity, especially before you promote to reengage those inactive subscribers and get them back to actively getting involved in reading your emails so that you could do these strategies that

Marisa Shadrick [00:45:25]:
Exactly. I think that’s a great idea. So if you don’t have an email list, I’m your gal. Yes. If you have an email list and you’ve kind of abandoned it or you need to, you know, bring it to the next level, Kathy can help you with that. Yes. So it’s gonna be kathyfarah.com/reengage. Yes.

Marisa Shadrick [00:45:45]:
Or marisashadrick.com/email. Singular email. And that will give you lots of opportunities to really think about your emails and your lead magnets and position yourself for more sales because that’s why we’re doing what we’re doing. Right?

Kathy Farah [00:46:02]:
Right. Exactly. That’s a whole point.

Marisa Shadrick [00:46:06]:
It’s a whole point. So anyway, Kathy, any last words? Thank you so much, for being with me. It’s always a joy, and I always love chatting with you, and you bring so much value and insights. I really do love you a lot, coach. I was gonna say, yes. I was gonna say we

Kathy Farah [00:46:21]:
always have so much fun. Thank you.

Marisa Shadrick [00:46:23]:
You’re welcome. Alright everyone, we’ll see you next time. Take care. Bye bye.