351 How to Find Weekly Email Topic Ideas When You Don't Know What to Say

Summary

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Podcast Summary: My Digital Farmer Podcast

Episode 351: How to Find Weekly Email Topic Ideas When You Don’t Know What to Say

Host: Corinna Bench
Release Date: March 4, 2026
Show Notes URL: mydigitalfarmer.com/351

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Corinna Bench focuses on one of the most common challenges for direct-to-consumer farm marketers: how to consistently find engaging topics for your weekly email newsletter. She shares practical frameworks, personal examples, and proven strategies to help farmers and small business owners overcome “blinking cursor syndrome” and generate content ideas effortlessly. The episode is filled with actionable tips, real-life stories, and resources to help you deepen your customer relationships through meaningful storytelling—even if you feel stuck for ideas.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Importance of Weekly Email Connection

• Corinna encourages regular, personal communication with customers, reminding listeners that farm customers are unique: “Your farm audience is a really unique kind of customer base…they just love their farmers and they really do like to hear from you, especially when you get kind of personal and share your real life with them, not just your promotions.” (08:24)
• Overcoming imposter syndrome: You don’t need to be an amazing writer to connect and add value.

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2. Main Frameworks for Generating Email Topic Ideas

A. Use Parables & Illustrations

• Leverage life stories, metaphors, or object lessons to teach and inspire.
  • “Is there a story from your life that happened this past week or something that’s happened in the past that you could just point to, that you could tell this story and then find the nugget of wisdom that's inside of it?” (12:53)
  • Example: Corinna tells the story of her son learning to swing—turning it into a lesson on perseverance and encouragement (14:16).

B. Prompt with Photos

• Use your phone’s camera roll as a prompt for recent stories or moments on the farm.
  • “I’ll whip out my phone, look at the camera roll…sometimes it just means looking at your photo roll.” (17:02)
  • Example: Sharing a picture of her son picking raspberries sparked a relatable family story (18:00).

C. Curate User Generated Content (UGC)

• Maintain a folder of customer photos and stories (e.g., from private Facebook groups) to draw on when ideas are scarce.
  • “If I’m coming up against a brick wall, I can go into that folder, look at these pictures, and see if one of them jumps out at me.” (19:54)

D. Use Question/Prompt Lists

• Create or download prompts to inspire new topics.
  • Corinna offers her own list of 50 prompts. “[You can] quickly scan it and there’s usually at least one to three of them that spark an idea.” (21:40)
  • Download: mydigitalfarmer.com/emailtopics

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3. Storytelling Frameworks for Email Content

1. Start with a Feeling

• Identify the emotion you want your customer to feel (inspired, relieved, aware of a problem, etc.), then recall a story that evokes it.
  • “Sometimes I want them to start feeling the burn or noticing a problem…other times, I just want to inspire and help my community believe anything is possible.” (25:06)

2. Start with the Lesson

• Decide the principle or mindset shift you want to teach, then find a story or metaphor to bring it to life.
  • Example: Teaching that “mistakes are necessary to becoming your best self” with a story about her son learning to fly RC airplanes, normalizing failure as part of the process (34:16–36:49).

3. Start with an Experience or Metaphor

• Use a recent or memorable experience (even from childhood or business) to extract a relatable lesson.
  • Example: Waiting in line at a theme park, using height requirements as a metaphor for qualifying leads in business (37:04–38:30).

4. Start with a Problem

• Highlight a challenge your customers face and use the email to open a “problem loop” you can solve (later in the email or in a follow-up).
  • “The problem's solution is actually your product. That's another way I've seen that done.” (31:49)

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4. Practical Tools for Maintaining Content Flow

• Keep a “Story Bank”: Maintain a note or digital file to log interesting events, moments, or experiences you could reference for future emails (40:40).
• Teach or Share a Resource: Feature recipes, guides, lead magnets, blog posts, or even external resources your customers will find helpful (42:01–43:08).
• Repurpose & Recycle: Use older content, blog posts, or guides—most of your audience won’t remember seeing them before, especially as your list grows (44:49–45:36).

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5. Balancing Promotional and Non-Promotional Content

• Follow a ratio: Three value-driven emails to every overtly promotional one (roughly 3:1)—with soft sells in the PS nearly every week (46:45).
  • “Because I do the work of telling other kinds of stories…these periodic overtly promotional emails, they land differently with my audience.” (46:47)

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6. About Farm Marketing School & Additional Resources

• Explains her Farm Marketing School membership, which provides bite-sized marketing projects, coaching, and community support (“It’s like having a farm marketing mentor and a room full of peers in your corner.” 39:18).
• Offers specialized courses and 30-day project builds on email marketing, nurture sequences, and more (49:00–49:45).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Overcoming Doubt:
  • “Who wants to hear from me? Who am I to have anything to say? Who am I to think I have any kind of value that I could bring into the room?…Both of which are just not true.” (08:49–09:08)
• On Storytelling as a Marketing Tool:
  • “We're trying to be the wise farmer. We're trying to find the nugget that inspires people so they can hear that story and think about: where do I need to hear this lesson in my own life?” (36:12–36:49)
• On the Power of Repetition:
  • “Once you've got like…30 things in there, you can just be recycling that. There does come a point when enough is enough.” (44:53–45:14)
• On AI Tools:
  • “Now with the help of AI and ChatGPT…if we feed it examples of our work, it can learn how we sound, how we write so it can at least spit out an early draft for you.” (49:46–50:13)
• On the Value of Community:
  • “We have a monthly zoom call on the third Wednesday of every month where we meet up as a community and you can ask questions, bring work you're working on, and we can audit it or talk through it. It's really cool. I love it. I just love it.” (51:00–51:19)

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Key Timestamps

• (08:24–09:08): The unique relationship between farmers and their customers, and overcoming self-doubt.
• (10:14–12:53): The challenge of choosing email topics and Corinna’s approach to parables and illustrations.
• (17:02–18:40): Using your photo roll as a memory prompt for storytelling.
• (19:09–20:46): Collecting and leveraging user-generated content (UGC).
• (21:31–22:48): The value of a list of prompts or questions.
• (25:06–26:40): Using feelings, lessons, and metaphors as starting points for stories.
• (34:16–36:49): Story of mistakes/failure as a normal step in success.
• (44:49–45:36): The importance of repurposing existing content.
• (46:01–47:31): Promotional vs non-promotional email ratios and strategy.
• (49:46–50:31): Using AI to kickstart email drafts in your own voice.
• (51:00–51:19): The power of community and group coaching in Farm Marketing School.

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Resources Mentioned

• 50 Email Prompts PDF: mydigitalfarmer.com/emailtopics
• Farm Marketing School Membership: mydigitalfarmer.com/fms
• Main Email Course for Farmers
• Free Email List / Marketing Onboarding Series: mydigitalfarmer.com/subscribe

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Final Encouragement (in Corinna’s Words)

• “I believe in you. I want to make sure you know that I am so, so excited for what this year is going to become for you. Stay in my world. I want to encourage you and support you.” (52:38)

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This episode is a must-listen for any farm business owner looking to build stronger customer relationships and create more impactful, authentic marketing—especially when you’re feeling stuck for content ideas.

Transcript

[Corinna Bench]

It's time to write that weekly email. How many of you have ever sat in front of your computer and experienced the blinking cursor syndrome? Raising my hand here Today we're talking about how do you figure out what to talk about when you sit down

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

to write that weekly email?

[Corinna Bench]

I'm going to share my frameworks, my tricks, my hacks. So much gold in this episode.

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

Let's get started.

[Sponsor Voice 1]

Hey there.

[Corinna Bench]

This is Corinna Bench and welcome to the My Digital Farmer Podcast.

[Sponsor Voice 1]

In today's market, it's not enough to

[Corinna Bench]

just grow your product, you've got to know how to sell it too. Welcome to the My Digital Farmer podcast where we reveal online marketing strategies and tips to help farmers like you get better and more confident at marketing, learn how to find more customers and increase your sales and build a strong brand for your farm. Let's start the show. Well, welcome to episode 351 of the My Digital Farmer Podcast. I'm your host, Corinna Bench, one of the farmers at Shared Legacy Farms out in Elmore, Ohio. I'm also the founder of mydigitalfarmer.com which is all about trying to help other farmers like you get more confident in your marketing and sales strategy so that you can grow a profitable business. How's everyone doing today? Welcome back to the show. Big shout out to my digital farmers,

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

my regular listeners who tune in week after week. So grateful for all of you.

[Corinna Bench]

And if you're new to the podcast, I'm glad you're here today. Make sure you subscribe to the show and I always tell people to go

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

check out my first 10 episodes, especially if you are new to the marketing

[Corinna Bench]

space because they were designed to be

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

an on ramp into the marketing lingo. They're going to help you out a ton and get you on the same page as all of us.

[Corinna Bench]

Another place you can go to learn the ropes of marketing is just to

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

get onto my free email list. You can do that by going to mydigitalfarmer.com subscribe and when you do that,

[Corinna Bench]

I going to send you an email

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

once every, I don't know, seven days for several months and it's going to slowly share the most fundamental principles you need to know. Everything kind of builds on each other and I'm going to point you to podcast episodes that you need to listen to first.

[Corinna Bench]

Share some resources that are free to help you along. It's really good, so I encourage you

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

to go to mydigitalfarmer.com subscribe.

[Sponsor Voice 2]

Today's podcast is sponsored by my friends @localline.

[Corinna Bench]

A new year is the perfect time

[Sponsor Voice 2]

to streamline your sales and grow more profitably.

[Corinna Bench]

So if you run a CSA or

[Sponsor Voice 2]

you sell wholesale or manage both, localline helps you streamline your sales and scale with confidence. In 2025, farms and food hubs that used Localline grew their sales by 33%, building on the 23% growth they saw the year before. Average order values increased by 31%.

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

I know mine did.

[Sponsor Voice 2]

And total order count grew by 9%. Look, real results across operations of all sizes. Localline brings everything together in one platform. They have CSA management, wholesale ordering, automated inventory, barcode scanning, a box builder, and POS so that you spend less time managing admin and more time growing your business. And switching couldn't be easier. There are no setup fees, my friends, no sales commissions, and their onboarding team will migrate your storefront for free, taking the workload off your plate. And that usually only takes a few days. As a podcast listener, you'll also get one premium feature for free for a full year when you use the code MDF2026 at checkout. So go to mydigitalfarmer.com localline and then enter that code MDF2026 start 2026 organized, efficient and ready to grow with localline. And now back to the show.

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

Today's an exciting day for me because

[Corinna Bench]

I am using a new microphone. I got one of those headset microphones.

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

I don't know why it's taken me four years to invest in one of these. It was like $25.

[Corinna Bench]

But I noticed that my shoulders would always hurt after I had recorded a podcast and I knew it was just

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

because of my posture and because I'm hunched over trying to speak right directly into this microphone so that the audio would be good. And when I was doing a podcast interview with Erica Tebbins a few weeks ago, I saw her wearing that headset and I'm thinking, why don't I have one of those? I need to get one of those.

[Corinna Bench]

So I'm wearing it right now. This is my test run, trying to figure out how loud I need to

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speak as I project into this microphone ditty thing right in front of my mouth.

[Corinna Bench]

But hopefully you can hear me and

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you're not noticing too much of a difference in sound quality.

[Corinna Bench]

Today's episode is inspired by a Instagram DM that I got several months ago

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

and it was from a farmer who

[Corinna Bench]

basically asked me, how do I figure out what to talk about in my weekly email? How do you Come up with ideas. Could you do a podcast episode just on that topic? Or do you have a training inside

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

of Farm Marketing School that really helps us learn this skill?

[Corinna Bench]

And I said yes to both of those questions. Email marketing is a big focus of

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

mine inside Farm Marketing School, which is my monthly membership for farmers.

[Corinna Bench]

In fact, I have an entire signature

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

course called Email Marketing for Farmers that really dives into pretty much everything you need to know about email marketing.

[Corinna Bench]

But I've also broken out kind of sections from that content and created many

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

projects within Farm Marketing School.

[Corinna Bench]

One is on how to write a weekly email.

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

One is on how to write a promotional email sequence. One is on how to create an email nurture sequence.

[Corinna Bench]

So I've pulled out some of the

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

key marketing assets that fall under email marketing and made them their own 30 day project builds.

[Corinna Bench]

But there is also one giant course

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

where I teach you everything you need to know about being a great email marketer.

[Corinna Bench]

And inside of that course, I have a little section that.

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

It's not very little actually.

[Corinna Bench]

It's an entire session just on the topic of how do you figure out

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

what to write about.

[Corinna Bench]

So I, I feel your pain. I know that this is a thing comes up a lot with farmers in Farm Marketing School. It's a roadblock and so it's important

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

that I address it. That's why it got its entire session inside the school.

[Corinna Bench]

And I'm going to share some of those tips with you today. Not all of it, but I pulled out some of the gems from that class. And my goal with this session today is to really equip you with maybe a starting point so that when you sit down in front of your computer or your laptop, you don't have blinking cursor syndrome where you just freeze and you get all kinds of imposter syndrome and think to yourself, who am I to talk and share a word with my followers? There's this fear that comes up still for me too, sometimes when I sit down in front of the computer and I feel like I know I should write them something. I know how important it is to be in contact with them at least once every two weeks in the off season or in the main season, once a week, sometimes even more. Because it builds connection, because it nurtures them, it reminds them that I'm here. It creates trust. Your. Your followers, the farm audience is a

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

really unique kind of customer base, I think because they, they just love their

[Corinna Bench]

farmers and they really do like to

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

hear from you, especially when you get kind of personal and share your, your

[Corinna Bench]

real life with them, not just your promotions. So it's, it's, I think, a lot

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

easier for us to actually sit down

[Corinna Bench]

and come up with things to talk

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

about compared to other industries, because our audience is very forgiving and they're actually very eager to hear from you.

[Corinna Bench]

But we still tell ourselves that they're not. And who wants to hear from me? Who am I to have anything to say? Who am I to think I have

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

any kind of value that I could bring into the room? And we tell ourselves that for a

[Corinna Bench]

long time or we might get stuck into this belief that we have to

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

be an amazing writer in order for

[Corinna Bench]

this email to have value, in order for them to want to read it.

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

Both of which are just not true.

[Corinna Bench]

But let's just address today one of the big hurdles of like, I just don't know what to talk about.

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

Corinna.

[Corinna Bench]

I want to be interesting. I need to be gripping and compelling with this email. And so I'm going to share with you over the next 30 minutes kind of my go to framework for how I go about finding that topic, that gem that we're going to focus on

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

in the weekly email.

[Corinna Bench]

So I am not today talking about promotional emails. I think some of what I'm talking

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

about today could go into a nurture sequence.

[Corinna Bench]

I'm also not talking about how to format the email or how to write compelling subject lines or how to actually write it so that your eye easily goes down the page and people keep

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

reading the whole email.

[Corinna Bench]

I'm not talking about the seven to eight elements that should be in every email. Like, I'm not teaching any of that. That's all in my email marketing course inside of Farm Marketing School.

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

You can go subscribe for a month and watch that and become an expert.

[Corinna Bench]

I'm talking about just that one step in the process of what the heck

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

do I write about finding the content piece.

[Corinna Bench]

And this is actually really easy for me now.

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

And I think it's partly because I

[Corinna Bench]

have so many angles at which to

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

come at this question. And so I'm going to share some

[Corinna Bench]

of those ideas with you today. Okay. The first suggestion that I have for you to find that core piece of main content around which your email spins is to use a parable or an illustration.

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

What does that mean?

[Corinna Bench]

All right, a parable is a story that teaches a lesson. Likewise, an illustration is a object lesson. It could be a prop or some kind of an object that turns into a lesson or has a lesson hiding in it in some way. Another way to think about this is finding A metaphor or a fable that has a lesson in it. Now, this is my go to method, I think, because I was a youth

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

pastor for many years after I graduated college.

[Corinna Bench]

And it was a regular thing for me to have to create lessons for

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

my students as I was teaching them things or creating Bible studies or I was often asked to preach even to the whole congregation on Sundays. I was in the rotation, and I

[Corinna Bench]

noticed that people would remember my sermons

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

and my messages and my principles if

[Corinna Bench]

I started with a story or if I had some kind of object lesson. You often see this. If any of you go to church, especially in the traditional churches, they'll call the children forward for the children's sermon.

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

They all come running to the front, and they sit down around the pastor,

[Corinna Bench]

and then the pastor holds up some

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

kind of a prop, and they all

[Corinna Bench]

talk about this prop, and then the pastor will tie in a lesson to the prop. This prop is like a blah, blah, blah, right?

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

Then they have the lesson that they want to teach.

[Corinna Bench]

And so that's something I've been trained in. It comes really easy to me. I can actually pick up this stapler

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

at my desk and I could turn this into an object lesson and talk

[Corinna Bench]

about what is the job of the stapler. Or maybe every now and then the stapler gets jammed.

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

And you know how when that happens, it's really frustrating. And we could talk about how life sometimes throws things that just jam things up.

[Corinna Bench]

And what do we have to do to get function again? We have to clear out the jammed

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

staples in our stapler. Right?

[Corinna Bench]

We could find a way to turn

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

that into a life lesson.

[Corinna Bench]

I'm just really good at being able to pick up any kind of object and turn it into something like that. And that's how I want you to think about it. Is there a story from your life that happened this past week or something that's happened in the past that you could just point to, that you could tell this story and then find the nugget of wisdom that's inside of it? Or is there a prop that you had to use this week or that you noticed this week? Maybe you got something in the mail from Amazon and you take a picture of it and it becomes the seed of a story or a lesson, a metaphor. Life is like. Or this is what happened. This is kind of like this lesson in our life. The goal is to create common ground with your listener. And so we want to try to find things, either stories that have happened to us or objects that we have that other people have, too, that things that happen to everyone. So they all end up nodding their head as they're reading your story. They connect with it immediately. They chuckle maybe because they're like, oh, that happened to me too. And now they feel like you're one of them. And this builds trust. Now, the example I always like to

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

use when I teach farmers is the.

[Corinna Bench]

The time that my son Josiah first learned how to swing on a swing. You know, like, when you learn how

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

to pump your legs and you can actually swing yourself.

[Corinna Bench]

So my son didn't learn that until he was nine years old, and we kept trying to teach him that, and he would just get so frustrated, and then he was resistant, and he was like, no, I don't want to do it. And it was so sad because he would avoid going to the swings at recess because he was embarrassed that he didn't know at the age of nine,

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

how to actually get himself to swing.

[Corinna Bench]

And there was one day at grandma's house where he learned how to do it. My other son, Jed, I don't know what happened. They were out there, and Jed must have broken through and taught him how to do it. And. And there was Josiah swinging like crazy

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

with this huge grin on his face.

[Corinna Bench]

And I went out and I took

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a picture of it, and it was this huge victory for me as a mom, and I was so proud of him.

[Corinna Bench]

Okay, that was the story that I shared that week in my weekly email, because it was just such a cool story. It had nothing to do with vegetables or the product that I sold. I think I pitched an offer in the P.S. i don't even remember, but I just wanted to tell a story about something that had happened in my life. And I shared, like, an inspirational message at the end about, you know, go after your dreams. Don't give up on things when they're.

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

When things get hard, sometimes it just takes a while.

[Corinna Bench]

I don't even remember what the message was, but I knew that I pulled out some sort of lesson that was there for Josiah, and I kind of turned it on my audience and said,

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

like, where do you need to hear this today in your life? Okay?

[Corinna Bench]

This is classic pastor stuff. Okay? This is what we do when we're trying to encourage people and teach people. We teach the principle, and then we say, where do you need to hear

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this in your life?

[Corinna Bench]

And so I just use that with my customers. Now I look at my job not

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just to be somebody that's selling my product and solving a problem, but I want to inspire my people.

[Corinna Bench]

I just want the help them believe in themselves.

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

And know that anything is possible and

[Corinna Bench]

that I believe in them. This is a big part of what

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

I do everywhere I go.

[Corinna Bench]

And so I think that becomes the frame.

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

Then that helps me figure out what.

[Corinna Bench]

What can I do today in this

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story, in this email that's going to eventually get at that goal?

[Corinna Bench]

Okay, so how do you find that inspiring story and illustration? Okay, so that's kind of the next question. And here's a few ways that I do this. Number one is I start with a photo as my prompt. I don't always remember what has been

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

going on this past week.

[Corinna Bench]

So I'll whip out my phone, look at the camera roll. Because I'm pretty good about documenting things on my.

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

On my camera, since I'm using things

[Corinna Bench]

on social media all the time. And I'll quickly scan through and I'm like, oh, yeah, that happened.

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

Are, oh, man, that was a cool moment.

[Corinna Bench]

Or that's just so beautiful. And I'll decide that that picture will become the anchor of my content. I love to put pictures at the

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top of my emails because it captures

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the attention and kind of quickly communicates a story. So if I can find a picture that, that does that, it'll usually be

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right under the first sentence so that

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their eyes are drawn to the photo,

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and then they'll keep reading and then

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that becomes a part that helps me flesh out the story more. So sometimes it just means looking at your photo roll. I remember that my son Jed, he went out one day and he.

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I think he was in like 10th grade. Okay, so he's in high school.

[Corinna Bench]

And he just went out and he picked three peck baskets of raspberries in

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a couple of hours just because.

[Corinna Bench]

Not because we asked him to.

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

I would have paid him if we were going to sell them, but I

[Corinna Bench]

guess he wanted them all for us, so he just did. And he came back in, and they were gorgeous. There were like these pink ones or red ones, and then there were these yellow ones. And I just thought, who is. Who is this? Who does that? Who just goes out and picks all these berries because he just feels like it and keeps doing it for that long. Anyway, I thought it was a cool moment. I took a picture of it. It was also just really pretty. And that became the story that I focused on in the email. Was it the only thing I talked about? No, but it was the main thing.

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And then there was something underneath it where I just kind of reminded them of some other stuff they needed to know.

[Corinna Bench]

But it just taught them a little bit about my family, about my Kids.

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

Everyone likes to see pictures of the farm, the farmer's kids.

[Corinna Bench]

So that's another just way to go about it, right? Find a photo and let that be your cue. I also sometimes look at my user generated content. In the marketing world, this is known as ugc.

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

You ever hear that word stands for user generated content.

[Corinna Bench]

So I will download pictures from my

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

private Facebook group where my customers live.

[Corinna Bench]

They'll often post things that they're making with our food. I don't download all of them, but those, the ones that are really pretty, like a really gorgeous picture of lasagna or a really beautiful pizza, I might

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

take the time to download.

[Corinna Bench]

And I have a little Google folder, actually it's on Dropbox where I will put these pictures of customer content. And if I go, if I'm kind of coming up against a brick wall

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

and I can't think of something to

[Corinna Bench]

write about, I can go into that folder, I can look at all these pictures and see if one of them jumps out at me.

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

I'm like, oh, you know what? I'm going to talk about pizzas this week because that's a beautiful picture.

[Corinna Bench]

Or if it was a recent photo

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

that was something new and innovative that we haven't really talked much about. Like, I remember last year one of my customers, Carla, made a garlic scape mustard. And there were several people that really loved the idea in the Facebook group. So I knew that it was a winner. And I'm like, okay, that's, that's an idea I have to save.

[Corinna Bench]

And I made sure that I downloaded that.

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

I named it so I could remember who had put the picture up. And I could give them credit in the email. But that could become the focus then of the email. And I'm sharing a tip like, did

[Corinna Bench]

you know you could make mustard with garlic scapes? Here's the recipe.

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

This was made by so and so.

[Corinna Bench]

Okay, so this user generated content is

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

another great place to go.

[Corinna Bench]

And that means that you have to

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

create a process, an SOP for collecting that.

[Corinna Bench]

It's really easy. Just go and create a folder inside

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

of your Google Photos and label it ugc. Or if you want to use it on Dropbox or even, I guess in Google Drive. But I think it makes sense to just do it in Google Photos. Make a folder that's called UGC and just stick your things in there. Or create a moment once a month where you do that, where you file away 10 to 20 of your best pictures.

[Corinna Bench]

Okay. The third idea is to develop a list of questions or fill in the blank Prompts that are going to help

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

you find your idea.

[Corinna Bench]

This was a resource that I created a couple of years ago.

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

It's 50 different email prompts and I

[Corinna Bench]

can go to that list when my

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

creativity is bone dry and quickly scan

[Corinna Bench]

it and there's usually at least one

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

to three of them that spark an idea.

[Corinna Bench]

Like, oh yeah, I could totally talk about that topic if you want to get that resource. By the way, it [e-mail] emailtopics all one word and just subscribe.

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

Give me your email address and you'll get a PDF.

[Corinna Bench]

It's really good. For example, something that would qualify as a prompt might be talk about your

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

favorite place to eat out and why. All right, that would be like one of the 50 that's on there.

[Corinna Bench]

So it's just a whole bunch of

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

different ideas and one of them is going to land with you.

[Corinna Bench]

Some of them kind of tend to do better at certain times of the year. Like I'll look at that and be

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

like, no, that's not a good prompt

[Corinna Bench]

at all right now. But then that same one will suddenly

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

appeal to me five months later for whatever reason.

[Corinna Bench]

So I think that's a really helpful. You can develop your own or you can go to ChatGPT and ask it to help you come up with some email writing prompts. You give it a little bit of parameters, but that's a really great tool

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

as well to just develop a cheat

[Corinna Bench]

sheet that you can go to to

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

kind of quickly scan.

[Sponsor Voice 1]

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[Corinna Bench]

All right, we're back and we're talking about some of the different strategies I use to help me find the kernel of content, the story, the focus of my weekly emails.

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

Here's another framework that I like to use.

[Corinna Bench]

Number one is I start with identifying the feeling that I want to highlight.

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

Sometimes this is the angle that I'll take where I ask myself, is there something that I want my customer to feel? Whether it's

[Corinna Bench]

sometimes it's like I want

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

them to start feeling the burn or noticing a problem because I have a solution to that problem that I want to introduce to them in a few weeks. And so I want to kind of stick my finger in the wound and

[Corinna Bench]

make them feel it. Sometimes it's man, I just really want to inspire and help my community believe anything is possible. So you have to identify the desired feeling, and then you look back at your story bank and you try to find a story that will cause that feeling to arise. And this is sometimes a story from

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

the past week or recent history.

[Corinna Bench]

But sometimes it's a story that I pull from long ago, from my childhood

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

or in the early days of my

[Corinna Bench]

marriage or being a mom or whatever. And I can identify the story because I'm trying to find when did I feel that way. So that when I tell the story, I know they're going to notice that feeling come up and it'll be easy

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

for them to access that feeling. And then I've just, you know, gotten my the goal of my email.

[Corinna Bench]

Another angle is that you could start with the lesson. So maybe you decide, I really want to teach this concept. I want them to understand this principle. So you're coming at it as a teacher. What am I? What do my people need to learn?

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

What are the principles they need to learn?

[Corinna Bench]

What is the mindset shift that they need to make in their lives? And then I try to find a story that's going to teach that lesson. And sometimes the story is one from my life but it could be a fable, it could be a made up story that I read, it could be an illustration that I saw or heard a comedian share or something. Right? It doesn't even have to be a true story, but it teaches a lesson

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

or it inspires them, or it doesn't even have to inspire, it can just teach a very specific lesson.

[Corinna Bench]

I'm going to go through some examples

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

of this in just a minute. Okay? But I want to teach you the framework here.

[Corinna Bench]

And then the third way that you can look at this is that you would start with an experience or a metaphor, like I did earlier with like

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

the stapler, where I pick up some kind of life is like a stapler.

[Corinna Bench]

And then I have to figure out how to tell that story, how to

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

pull out the lesson for them, how it relates to them in their life.

[Corinna Bench]

Or I might start with an experience,

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

something that I actually recently did, something

[Corinna Bench]

that happened to me or that I went and did and I tell that cool story and they enjoy hearing about it. And then I pull the lesson or

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

the value from the story and I

[Corinna Bench]

bring it back to them. Why does it matter to them? I'm not just telling them the story to say, hey, look at me, this happened to me. Isn't that cool? No, we're always trying to bring the story back to them. So what? So what for the customer? Because it needs to matter to them.

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

They need to be able to make an application point. That's what all good teaching does.

[Corinna Bench]

So for example, I remember when we had to apply to Jed's aviation school

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

called ansat in Toledo.

[Corinna Bench]

We were going to have to open enroll out of our current public school district into Toledo's public school district in this specialized school. And they only took so many students and I didn't know how to open enroll. I was homeschooling and I was worried

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

that I wouldn't even be able to

[Corinna Bench]

get him in because we had homeschooled and maybe that would be a strike against us. That just felt like a lot of

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

hurdles to figure out.

[Corinna Bench]

And I found myself dragging my feet and just being like, you know what,

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

let's just take the easy way.

[Corinna Bench]

And he's just going to go to

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

our district next year. He's just going to go to Woodmoor

[Corinna Bench]

and he'll figure out, he'll find his way that way. But for whatever reason, I just decided I'm going to take the first step. I'm not going to worry about all 10 steps. I'm just going to do step one and I'm going to contact the school

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

and figure out the process for actually open enrolling.

[Corinna Bench]

And once I did step one, then I was able to figure that out. And then I was realized what step two would be. And I didn't worry about step three, four or five. I just did step two. And this is how I piecemealed my way into ultimately getting him through an application. And he applied to the school, he got in, and you guys, he's going

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

to be valedictorian this year. Isn't that crazy? I still can't believe it.

[Corinna Bench]

This has been one of the most

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

important life decisions that we've ever made in his life.

[Corinna Bench]

And yeah, so it's a formative story. But in I told that story in an email. The feelings that came up for me

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

when I was applying to ansat, how

[Corinna Bench]

it felt so confusing and then the way I turned it was, I talked about where have you ever felt fear?

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

Or that you couldn't do something because

[Corinna Bench]

it just felt overwhelming and you didn't move forward. Where are you feeling that right now? And what if you push through the wall?

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

What would be possible? What if it's just a matter of doing step one?

[Corinna Bench]

Okay, so it was just like a little encouragement, rah rah mindset moment.

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

And then I think at the PS, I was like, hey, by the way, we've got this da da da as our offer.

[Corinna Bench]

But the main bulk of the email

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

was just this inspirational message, almost like a devotion. Right?

[Corinna Bench]

And so that's an example of me starting with an experience and then pulling

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

out the lesson for my, my listener or my, my reader.

[Corinna Bench]

The fourth idea is that you could start with a problem and this is where you would identify a problem from that you know your customer is having. Or maybe it's a problem that you've noticed in your own life and then it creates. What that does when you focus on the problem is that it opens a loop. And people now want help closing the loop. They want to know how to solve the problem. And you either solve it in that email or you can solve it in the next one. Because now they're going to want to open the next email since you opened this loop or the problem.

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

The problem's solution is actually your product. That's another way that I've seen that done.

[Corinna Bench]

Okay, so those are kind of four ways that you can tackle this. And let's just practice coming up with an email topic through each of those lenses. Okay, so number one, start with the feeling. Let's say that you want your feeling,

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

the focus feeling, to be Confusion. Because let's say in my instance, I

[Corinna Bench]

know that many of my customers who

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

are CSA members, at the beginning of their journey with us, they feel confused and overwhelmed, like they're not sure what to do.

[Corinna Bench]

And I want to acknowledge that and

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

I want to bring it up. I want to be able to talk about the problem of confusion.

[Corinna Bench]

So now I have to identify a story in my life where confusion was a problem. And just off the top of my head, I could think of so many, just with my past gut healing journey where I ran into walls over and over again, and I would be confused, overwhelmed. I didn't know what to do next.

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

And I would wait and I would

[Corinna Bench]

pray, and I just kept being persistent. And eventually a door would open, an idea would come to me, and I would follow that rabbit trail, and it would inevitably lead to more doors that

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

I could try and open until I finally found.

[Corinna Bench]

Found my way. I wiggled my way through my illness

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

and figured out how to heal.

[Corinna Bench]

Okay. That I could tell that story about confusion and the way that I got

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

through confusion and that it was messy.

[Corinna Bench]

It was a messy middle, and that's how it is. And eventually you get to the other side. Okay. And then I could say, well, if you're in a csa, you're going to feel these feelings, and that is normal. And I'm sorry, but there may not

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

be a way to avoid it.

[Corinna Bench]

And you're going to. If you want to transform and become this better version of you, you're going

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

to just go through a messy middle.

[Corinna Bench]

But we're going to hold your hand,

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

and we're going to show you every little rabbit trail you can go down, and you're going to learn so much along the way. And it is, you know, the woman

[Corinna Bench]

you become or the man you become

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

in the process of trying to reach your goal. That matters more than crossing the finish line. Okay, so I could say something like that.

[Corinna Bench]

Do you see how I just turned that into a story?

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

And hopefully an inspirational one.

[Corinna Bench]

Okay, let's look at the lesson. Starting with the lesson, let's say that my lesson that I want to teach is that, oh, this is a good one. Mistakes are necessary to becoming your best self.

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

You can't avoid mistakes. Or this idea that we're not supposed to ever make mistakes, which I used to believe, but my friends, that's ridiculous.

[Corinna Bench]

If you haven't learned that yet.

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

Well, that's ridiculous.

[Corinna Bench]

Okay, so now I have to find a story in my life that will somehow illustrate that and be the wise farmer. And so one of my Favorite ones that I like to tell is my son, Jed. When he first started learning all about RC airplanes during the pandemic, and we were homeschooling him, he went out and he purchased this kit online from flight test, and he built it upstairs. We got him some foam board. He made it. He stuck all the parts on it, the mechanical parts. And we went out into the field to launch our first plane. And I remember I was asked to throw it while he tried to figure

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

out how to use his remote control receiver thing.

[Corinna Bench]

And I threw it, and nothing happened. It went straight down into the ground and it busted apart. And he was devastated. Like, devastated. He started to, like, cry, but he didn't want to show me he was crying. And he ran back into the house, collected his. His. His plane, ran into the house. In my heart as a mom, I just.

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

I felt.

[Corinna Bench]

I just felt so much compassion.

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

And I thought, oh, no. Oh, no, he's just going to give up.

[Corinna Bench]

And it was this. This moment. To me, it became this formative moment

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

for him where he didn't give up.

[Corinna Bench]

In fact, he went back upstairs and he. He made it again, and he came back out and he tried to fly it, and this time it flew a little bit before it crashed, and gosh darn it, he picked it up and he went up and he fixed it, and he came back out. You know, two days later, it was out, his third version, and he got it to fly, and there was this victory, and it became this iconic story in our family about how failure is a part of the creation process, and you have to expect failures to happen

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

in order to get to your final version that works.

[Corinna Bench]

And so we no longer talk about failure as a bad thing in this family. We actually normalize it. And we tell them when they're getting

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

started on projects, like, you should expect

[Corinna Bench]

there to be some things going wrong. And when it happens, don't be upset about it. Don't get frustrated. Just be like, yep, this is part of the territory. Okay, I just told you a story. Did that one inspire you, too? Look, we're trying to be the wise farmer. Do you see that? We're trying to find the nugget that inspires people so that they can hear that story and think about, where do I need to hear this lesson in my own life? Where does this apply to me? And we make sure that we turn the corner in our email and we ask that question. We don't just hope that they see the lesson.

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

We ask the question at the very end.

[Corinna Bench]

And then, of course, if you have

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

a promotional offer, you're throwing it in the ps.

[Corinna Bench]

Okay. All right, let's do one more. Let's start with an experience or a metaphor and then try to find the story there.

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

We'll do the experience because I already did the metaphor. I already did the stapler object lesson.

[Corinna Bench]

But let's say you're standing in line and at Cedar Point, which is our local roller coaster park, theme park here in Ohio. And you have to. You get all the way to the front of the line and then they check your height there to make sure that you're tall enough to get on the ride. Okay. Do you even qualify? Are you allowed to sit in here?

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

Are you tall enough?

[Corinna Bench]

So that might be the experience that I share, how I had to stand in line and my sons were. One of them was not quite tall enough, and we had just stood in line that whole time. And I had to end up pulling. Sitting out with Josiah because he wasn't tall enough.

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

And then Jed had to go with. With Kurt.

[Corinna Bench]

Okay, so if I were writing an email to my farmers at my digital farmer where I teach marketing, I might tell that story. And then the lesson or the nugget that I'm trying to pull out would be how important it is to qualify your leads, that you have to make sure you're attracting the right customers who are even able to buy your stuff. So make sure that you're doing things in your marketing system and in your marketing machine that weed out people who wouldn't be able to take the ride and that attract people who are tall

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

enough to get on and will actually turn into buyers. Okay?

[Corinna Bench]

Do you see how I turn that

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

into a marketing lesson?

[Farm Marketing School Host]

All right, farmers, let me ask you something. As we step into a brand new

[Corinna Bench]

year, do you actually feel ready for

[Farm Marketing School Host]

the marketing side of your farm business? Or are you quietly hoping you'll figure it out as you go, like last season? How'd that work out for you? If marketing your farm feels like a constant scramble, something you know matters, but never quite gets the time or clarity it deserves, you are not alone. I hear this from farmers every single week. And that's exactly why I created Farm Marketing School to help you. Farm Marketing School is my monthly membership discount designed to help farmers build a simple, repeatable marketing system that actually fits into your real farm life. Inside, you will find bite sized, step

[Corinna Bench]

by step, do it yourself.

[Farm Marketing School Host]

Marketing projects that take the overwhelm out of things like writing sales emails or how to plan your promotions, how to build your social media strategy, how to update the homepage of your website, how to write an email, nurture sequence, or setting up systems that work on autopilot even when you're busy in the field. Each month you choose what to focus on, and I walk you through exactly how to do it with my on demand video trainings and my bonus resources. And you're not alone doing this. Each month we meet live on Zoom, where you can ask questions, get group coaching, and hear what's working for other farmers. It's like having a farm marketing mentor and a room full of peers in your corner. This is not a massive, overwhelming course. The projects are designed to be completed in under 30 days so that you're making real progress without marketing taking over your life.

[Corinna Bench]

So if this is the year you

[Farm Marketing School Host]

want to stop winging it and finally feel confident in a marketing system that brings in steady sales, I'd love to welcome you into Farm Marketing School. Join today at mydigitalfarmer.com FMS that's mydigitalfarmer.com FMs and now back to the show.

[Corinna Bench]

Now, I think it's really helpful to keep a story bank as you get better and better at this craft. What do I mean by that? Well, if you if part of this process means that you have to look back into your week or, you know, your past month, you've got to be able to identify things that have happened to you that you can tell those stories. And so what I have noticed that I've started doing over the years is I'm just going through my day with my eyes open. Almost like I'm always on the lookout for a cool story and when I see something unusual happen or noteworthy, I'll just make a note of it. I have a notes app on my phone and all I have to do is just write a couple sentences to remind me of the situation that happened. Because I'll think through the lens of huh? Could this be a potentially cool story to talk about in a weekly email someday? Yeah, I think it could be. Maybe not this week, maybe in a couple months. But it it was a cool story. It has a neat lesson. I can maybe already see the lesson and I'm just going to write down the story. So whether it's an experience, a metaphor, a moment that happens to you, come

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

up with a story bank. Just create one somewhere and create a practice of logging things there.

[Corinna Bench]

Here are a few other things you can do as far as content Number one is to teach something or share a resource. Do you have a lead magnet or a guide that you've recently created or

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

a recipe that you have.

[Corinna Bench]

Do you have a practice of writing a weekly or monthly blog post? You could make that be the feature and then link them off to go read the full blog post when they

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

click on the link in the email.

[Corinna Bench]

Do you have a video that you made and you uploaded it to YouTube? Well, you can take a screenshot of the video, put that graphic or that image in the email, briefly talk about what's in that video, tease it, don't give it all away, and make them click on the link to go watch it on your YouTube channel. Do you have a video that someone else made that you discovered on YouTube that you think is valuable?

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

You don't have to make all the content.

[Corinna Bench]

You could point people to that if it's going to help them become more educated about your product, if it's going to equip them to use your product better and doesn't mean you have to teach the content, send them there and

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

make them learn the thing so that

[Corinna Bench]

now they're like, oh, I know how to make bone broth. Thanks for that video. Now I'm going to start buying more

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

of your chicken frames or whatever. Okay?

[Corinna Bench]

Or share secret knowledge. One example that meets this criteria is I have an email in my email nurture sequence that's titled the Best Time to Buy Sweet Corn in Bulk.

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

And everybody wants to know there's a best time to buy sweet corn in bulk.

[Corinna Bench]

When is it? And I explained to them in the main message when that is and why that is.

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

I know you're all wondering, but I'm not going to tell you. Take a guess.

[Corinna Bench]

Okay, so just teaching something that is a whole topic in itself to spur an idea. Don't be afraid to use old content either. I love to repurpose my content. In fact, I have a content creation log. It's a Google sheet. Anytime I make a video that I put on YouTube, anytime that I make a blog post, anytime that I upload a recipe guide to my media library on my website, if there is a URL link for it, I put that link on this content creation log. Anytime I send a weekly email to my csa, I find the link for that email and I put it in

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

that content creation log so that if

[Corinna Bench]

someone says, where was the Week seven email? I can go find it and quickly give it to them. But what I love about having this creation log is I have a catalog of everything I've ever made and there's

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

a lot of stuff in there now.

[Corinna Bench]

And when I have no inspiration to make something new.

[Corinna Bench (Alternate Voice or Co-host)]

Who says you have to make something new every week? Heck no.

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Start repurposing it. Once you've got like, I don't know, 30, 30 things in there, you can just be recycling that. There does come a point when enough is enough. So I go back there periodically and I scan through some of the documents or some of the resources or some of the trainings that I've made and

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I'm like, oh yeah, I have a

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PDF guide about the different kinds of winter squash. This is a perfect time to reshare that. It's the fall again and there's a bunch of people who, who have entered my sales funnel, who have never seen it the first time I shared it. So I want to repurpose it. And that could be the topic, the entire topic and focus of that weekly email that you remind them that you

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have this resource and you give the gist of what it is. Okay.

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And finally, let's not forget that your weekly email could be overtly promotional in nature. Now, I don't like my weekly emails to always be super uber promotional. Let me be clear. I think I always have an offer in the ps.

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I've almost trained my audience to just go look down there.

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So it's a soft sell. But if I have a big thing, like it's a launch, like it's a, it's a big product that deserves its own moment in the sun, spotlight moment, I will make the weekly email all about this exciting opportunity to purchase this product. And because I do the work of telling other kinds of stories in the other weeks where I create connection, emotional connection, empathy, solve problems, add value. Because I'm doing that most of the time. These periodic overtly promotional emails, they land differently with my audience. And there's a different kind of posture

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right when I'm, when I'm giving it

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to them and people are excited about opening them and I get really good

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response rates and conversion rates on those

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in general, I follow the best practice, which is a three to one ratio. So three emails that are more non promotional in nature for everyone that is promotional in nature. Sometimes it's 2 to 1. Like I said, I have a soft sell in the PS of every email.

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So I'm always making sure my people know how they can take the next step and buy from me.

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But when is it the main focus of the email that maybe happens once

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every three to four times? All right, there you have it, my friends.

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That's my beginner's guide. That's actually a pretty deep dive into how to find a topic for your weekly email when you don't know what to write about. So I didn't sit here and give you specific topic ideas. If you want that, you should download that free resource, the email prompts that's going to give you 50 different fill in the blank kind of prompts that

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are going to get you your mind spinning.

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You can get [e-mail] Email Topics all one word. But the focus of this episode was really more on just the idea generation. And then you need to learn the skill of how to actually tell the story in written form in a way that's engaging, that causes a person to want to read the whole email, that

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keeps them scanning all the way down

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to the bottom to make it to that P.S.

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where you might have the soft sell, right?

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Learning how to write in an interesting way, that is another skill set, but it really doesn't take as long as you think. A lot of that is accomplished simply by surrounding yourself with people who do it well, seeing examples of that style of writing over and over again and then you kind of begin to copy that style or practice elements of that

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style until it becomes your own voice.

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If you want some help learning how

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to become a great email copywriter, I

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want to invite you to take my

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class inside of Farm Marketing school.

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There's several of them, but the email

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Marketing for Farmers Signature course is sort

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of the, the heavy hitter where you learn it all, everything you need to

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know about email marketing.

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But if you would be more curious about hey, I just need to get into a rhythm of writing a weekly email, then you can come and take the 30 day project build called the Weekly Email Challenge where you learn the

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gist of weekly email writing and you'll

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practice writing a weekly email four weeks in a row.

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Different styles, different ways.

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So there is that project. Then we also have a project called

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the Email Nurture Sequence where you come

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in, get that project done, you build

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the email nurture sequence in 30 days and I show you what should be in that.

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I give you tons of examples and

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you do the work of writing it

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a lot of times. Now with the help of AI and ChatGPT, we can coach the AI model to write in our voice. If we feed it examples of our work, it can learn how we sound, how we write so that it can at least spit out an early draft for you and and it overcomes that hurdle of of writing the first draft. I use that ChatGPT for a lot of that now where I'll talk Out

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what I want to.

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What I want to cover. I give it examples of my work and then it shoots me out like the first version of it. And then I. It's just like, okay, I don't have to work quite so hard to get

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the basic skeleton there. Now I can go in and, and make it sound more like me and not like AI.

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But you'll learn how to do all

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of that inside of our marketing school.

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So there's a lot of resources in

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there that can be helpful.

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If you want support or how to become better at email, that is definitely, definitely the place to go. I think that's probably the thing I'm best at, to be honest. Of all the things that I teach, that and maybe strategy. So would love to have you join our community, even if it's just for

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a month or two before the season goes crazy.

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Here you can learn more about farm marketing school at mydigitalfarmer.com forward/fms. Part of that membership.

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It's a monthly membership, so you just

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pay, pay by the month. When you're done, you just cancel your membership. But we have a monthly zoom call

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on the third Wednesday of every month

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where we meet up as a community and you can ask questions, you can bring the work that you're working on, and we can audit it or talk through it. It's.

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It's really cool. I. I love it. I just love it.

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So all of you are in there. Big shout out to you.

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Super excited to continue to grow that and be with you.

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All right, today's show notes can be [e-mail] 351. If you like today's episode, go leave me a review, would you? I love it. Every now and then I get a few more and I just celebrate over here. Or even better, you know, even better. Like, take this episode and copy the link for it and send it to someone via text. That's actually more important than the reviews.

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Like, I just want people to know about this podcast and if there's a

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particular pod that you're like, oh, that was so good. Someone could benefit from this to this. Share it. Like, share the love. Let's get as many farmers as possible getting this material so that we can get better at selling. Because that to me is one of, one of the hurdles we have to overcome as an industry. If we can get better at selling, we will make more money. So let's help each other become those kinds of farmers. You can also get on my email list because I have some free stuff that I will send your way for several months and I have just updated that so it's even better than before. I've cut the stuff. That's fluff. It's good. Go to mydigitalfarmer.com subscribe to get on that. And if you don't like it, well, then just unsub.

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No worries. Okay.

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All right. That's all I got today. Thank you for joining me. I love, love, love that you tune in every single week. Thank you for believing in me and for valuing my work, for sharing my work with others. I believe in you. I want to make sure you know that I am so, so excited for what this year is going to become for you. Stay in my world. I want to encourage you and support you. Let me know how I can do more of that. Send me your requests for podcast topics to mydigitalfarmersmail.com let me know how I'm doing. Have an amazing week, everyone, and I will talk to you next time.

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Remember, I believe in you. Bye.

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Bye.