Best Email Marketing Strategy

The brief:

• Most marketing these days is a cheap attempt at parting people from their money;

• The best marketing doesn’t try to sell;

• My proven email marketing strategy.

Here's the thing… sales tactics are out. By now, damn near everyone on the internet is trained to ignore messaging that contains:

• Artificial scarcity ("only 50 seats in our webinar!")

• Meaningless deadlines ("This 50% discount expires in 24 hours!")

• Stupendously exuberant language ("The 1 SECRET you have to know to OPTIMIZE PROFITS and MAKE MONEY right NOOOWWWWW")

• Appeals to emotion instead of demonstrating tangible value ("How would you feel if I solved your problem…”)

To be blunt, a lot of it is bullshit.

• Webinar software caps out at 50 viewers when the host is on a free plan

• The price was doubled to make you believe you're getting a discount. It'll reappear if you rejoin with a fresh email address or clear your cache and cookies

• There's more than one way to get the most out of your business. In our digital world, it's impossible to keep industry secrets that don’t result from decades of experience without a legal team or a hit squad

• If I'm emotionally manipulated into buying something (especially without a money-back guarantee), I'm infinitely more likely to distrust and dislike the person behind the brand forever, even if I like the product

Nowadays, the average internet user has seen the same messaging too many times to fall for it (unless they're shopping drunk 🥴).

Don't get it twisted. From a purely quantitative perspective, sales tactics will, on average, boost your bottom line. But those sales cost your reputation. The more your prospects feel like they're being sold, the more they'll think about money, and the less they'll pay attention to the actual value of engaging with your business. The more they see you as just another person trying to take their money, the less they'll see you as the expert who improves their quality of life.

So you might make the sale, but your customers' first purchase comes with a caveat: "am I getting my money's worth?"

There's nothing inherently wrong with that question. You and I ask it every time we're not 1000% sure we are. But invoking that attitude in a prospect creates a barrier to retention. Instead of receiving reasons to stay, leads are primed to find reasons to leave.

So, what's in? What works? What do people respond to?

The answer is painfully obvious.

People (you and me included) respond positively to others who show a commitment to our success. Bottom line, everyone wants to feel heard and understood.

No one wants to feel sold, so let me emphasize: people want to feel heard and understood. 

It sounds obvious because it is. However, we know you're good at what you do, but your leads don't (yet). So it doesn’t matter if you’re selling a high-ticket service, subscription plan, or spinning toys and dog clothes on Instagram - any prospect is ready to buy when they know how and why your business is perfect for them.

This begs the question, "how can I make my prospects feel heard and understood before ever speaking with them?"

Short answer: market research and email marketing.

Before proceeding, I'd like a moment to introduce myself so you know I'm not a rebranded sales tactic or an AI who's passed the Turing Test.

Hi, I'm Paul 👋

I've been writing about human connections since 2015. Thinking and writing about the human experience is the backbone of my marketing career.

I started calling myself a writer in 2017 after receiving ecstatic feedback from my first real writing gig. The client changed literally one word, and we hit “Publish” a few hours after submission. My boss even gave me a bonus.

While back in school later that year studying philosophy, an opportunity to explore the marketing industry's full breadth found me through a small business in my hometown.

In late 2020, I connected the dots between marketing and philosophy to specialize in email marketing - a direct conversation with leads about their wants, needs, and values.

Since then, I've generated tens of millions in recurring revenue with a simple five-email sequence.

You can see that sales jumped about 315% in the month it took me to replace their sales-y (and frankly awkward) email copy. Assuming a 100% retention rate, each sale brings in $1000 USD annually. And yes, I should’ve negotiated commission 🤦‍♂️.

But, to be honest, what I’m most proud of isn’t the insane amount of money my writing makes (writing is just what I’m good at). I love that my work was the push unhappy and uncertain people needed to take their destiny into their own hands and change their lives for the better. This world doesn’t need more money; it needs more happy, fulfilled people working to improve themselves, their families, their communities, and the world at large.

I also love sharing the iterative, segmentation-focused automations that help my clients connect with their audiences before they seriously consider becoming customers. I’m weird, I know. I’m proud of the work that forces me to develop my ability to think critically and make sense of complexity. Solving difficult problems is when I feel most like my best self.

I like my coffee black, the smell of ocean air, and I've had "Going Up The Country" by Canned Heat playing on repeat all summer. 

Thanks for reading this far! If you’re looking for more, find my resumé here.

You're welcome to schedule time with me to chat about how your business can implement email marketing or improve what you already have. No pitches, no gambits, no strings. Just click here - I have some questions for you that may bring clarity.

Now for the long answer.

1. Let your leads tell you who they are

2. Figure out if they're ready to buy or just browsing

3. Show them exactly how to know if they'll benefit from engaging your business

4. Keep them happy or understand why they're not

Forms are my favourite marketing tool, but I've seen them chronically under-utilized. Most forms ask for no more than the basic information: name, email, and sometimes a phone number.

Meanwhile, forms are the perfect place to learn precisely what you need to know to connect with your audience on a human level.

Everyone has a relationship with the problem you want to solve, so ask people about theirs!

Let's review that small business from my hometown - the Toronto Naturopathic Clinic.

Health is a super personal topic. So, for a prospective patient to get a lot of value from non-committal interactions, a healthcare practitioner must click with their future patients before asking them to invest substantial time and money. What matters most is not landing the next patient but making sure this person meets their needs.

Some people are fit as fiddles and simply want ideas on how they can protect the health they've worked hard to attain. Others have problems that literally burn, and no healthcare practitioner they've met before has stopped their symptoms from returning. Most fall somewhere between these two extremes, and if I don’t know who I’m writing to, how can I show them the Toronto Naturopathic Clinic can solve their problem?

Your goal is to make the perfect form by finding where the branches of your audience start to split. Get as close to the root as possible so that your form prompts responses in a simple, CRM-friendly format while providing solid ground to make educated assumptions about the nature of your prospect's interaction with your business.

Sometimes just the form response will tell you if someone is ready to buy or just browsing. The rest of the time, you'll need an email sequence to gauge someone's interest.

I mentioned segmentation-focused automations. These pipes handle all the data to ensure the right people get the right message at the right time. If you plan to DIY your email marketing system, you need to know how computers think for these to work.

The substantive content depends almost entirely on your business. The idea here is to create conditional content that speaks to the possible types of people who identify themselves through your insightful form. Here's the outline.

Email 1: Welcome your reader to your corner of the world and immediately give them value. This can be a PDF, a YouTube video or playlist, a free trial of your product, a no-strings-attached consultation, any combination of all four, or something I haven't mentioned. What matters is adding value to their lives just for trusting you with their email address.

Email 2: Share a story of a life you've touched and how your business has evolved as a result. Everyone is quick to share their success stories, so I like to highlight failures in a positive light. If you're not a confident writer, be careful, as it's too easy to undermine your expertise and credibility. 

This email aims to demonstrate your authority and intention to facilitate their prosperity, not get into their wallet. If that's not true for you, go away and introspect. Assess your personal values. I don't care what you're selling. If you're out to make money at the expense of your customer's wellbeing, close this page right now - I won’t help you.

Email 3: Explain specifically how your business operates and why it works. Let your reader in on your process. 

Here's where the segmentation kicks in. You should know by now if your reader is actively looking to buy or if they're just browsing. If your reader hasn't opened any of the last three emails, or they haven't clicked anything in those emails, then they're cold or warm leads. Leave them on your email list to receive any of your regularly scheduled content (if you don't have any, that's a different conversation).

If your reader has engaged with at least one item from the last three emails, it's safe to assume they see you as someone worth listening to. They don't think you're wasting their time even if they're not ready to buy. You know these leads are hot, so you can introduce the pitch. 

This outline is straightforward and will remain that way for most businesses. But a simple flow chart can quickly get complicated depending on your tech stack, how your product is delivered, and other automations or segmentations you may or may not need.

And keep in mind that most prospects require a lot of touchpoints (like at least 5). The framework I’ve given you is a framework. If you’re working with a hot, highly engaged audience who reads most emails, then a few concise, gripping, and persuasive emails will do. For cold outreach, consider each email above as a phase and break the messaging down into as many touchpoints as possible without diluting the message or delivering pointless emails.

I mentioned a sequence that generated tens of millions of dollars in recurring revenue. Here's how I made that happen. Some backstory: Ivan on Tech sells a coding academy designed to help anyone start a fulfilling and lucrative career as a blockchain developer. That's a niche within a niche, but his target audience is hotter than the price of Dogecoin whenever Elon Musk tweets about it.

He ran weekly webinars, typically populated by followers of his YouTube channel. The people joining the webinar were unhappy with their jobs, and the reason for the misery simply didn't matter. They either weren't getting enough freedom, money, or personal development from whatever they were doing and saw blockchain development as the path to a better career and a happier life.

But, despite my client demonstrating his expertise on daily YouTube videos, only 15% of webinar viewers took the academy's 30-day money-back guarantee. Meaning they saw the potential but weren't convinced of my client's ability to deliver. My task was to show them exactly why this academy was THE academy for people in their shoes.

His audience didn't want to be sold. Most of them won't spend $1000 on promises. They had to understand how and why joining his blockchain academy would land them a six-figure job in six months. Once I explained the details of why my client has the best product on the market for this specific goal, his audience had exactly zero doubts. Price became trivial.

I tripled sales, generating over $50 million in recurring revenue (assuming 100% retention).

Email 4: Give in-depth answers to frequently asked questions. Make the option to buy available, but don't push your offer. Just leave it open and focus on making yourself (or your team) available to answer any questions this email didn't cover. This email lifted the most weight for my client; you can read it here.

Email 5: Provide testimonials and go for the close. This one is simple. Let your happy customers do the selling for you. And if you don’t have reviews yet because your business is too new, don’t make them up. When I just started my copywriting career, I had 0 reviews and generated just over $0. But I did have character witnesses. Managers from previous jobs, coordinators from volunteer experiences, and mentors from my education all knew me and were happy to share what it was like to work with me. Remember, your prospects aren’t exclusively considering your product or service, they’re looking at you!

Onboarding/retention sequences are designed to deliver immediate value to customers. Should they choose to leave, this automation prompts feedback and the most relevant moment.

The first email should be sent immediately after purchase and excite your customer to work with you. Otherwise, they'll get the email with their download, login, tracking number, booking confirmation or whatever is relevant to your business, and it’ll sit unread in their inbox until the day before your money-back guarantee expires. Care to guess what happens after that?

Again, the actual substantive content and a customer's next step depends almost entirely on your business. The goal: prevent buyer's remorse and make your customer feel at ease in your competent hands.

Now we have to address the unpleasant reality that not every customer will be happy with you.

Have you ever wondered why someone cancelled their membership or stopped replying to your emails even though they said they would? If so, you're playing guessing games that waste your time and undermine your peace of mind. That's why I love feedback surveys. No marketing strategy is as powerful as having your leads or customers tell you precisely what they do and don't like about your business.

Developing your own questionnaire can be tricky because you're too close to the problem, so you make assumptions about every party in the relationship. You don't want to over-simplify with vague questions like "what did we do wrong?" But you also want to avoid overcomplicated questions that make respondents close the tab and never look back.

There's a middle way, requiring a thoughtful audit of your offer and target audience. Maybe your messaging is tone deaf. Perhaps you're targeting the wrong people. You won't know until you ask the right questions.

I hope you gleaned something valuable from this short essay!

For the PDF version of this strategy, click here.

I want you to succeed if you're helping others live fruitful lives. So, whether you're trying to DIY your email marketing or want a professional to do it all for you on time and on budget, please, take my time.

Peace,
Paul