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Simple SEO and Marketing, Business Growth, Organic Marketing, Copywriting, Online Business, Blogging, Content Creation
Ep 267 //Easy Email Marketing: 5 Secrets to Write Emails That People Actually Want to Read
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Well, hey there friends. We are continuing with our email marketing series today and I'm going to tell you five secrets to writing emails that people actually want to read. And this is coming from somebody who's had email open rates of upwards of 50% for years for my personal brand emails and Then also about 40% or higher for customers emails. Like clients emails that I write their emails for them. So in the trenches, I know it works. It works again and again and again. And these secrets air quotes to writing emails that people actually want to read, they're not spammy, they're service oriented. Because you and I, we're in business to serve people and to help people with our God given gifts. And so our emails need to fall in line with that as well. So listen in, bust out that pen and paper or your notes, Apple, and let's start writing emails that people actually want to read and that actually help move the needle forward on your business. Are you ready? Let's go. Hey there fellow entrepreneur. Welcome to simple SEO and marketing. Do you want to grow your business with sustainable traffic sources? Have you heard about the power of search engine optimization? And you want to take advantage of it to get more traffic, more eyeballs on your business. But when it comes down to it, does SEO feel complicated and hard to implement? Are you tired of wondering what in the heck to do with your website to get more traffic and more leads knocking on your door? What if I could tell you that there was a simple, proven system for using SEO, blogging and copywriting to get leads from your website and not just any leads, high converting leads. Hey, I'm Faith Hannon, wife, mama, copywriter, SEO strategist and barrel racer. And for the last eight years I've been figuring out what works and what doesn't work in the world of online marketing to get organic traffic. And now I'm here to share all the things I'm learning in the trenches of SEO, copywriting and content marketing. How does 300%, 500% or even 12,000% more traffic in a year sound? What could your business do with that kind of traffic increase? How many more people could you help? So listen in and prepare to take note. I'm about to drop simple, actionable SEO, marketing and copywriting tips all with a heavy dose of Jesus loving encouragement. Let's get you more traffic and more leads so you can help more people with your God given gifts. Okay, in case y' all haven't noticed, email marketing, writing emails to my people, y', all, if you're on my email List. You are my people. It's honestly one of my favorite things to do and call it the writer in me. I always have lots of words. I love to communicate, but I really truly enjoy writing emails to my list. Do I enjoy reading emails that I get to my personal email inbox? No. Except for a few brands. I, I talked about that in the last podcast episode. But I truly believe that there are some secrets to writing emails that people actually want to read. And I'm going to break it down for you today. Now, quick little caveat here. A lot of these tips are going to feel easier to implement if you are a personal brand, if you have a face and that's part of your brand versus, you know, a business, a faceless brand, so to speak. Um, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna give you some tips for non personal brands too. Like if there's no face to your brand, the brand has nothing to do with you or your name. It's just the company as a whole. Um, I also have some tips in here for you too, so don't tune me out. Okay? Number one tip, number one is don't be scared to get personal. And this is going to be easier for some people than others. However, it still is absolutely necessary. Now, I talked in my podcast, in the last podcast episode about the cadence that I recommend for emails. And in my business we have a nurture email and then a content marketing like, here's the content, here's the value, here's what you're going to get out of it, here's where you can go consume the content. We have. I call it my nurture email and my content marketing email when I'm really on my game. Then we have like an extra tips, hot tips, insider tips email. Haven't been that on my game for a while, but the ideal cadence in my business and in clients that we get to write that much for, it's a nurture email and it's a here's the content email every week. Okay? So I say this with that in mind. Like, keep in mind, we're writing multiple emails a week. Um, but one of them, the content marketing email, is probably less personal, definitely less personal than the nurture email in my world. So the number one tip is don't be scared to get personal. Everyone has to decide what their level of comfort is sharing with a stranger. I've heard, I think it was Jasmine Starr describe this as the, the man on the airplane level of comfort. Like whatever you're comfortable sharing with a stranger on the Airplane. That's, that's the level of comfort that you should share on social media. And truly this is going to be different for everyone. If you are somebody like me that you can make friends with a fence post and have your be laughing and jovial and like just talk to anybody and everybody, you're probably going to be comfortable sharing more than somebody who is, you know, pretty introspective and you know, an introvert. And that's okay. I'm not saying that you need to be somebody that you're not online. Please don't. Okay? But you have to decide what you are comfortable sharing on the Internet. Okay? I'm going to tell you my personal rules for what I'm comfortable sharing, but you go make your own baby. Okay? For my personal rules for what I share on the Internet and what I share in my emails, you know, in general is number one. I, I don't ever want to reflect badly on somebody else especially and this is a trend that I see and I don't like it. But I especially don't want to reflect badly on my husband. I want to honor my husband. I love that man. He is an, he's an amazing man. I'm not a husband basher and I'm not going to turn into a husband basher on the Internet just to fit in, okay? I don't ever want to reflect badly on, on somebody I don't think that honors God, to be honest. Jesus died on the cross for that person. I better love him too and I better speak well of them. Okay? So I'm, I don't like to ever put anything out there and I'm not saying that I haven't ever screwed up. So if you are an OG and you're like, well you talked bad about so and so being a jerk when they served you, like I probably have made this mistake. But what I try to do is not ever reflect badly on somebody. Okay? Now there are certain things about people that I love and friends and stuff like that where I just recently published an email about my sister in law. She's super tidy, super clean, very orderly, very, you know, poop in a group all the time. She color codes for packing. Okay? I'm happy if I show up to the party and everybody has clothes on, right? Like my kids are all like have socks and pants. Like that's a win for me. And I just, in my email I talked about the differences in personalities and she's really good at this and I'm really good at this. But yet we get along and we compliment each other and we are all created differently and got. And. But all created in God's image and how our gifts should work together, right? So it's not saying you can't ever talk about anything personal, but you don't want it to reflect badly on somebody. Okay? If I tell a story about somebody that is recognizable, I usually try to ask for their permission. Unless I'm just, like, bragging on them. I recently sent out an email bragging on the kind of people that we have in our lives and just talking about how awesome they are and how much they help like that. To me, I'm just like, hey, you guys are amazing to me. That's not. There's nothing wrong with that in my rules, okay? The number two rule I have for myself is I don't ever want to give away any information that could put me or my family or a property in danger. Like, I'm not going to sit here on my email list or my social media or my podcast and announce to the world that, hey, we're going on vacation. Like, that's just dumb, okay? Like, be smart. Have some street smarts. You know, don't advertise things like that. Those are my rules, okay? My number three rule I have for myself is that I may write mad because I do process things by writing. Sometimes I may write mad, but. But I'm not going to publish mad. I give myself time between writing and publishing, especially if it's something salty. If it's like a hot take on something going on in society, I usually pause for a minute before I hit publish. Okay? It's probably wisdom. Slash is wisdom. The next rule I have for myself is, would I be embarrassed if the whole world knew this? Because if you're putting it out there online and email is online, if you're putting it out there online, it is accessible, I, you know, theoretically to the whole world. So would you be embarrassed if the whole world knew this now? My threshold for embarrassment is pretty low. I don't get super embarrassed by a lot. That's okay. That's me. You have to figure out what that is for you and do that in your content. Okay? That this is. Again, this is going to be different for everybody now. Full transparency. There was a gal that is. I was in a mastermind with, and she told an embarrassing story about herself in an email. After I was like, yeah, I just tell embarrassing stories about myself in my emails. And it's great because that's really what I do. I tell a lot of lessons that I Learned a lot of embarrassing stories, a lot of like, what in the heck, how did this happen Kind of stories. The kamikaze goat story, the son of a motherless goat horse, like those kind of stories that I'll, I'll link for you guys. I tell those kind of stories in my emails and then I tie it to a lesson. But this gal in my mastermind told an embarrassing story in her emails and she had somebody unsubscribe and at first she was a little bummed about it, but at the end she was like, you know, if they aren't, you know, okay with that type of person, then they probably don't want me to be their coach anyway. So take it, take it or leave it. But in my world, as closely as I work with my students in this simple SEO framework and group coaching, and as close as I have to work with, like not have to get to work with clients as a copywriter, as a content writer, like, like I want people who have a sense of humor and appreciate my sense of humor because if they don't, they're probably not going to work with me anyway. I'm not for everyone on the whole planet and that's okay. I don't have to be. And having a strong and dialed in email writing frequency and email writing voice really will help you not just attract but like lock in with the people that you are going to enjoy serving and they're going to enjoy working with you. Okay, so now if you're not a personal brand, what do you do? You're like faith, I don't have a personal brand. I can't tell embarrassing stories about swallowing a molar when I was in middle school. True story. By the way, if you're not a personal brand, here's how you get around that and still implement the personal air quotes side of email marketing that I think is hugely important. Number one, you need to have a very well established brand identity in your messaging. Know the why behind the what. What is your why does your brand matter? Why do you guys care about this? Why are the people in your company spending their one precious life, you know, doing this work? Okay, know the why behind the what. But you also need to know the what. Okay, so if you are, if you have a non toxic skincare brand, okay, you need to know what these type of products are helping your people with. You need to know like the, the end result of people switching to this healthier, toxin free lifestyle. You need to know all of those things and, and not, not just to have them on like Rote memorization, spitball facts out. You need to know those things so that you can connect with your people. Okay? And then number two, if you're not a personal brand is you need to have some founders or longtime employees that have some fun stories. They're willing to share stories, connect with, with people. They just do. There's no getting around story and the importance of story in your marketing. Okay, you need to also then tell your people's stories like your client and your customer stories with permission of course. But tell your people stories like let people under the umbrella of your brand get to know other people under the umbrella of your brand. Because not only is that going to connect them further to your brand, be like, oh, these people care about this kind of person. It's also going to connect them to the, the other people. Not necessarily directly, but like create a tribe mentality. Almost like, these are my people. These are the kind of people I want to, you know, like do business with and support and promote. Okay. Telling your people's stories helps to build almost an under a tribe undercurrent around your brand. Okay. And then the last tip for non personal brands here is to talk about the transformations that people see in a non salesy way. Like, not like they use this product and this product and this product. You can get it for $9.99. Like, hey, they used to struggle with this and this and this and this and this and they walk through this and they tried this and they tried this and their kid was like, oh man, this is so hard. I just want to give up and quit. Like, like. But then they found this and they try implemented this. Oh, and also this thing and this thing and this thing. Talk about it in a very truthful way. Just in a way that connects to people's transformation. Again, the power of story. Okay, now my number two secret to writing emails, I know the number one secret was like huge, enormous. They're not all that long, I promise. But the number two secret to writing emails that people actually want to read is this. Make sure that it has standalone value. That piece of content needs to bring value. I don't care what it is. Like whether it's a nurture email or a content marketing email or an inside tip, it needs to bring value. Now humor counts as value too. Sometimes it really does. Getting somebody to laugh out loud, like genuinely laugh out loud. Not just the emoji, laugh out loud. Getting somebody to laugh out loud or even giggle in the middle of a hard day, that's a win. That's A win. Not just in a human to human way, but it also connects people to your brand. It connects people to your business deeper. Okay? Now, every piece of content that we publish has to pass my content publication rule, which is, would I be mad if I spent my time reading this? That's my rule. I have an entire episode on it. It's either episode 136 or 134. But that breaks it down. Like, that's my rule for my brand, for my company, and everything we create for other companies is, would I'd be mad if I spent my time creating this piece of content. Does it bring value? Okay, it has to pass that test. Okay? Now each piece of content does not have to be an entire home run. Get somebody from, you know, home plate all the way around back to home plate. But it does have to get them further, at least one base. Meaning. I didn't try to explain everything about email marketing in one 20 minute podcast. It's broken up into three podcasts. Okay, so far I got you a little further down the track each time because the mind can only absorb what the seat can endure, which I know you might be walking while you're listening to this, but our brains, we just can't. We can't always absorb an hour's worth of content. Okay? I can't. So I try to break things up in a way that's easy to consume, and that's okay. I think that that is a smart strategy in today's market and in today's world. Okay, so the number three tip, number three secret to writing emails people actually want to read is to make sure that it connects to your brand's values. Now, a lot of people think that they have to talk about the same thing, the same thing, and only this one little narrow niche thing all the time. And they're like, how on God's green earth am I going to write a blog, create an email and a podcast episode on this one tiny little niche topic every week until from now, until Jesus comes back? Well, it's because you're not going to just talk about that one tiny little thing. You're going to talk about lots of things that you care about and your ideal client cares about under the umbrella of three to five content pillars. Your brand values, you know, they need to carry through in the areas, all the areas of your content. And your brand values don't have to be the same as my brand values. You have to figure that out. Doesn't take five years to figure it out, just a quick little 10 minute exercise of what are the values that I want to stand for? What are the values that I want my brand to stand for? What are the values that I want to be known for in the market? Okay, but that's going to help. It's going to help you talk to your audience in a much more authentic way and it's going to help you talk about things other than just what you say. Sell. This really does get down to why are you in business? Why? If you have not done my wagon wheel exercise, my wagon wheel, why exercise that I talk about in episode 66? That will really, really help you here. I also have a blog linked a blog on that and it'll. It'll help you tremendously with your content strategy overall. Number four secret is to give more than you take. We are inundated with messaging all day long. Bye, bye, bye, bye, bye. Buy my stuff. Buy my stuff. Buy my stuff. Not saying there's not value there. You should have some sales emails, okay? You should. But I want you to give more than you take in your email marketing, in your content in general, okay? And this can really be helped with a good cadence. If you have a good cadence. And you know, okay, every Monday I send out this kind of email. Every Tuesday I publish content. Every Tuesday my content marketing email goes out at this time. Every Wednesday. My recent unopened, every Thursday, my second piece of content like this can all be helped with a really good cadence, okay? Which I talk about in the episode right before this one. But give more than you take. Give more than you take, okay? And the number five secret that I want to talk about today is I want to write content that feels like a positive ad to somebody's day, not fear mongering all the time. Now, there are probably some advertising and marketing experts who would argue with me on this. And to be fair, like, fear does sell. Like, look at our news media. All they do is talk about fear and what's wrong in the world because it gets people to watch. And I'm not saying that there shouldn't be some element of like, FOMO or don't make these mistakes or don't screw up your business or, you know, don't eat these things because they're gonna hurt you. Like, I'm not saying that you shouldn't use some element of that in your marketing. It has its place. And I have and do use that kind of language very intentionally and on a limited basis in my titles and my headlines and in my marketing. But the fact is, is if you turn into A business that cries wolf all year long. People are just going to tune you out. They're just gonna tune you out. And I have this theory. I have not done any hard research on it. So just take this as your pal. Faith, okay? Giving you advice. I haven't done any research on this, but I really believe that if you can create a feeling around your brand and around your messaging that feels safe, that feels like an exhale, like somebody can walk into your, your store or your online brand and be like, and just exhale like there's a problem that's going to be solved. There not nor not more problems created. It's a, it's a solution place, not an oh crap this guy is falling all the time place. I just think in the long run you're going to build so much more trust and people will then easily and happily keep coming back to you again and again and again. So those are the five tips I have for y'. All. I have a fun treat coming up for you guys. I hope you're excited. Make sure you're subscribed to my email. You'll be the first ones in the know. Make sure you subscribe to this podcast because I don't want you to miss out on this cool treat. Okay? But the number the five tips we're going to go over real quick again is don't be scared to get personal. Make sure that each email has standalone value. Number three, make sure it connects to your brand values. Number four, give more than you take. And number five, write content that feels like a positive addition to their day, not fear mongering all the time. All right y', all, I will be back with you next time and make sure to tune in. Love y' all fast. Thank you so much for listening in today. Hopefully this episode gave you some really tangible tips for better SEO and marketing to get more leads and more sales from your website. If it did, can I ask you a quick favor? Would you please share this episode with a friend and then just take 10 seconds and go leave a written review on Apple Podcasts. That is the very best way to help more Jesus loving entrepreneurs score their businesses so that they can help more people with their gifts and make an even bigger impact for the Kingdom of God. And guess what? We now have a Facebook community where we can learn, hang out and laugh. Go join the Facebook group now. It's linked in the show notes and all the other things. Courses, coaching and copywriting can be found at my website, faith hannon.com until next time. God bless and I'll talk to you soon.