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How To Write Emails Your Audience Wants To Read
When I’m working with clients, email lists are always, without fail, at the bottom of their to-do lists and the lowest of their content priorities. I’m not sure why email marketing has gotten such a bad rep over the years, or if it’s just fear because it feels so intimate (because it is), or something else, but I am constantly finding myself in a position where I’m trying to push email marketing into a higher priority for clients and students.
But an email list? It’s an incredible way to nurture relationships with your people. They find you through social, or other visibility opportunities. You send them to your long form content so they can really get to know you and hear from you. But your email list? That’s where you continue to build that relationship.
Not to mention that it’s the BEST way for you to sell. Without a doubt.
But, because email marketing can seem so scary, I brought in an expert to help us make it a whole lot simpler.
Kate Doster is the host of the Do The Brave Thing Podcast, creator of the Love Your List 2.0 email marketing mega course and is dangerously obsessed with helping ethical entrepreneurs carve out their slice of the interwebs by wooing the hearts (and wallets) open of their small but mighty audiences thanks to fun email marketing and Easy Yes mini-offers. She believes you don’t need to bleed the alphabet or be a dirty rotten spam face to write emails that jolt subscribers into taking action, gobbling up your paid offers like candy… or kale if that’s your thing.
I mean, just by that bio, I know you know that she’s incredible at what she does right? Just wait until you hear this episode. Kate is a wealth of gold, and every time I hear her speak, I learn a hundred new things. It’s incredible. So, let’s introduce you to her, shall we?
Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:
- Really quickly, before we dive into this episode – I just HAVE to share something I’m really excited about with you. My book, Chasing Simple Marketing, is launching this July. I wrote this book for the business owner that stumbled into entrepreneurship because they were following their passion. But without that Masters of Business Administration (MBA) or background in business, they find marketing overwhelming and frustrating. Throughout these pages, I’m going to take you on a simplicity-focused journey to improve your content marketing and you’ll walk away with an actionable plan to simplify your marketing, so that you can fit your marketing into your business, without it taking over your business. To learn more about how to grab your copy, and even potentially get on the launch team head over to amandawarfield.com/book/ See you there!
- This week’s episode is brought to you by the Chasing Simple Content Planner and you can grab your own at amandawarfield.com/planner/
- Don’t worry about what to email your list for 2 years
- Kate’s Podcast
- This week’s action step: Email your list!
- This week’s book recommendation: Essentialism by Greg McKeown and Relentless by Tim Grover
- Find me on Instagram and tell me you completed this week’s action step: @mrsamandawarfield
Kate Doster is the host of the Do The Brave Thing Podcast, creator of the Love Your List 2.0 email marketing mega course and is dangerously obsessed with helping ethical entrepreneurs carve out their slice of the interwebs by wooing the hearts (and wallets) open of their small but mighty audiences thanks to fun email marketing and Easy Yes mini-offers. She believes you don’t need to bleed the alphabet or be a dirty rotten spam face to write emails that jolt subscribers into taking action, gobbling up your paid offers like candy… or kale if that’s your thing.
Social Links:
https://www.katedoster.com https://www.facebook.com/search/top?q=Kate%20Doster @kate_doster
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*Just a heads up – the provided transcript is likely to not be 100% accurate
When I’m working with clients, email lists are always without fail at the bottom of their to-do list and the lowest of their content priorities. I’m not sure why email marketing has gotten such a bad rep over the years, or if it’s just fear because it feels so intimate, because it is, or if it’s something else.
But I am constantly finding myself in a position where I’m trying to push email marketing into a higher priority for my clients and students. But an email list. It’s an incredible way to nurture relationships with your people. They find you through social or through other visibility opportunities. You send them to your long form content so that they can really get to know you and hear from you.
But your email list, that’s where you continue to build that relationship. Not to mention that it is the. Best way for you to sell without a doubt, but because email marketing can seem so scary, I brought in an expert to help us make it a whole lot simpler. Kate Doster is the host of the Do the Brave Thing podcast, creator of the Love Your List 2.0 email marketing mega course, and is dangerously obsessed with helping ethical entrepreneurs carve out their slice of the rubs by wooing the hearts and wallets of their small but mighty audiences.
Thanks to fun email marketing and easy. Yes, mini offers. She believes you don’t need to bleed the alphabet or be a dirty, rotten spam face to write emails that Joel subscribers into taking action, gobbling up your paid offers like candy or kale, if that’s your thing. I mean, just by that bio, I know you know that she’s incredible at what she does, right?
Just wait until you hear this episode. Kate is a wealth of gold, and every time I hear her speak, I learn a hundred new things. It’s incredible. So let’s introduce you to her, shall we? You’re listening to episode 172 of The Chasing Simple Podcast, and I’m your host, Amanda Warfield. This episode was brought to you by my book, Chasing Simple Marketing, and you can grab your own copy@amandawarfield.com / book.
How do I find time to create content without overwhelming myself? Where should I even be showing up in my marketing? How do I come up with fresh content ideas? Where should I be focusing my marketing efforts? What is lead generation anyways and how do I do it? Are launches still a thing and most importantly, How do I put it all together to market my business strategically?
Can I really grow my business without spending all of my time marketing? These are some of the questions that float around in your head when you think of marketing. Welcome, friend. This is Chasing Simple where Practical Marketing Strategy meets Simplicity. I’m your host, Amanda Warfield, simplicity focused content marketing and launch strategist, speaker educator, and author of Chasing Simple Marketing.
I traded in my classroom lesson plans for helping creative entrepreneurs sustainably fit marketing into their business without it taking over their business so that they have time to grow their business, take time off, and live the life they dreamed about when they first decided to go out on their own.
When I’m working, you can find me working with one-on-one clients, such as the Contract shop and Rebecca Rice Photography on their marketing strategy and copywriting, or how my students simplify their marketing and launches. And when I’m not, you can find me spending time outside with my husband, Russell reading in our hammock watching Gamecock Sports traveling or forcing our cats to snuggle me.
If you feel overwhelmed by marketing, you aren’t alone. Many entrepreneurs find marketing frustrating, overwhelming, and simply an obligation. They know they need it, but they don’t enjoy how easily it can suck up their time when what they really wanna be doing is the thing that they started their business to do.
Which is why I’m here to help make marketing simple and less time consuming so that you can spend less time on your marketing and more time growing your business and doing what you love. Each week, I’ll offer you transparent conversations, actionable steps, and judgment free community to encourage and equip you.
So grab yourself a cup of coffee or whatever your drink of choices, and meet me here each week for love, support, practical tips and advice on uncomplicating, your marketing and business. Let’s do this entrepreneurship thing together,
shall we?
Really quickly, before we dive into this episode, I just have to share something that I’m really excited about with you.
My book, chasing Simple Marketing, is launching this July. I wrote this book for the business owner that stumbled into entrepreneurship because they were following their passion, but without that Master’s of Business Administration or that background in business, well, they find marketing. Overwhelming and frustrating.
Throughout these pages, I’m going to take you on a simplicity focused journey to improve your content marketing, and you’ll walk away with an actionable plan to simplify your marketing so that you can fit your marketing into your business without it taking over your business. To learn more about how to grab your own copy and even potentially get on the launch team, head over to amanda warfield.com/book.
I’ll see you there. Kate, I am thrilled to have you on Jason Civil. I’m so excited. I was telling you before we hit record that your podcast is actually one of the very first podcasts that I ever listened to when I started my business, and so this is just such a a fun full circle moment for me, and I’m really excited to have you on.
But for everyone who hasn’t met you yet, can you tell us a little bit about who you are and what it is that you do?
Sure. So, hey everybody, first of all, I’m very excited to be hanging out with Amanda. She’s awesome. But y’all already know this cuz you’ve subscribed and hopefully left a review. Just gonna slide that in there.
You can do that while we’re chatting. It’s fine. It’s fine, it’s fine. Um, so I’m Kate Dosser of Kate doser.com. I host the newly rebranded Do The Brave Thing podcast. It used to be called Inbox Besties. And. It is my soul and soul’s mission to put money in the hands of good people so they can do good with it.
And to really prove that nice people do not have to finish last in business, that sales does not have to be the devil and gross and pushy, that you can actually present information in a way that feels good to you, that another brain’s gonna read and be like. I’m all over that like give, give, gimme like your like the absolute best.
And so I want my people to get thanked every time they send emails or they offer a sales solution to somebody. Any of that sort of stuff. So, Take things that people hate the most and make them easy. I love their
mission so, so much. It’s so good. I think it’s important to note that we can often get into that place of like, oh, I don’t wanna sell because people are gonna think I’m salesy.
And it’s like, but you’re, you have a business, you’re running a business. And you have to make sales in order to continue to keep the lights on. And I do wanna dive into how we actually make sales through our email lists later in this episode. But first, I kinda wanna backtrack and talk about what, what is an email newsletter?
What’s the purpose of it and how do we utilize ’em in our businesses?
Sure. So an email newsletter. I like to try to have my students and everyone send. Once a week. So it’s only, usually it’s four emails a month I think that most people can manage. But here’s the thing, even if you missed a week or two, just get right back on the horse.
People’s lives are so busy that unless they are like your die hard super fans and say you’ve constantly been emailing on a Wednesday, and then all of a sudden they don’t hear from you, you might get some people being like, are you okay? Because that has happened to us once. And it turns out there was a glitch in our email sent and how our list wasn’t getting our stuff.
Like, no, I have pen. They’re got it. So that’s actually gonna be really fun. So it’s like, okay, now all of a sudden it’s from, oh my goodness, I have to email my list. Like all of the time, what are we gonna say to them? Now? It’s like, okay, I only have to talk to them four times. Why? We want to be able to stay top of mind.
We also have to remember that if someone gave us our email address, and I think this is where the nice people get all like clammed up. Like, oh, I don’t wanna annoy people. It’s one of those things that if they gave you their email address, they’re saying, at least at that moment of time, please talk to me.
I think that whatever you’re doing is interesting and cool, let’s be friends. And so, just like any new friendship, you can’t just go from talking to somebody once and then only talking to them like once a year. Like, I have best friends from high school, we cannot talk for three years and then just pick it right up.
But it’s because we had that base of friendship. So your newsletter is to really establish that sort of base of friendship too. I always say we wanna try to be people’s favorites when we pop into their inbox because people also have this weird trait. Cause I really love treating people, like people where say they’re like really like into photography.
They’re gonna sign up for like, Three newsletters about photography or three, you know, how to write your book email because they’re like so into like, oh, this sort of stuff. So we want it that you are their favorite person and they send, so really your weekly newsletter or biweekly, if you have to do twice a week, you, I mean twice a month you can, is just to be able to say top of mind, say relevant to say hey and, uh, to give ’em a little bit of a dopamine hit when they see
your name.
You hit the, the nail on the head with two things that I am. Over and over and over again. Reiterate on this podcast, one, your content is all about building relationships with your people. And I love your example of the high school friends that now you don’t have to talk to them all the time, but it’s because you have that foundation, because you have that relationship.
And I, I, I love that imagery there. But the other thing you hit on is that. And you didn’t say this in so many words, but you kind of implied it. You don’t have to pop back into somebody’s inbox after ghosting and be like, Hey, sorry I was gone. Just don’t tell them cuz they did notice. Yeah,
no. Do you, what I suggest for, uh, my students in Amanda is she’s fantastic.
I’m sure she’ll have links for you guys down below for all that funness. All you need to do for that is, I always like to go in with something valuable. Maybe like, you know, three tools or resources again. And if it’s something like, okay, like Kate, I teach, you know, I don’t, you know, sell an online course or anything like that, like I’m a local photographer.
Maybe it’s, you’re gonna share with ’em the three best places to take your spring photos, graduation photos, um, you know, three props, everybody needs four. Again, whatever type of photographer you’re doing, right? So you’re gonna list those three things. I mean, if you wanna link them to your Amazon store, get some affiliate income, that’s cool.
But then at the bottom, literally after you give them something cool, you’ll be like, P, wondering how I got your email address in the first place? You signed up for a free gift on? And then just say the name of your website. So say if you have multiple freebies, opt-in gifts, lead magnets for all the same thing.
That thing that you give somebody. So they’ll give you their email address just. Blanket you signed up for our email. It’s on our website. And you link out to the website. If you’re not really into family photography right now, click here and unsubscribe. No hard feelings. So all of a sudden it’s taking it from like, oh, I need your sympathy.
Oh, I’m so bad. Nobody cares. So much cares. Um, again, there are gonna be some diehard fans. I’m might be like, oh, where were you? But usually they’ll reply back and be like, oh, are you feeling okay? I was missing you. And it’ll be fine. I haven’t had a student yet get like a mean email reply back. Um, they might have gotten, some people will get a reply back, like, unsubscribe, and it’s like, dude, why can’t you hit this link at the bottom of the email?
But I’m like, I get more satisfaction. I’m like, ha, you’re not cool up to hang out with me, sucker. Get outta here. I like to put around on them.
I think the meanest email I’ve ever gotten in response to one of mine is someone responded back and they said, please stop sending me emails. And also my name isn’t blank.
And I was like, you signed up, you told me that was your name.
Right? Like, did you read? But, but
in the end you just laugh off
and it is what it’s, yeah. It’s like, okay, I guess. And uh, yeah, cuz we very, very rarely get mean emails back. And again, I think that’s another thing that some people worry about, but you have to realize, usually if you get a mean email back, it’s just somebody having a bad day and they feel like they’re gonna be a keyboard hero.
And they’re just gonna like fling it back to you. Um, I’ve only gotten mad about a hater once. Usually we just delete them. I know like some people like to engage with them. I very rarely don’t. The last hater that we got, which was the first one in a very long time, it was like attacking my people for being afraid to send emails.
I’m like, absolutely not. So that, that person suffered my raft because like, you can say whatever you want about me cuz like you don’t necessarily know me like you can’t hit my character. But like if you go after my people hoho, that Scorpio comes out real fast, real fast.
I love that and, and I think it’s so important that you, you mentioned the people that are on your email list, they want to hear from you because that’s something that we forget so often.
But also you are very well known for saying people don’t hate getting emails, they hate getting bad emails. So how do we know if the emails we’re sending are actually. Good emails because I think a lot of times we expect to get a ton of responses and a ton of clicks and all of this, and so we, if we’re not getting that, we think, oh, they don’t wanna hear it from me.
And also they think my emails are terrible. So how do we know if that’s not
the case? If they think your emails are terrible, though, usually we’ll reply back ironically and be like, that’s a hot trash. So if you’re not getting somebody replying back or several of people replying back saying, this is hot trash, then you are fine.
Now if you’re like, but Kate, I’m not getting that engagement that I’m looking for. Um, those open rates, those click-through rates, that sort of thing. First thing with open rates, just so you know, all email service providers, your convert kids, Your mailer lights, your MailChimps, they do constant contact.
They all have a hard time registering opens due to privacy things on mobile devices. And where are most people on mobile? I’m not saying that it’s impossible, but that’s also something to look at where it’s just like, oh, so it’s saying that you know about 20 people, you know about 20% is opening, chances are it’s probably higher.
Cuz we’ve gotten some people that are like, I do open all of your emails, but I’m like, are you getting these? Like, yes. So it could just be that they’ve got some type of ad blocker, pixel blocker. They’re not loading your pictures for some strange reason. So there’s that. We need to think of why is somebody going into the inbox?
This is how we know if it’s a great email or not. Why is somebody going into the inbox? They’re procrastinating. I already said that. They’re looking for a dopamine hit and we need to be able to hit a human brain where it’s expecting it, right. Think about it, and I was gonna hold up a book, like y’all could see it.
Like when you’re reading an actual real book, I’ve got relentless on my desk that I’m looking at. You know you’re gonna have big paragraphs, right? But you’re in that frame of mind. Same thing with if you’re gonna go to a blog post or listen to a podcast, you are in that frame of mind. So if you decide like, oh, I’m sending buckets of value, and your email is like super long and it’s really like info dense, if you will, someone’s just gonna be like, oh, I’m just gonna read this later.
Or they’re just gonna read the top half and then they’re gonna be gone. So we wanna make sure with our emails, Technically they could be longer, but we really just want something kind of short and punchy and to the point. And so say for example, if you are giving people three tips to landing in their first publisher, right?
Because maybe you’re an author who helps authors, um, or maybe you are in the other end chance where you write fiction and you’re just giving ’em a little teaser. This is really great for all my fixators. She’s giving a little teaser of the next scene coming up. It’s like, that’s it. You can end it on a cliffhanger, right?
Back to those people who are more educators or personal brands. Instead of giving them, you know, 15 ways to say grow their email list, you’re gonna give them like two cuz a brain can implement two, three at the max and then be like, and if you don’t like any of those or you really need to see, recharge your list, click here to get.
Again, 12 more. So that way now they’re in the frame of mind if, okay, I’m in my learning mode. Let me go to the blog. I’m in my learning mode. Let me go to YouTube. Let me go to a podcast. I think when people are getting mad about replies in particular, it’s because they’re asking the question wrong. Like they’ll be like, so what’s your biggest struggle with blank?
Right? So you know what we were talking about lifting. I’m a power lifter cuz that’s what moms do when they turn 38. Um, so like, what’s your, not that I talk about this, but like, what’s your biggest problem with power lifting? One, most people don’t wanna admit that there’s anything wrong with them or that they’re technically struggling.
Right? But if you decide to put in a sentence instead, like, I know I should be power lifting more, but. People all of a sudden could fill in that butt, cuz now it’s the butt’s fault. It’s the excuses fault. But I get really sore. But I get discouraged when I don’t hit the weight that I want to. But this isn’t me.
I’ve got really long femurs and a short torso. So squats are horrendous, right? Like I’m not built to squat. I can’t do it very well. So all of a sudden you’re gonna end up getting more replies that way. Or even you might have a casual sentence like, have you ever felt this way? Or you can ask them like, what’s your best tip for keeping your house clean?
Are you going to get a hundred percent of your people applying back? No, but you’re gonna get a handful. And so make sure that you reply back to those people and be like, oh, thank you very much. And sometimes, you know, you can share their ideas. And I think that that also sort of shows like. What we were talking about with this whole like friendship model.
Like, oh yeah, like, but this can be a collaborative effort. So I hope, I hope that helps. Really. A good email is one that I’ll always tell people. You can have some sort of interesting at the top or just being like, yeah, so the other day I was, it doesn’t have to be this big, huge, long drown at stories. My authors will be fine with this, but the rest of us, we don’t need.
Beginning, a middle and an end. We don’t need a dramatic conclusion like we were on a lifeboat raft and we were about to die, and then all of a sudden we learned how to run Facebook ads and we were saved and like it was like the life of pie all over again. Right now. We don’t need any of that. Um, I just posted an Instagram story that’s like, Hey, do you know, like it’s national celery month, right?
And then you can literally just go, I go to Hollywood. Oh, it’s uh, holiday insights.com. And then now all of a sudden you can do one on my turn of phrases that we talked about instead of Love your list, which got me thinking about or in celebration of natural celery month because it is so boring. I wanna let you know some ways you can spice up your interior design or ways that you can get in more vegetables.
Or if you want to, cuz we had talked about selling, using those weird sort of holidays is the perfect time to offer a discount for something. Just, just cause it’s like, um, I did one sale and it went bananas. It was National Mint Julep day. I’m like, is that a thing? Like it was kind of near the Kentucky Derby.
I’ve never even had a mint julep. And so I, so I had. Relate it to the fact that I thought it was completely random and how it had to do with the color green and that they could make green from their emails. Right? So you can do a lot of things that are just sort of like interesting now all of a sudden.
Oh, a sales email’s a little bit interesting. Um, leading into, you know, a blog post can be more interesting and realize with any skill, like it’s gonna take a little bit of time to master, but I’ve never heard of one person’s business being completely destroyed by an email unless you’re like sending a whole bunch of like, racial slurs, in which case you shouldn’t be sending any emails ever.
Um, so other than that, it will be fine. And the more you do it, the easier that it’s gonna get because you’ll realize. No one newsletter, no even one sales or launch email sequence is going to make or break your business. It’s that showing up. It’s that being consistent. It’s that trying, it’s that full body of work.
Um, like Jenna Fisher from the Office talks about in her autobiography, um, about acting, right? Like you wanna go on as many auditions as possible so people see your body of work. You’re gonna wanna send those week weekly emails so people can get to know you better. Oh man. There’s
so many, so many golden nuggets within all of that that I don’t even know where to start next.
I love that you pointed out and gave us permission to be bad at it at first, and just to figure it out ourselves and to just keep practicing and also to send those emails so that you do have that body of work. No one
ever learned how to swim by reading a book about it. Oh, they learned by getting in the water.
You gotta get in the water.
So good. And we’re all gonna be bad at it the first time we try something and that’s okay. And we may find a hidden talent that we didn’t even know that we had, but we won’t know unless we try. I also love, obviously the, the idea of writing as if you’re in a relationship with these people because you are.
And just making it simple, making it short, making it sweet. It’s like when you write an email to a friend or someone else that you know, or that you’re working with in some collaborative effort of some sort in your personal life. You’re not gonna write them paragraphs and paragraphs and paragraphs, you’re just going to give them what they need and move forward.
And that’s kind of what we should be doing with our people
as well. Mm-hmm. And you also, again, when you start to think of them as your friends, that they wanna hang out with you, right? All of a sudden, it’s not like I’m annoying them, it’s you’re talking to your friend who’s almost. As excited about your thing as you are, right?
So like you don’t ever think to yourself, oh man, I’ve interrupted my best friend by sending ’em a TikTok with a bunny eating strawberry. When you know darn well they love cute animal videos. No, you’re brightening their day by popping up with this random notification message. So same thing with your emails.
And I think that a lot of people when they’re teaching email marketing, they escape the fact that there’s a lot of energetics into it. And so if you’re like, yeah, man, I’m gonna talk about someone who also really thinks that like photography and family memories, like these things are really important, they’re gonna cherish this stuff.
They are just as cool as I am when it comes to this. All of a sudden it’s just like, rather than like, oh man, how do I convince you know this, this hater lady to, to not be mad that I’m sending an email about the best places to take their pictures this fall.
What a mindset shift. That’s absolutely incredible.
It’s so true. I send TikTok to people all day long with no explanation either. I’m just like, here’s a link. You’ll get it. You’ll know. Just watch it. It’s worth it.
Exactly.
Okay, so keep the email short and readable, really sticky there. Make sure we’re writing as if we would write to a friend. What other tips do you have for making sure that we write really great emails that people actually wanna read?
Well, I think that you, you’ve touched on it twice already, which is really hitting that nail in the head because we know people are going to the inbox for quick dopamine hit. You do wanna make sure that your email is skimmable, and if you’re like, Hey, I’m spending all this time writing this bad boy. The writing will get faster as you go, but you wanna make sure that you’re using short paragraphs like two sentences max.
And because I speak a lot, as you guys can tell, and I interrupt myself a lot, I’ll have really long run on sentences because it sounds the way that I talk. And that’s what’s really great about emails, even if you are. Uh, you know, even if you’re like, but Kate, like I need to be a little bit more professional, you can be a little bit more professional.
You don’t have to be like, yo, what up dogs? Like, no. If it sounds stupid coming out of your mouth, don’t type it right like that. That’s kinda what we’re going for for these sorts of things. So it’s like, okay, we’re gonna go ahead. We’re gonna make sure that it’s skimmable, so we’re gonna do shorter paragraphs.
Every once in a while, especially when you think something is important, you can use bold cuz that works really well. Um, if you are a big talker like I am and you have side thoughts, I always put those in parentheses with little italic so people are aware that I’m interrupting myself. And those are just some little ways that we can get there.
You can. Include images. I know that some people will tell you not to have things that are very graphic heavy, and if you look at things like, you know, target or even Dunkin Donuts or Starbucks, those are all images, right? Obviously they work right, or that people still will be doing it. But in your industry, like if you’re a photographer, you wanna make sure that your template looks pretty.
It doesn’t have to be like super over the top, but you wanna make sure that it’s aesthetically pleasing to your brand. You wanna include some photos that you have. If you’re more, you know, a personal brand or like an author, you’re just sort of building relationships. You could include things like either pictures of you or your cat.
You can do like little gif or gifs, however you wanna pronounce it. Hard G soft G I don’t want, don’t wanna get in a battle. I mean, you could let us know when you write your review, how you say it cuz or that G or F you. You. This could be the debate in the review section. Include one of those. You add it just like you would any other picture.
And I feel like that just gives it like, Space for somebody’s brain to be in there. It gives them a little visual to look at. Again, maybe you’ve got a chart. Um, if you are trying to get somebody over to a blog post, maybe you’re gonna make a little mockup with the blog post and a computer. Maybe you’re just gonna take a screenshot of the blog post.
You’re gonna make sure the image links over. People will click on it, look over there. So there’s a lot of things that you can do to make it enjoyable to the eyes to read. But again, you want short paragraphs. Bold, sometimes an image here or there, and then you’ll be good
to go. So you’ve mentioned a few times things like getting people to click through, going to blog posts, going to all of these different things.
How do we know what effective CTAs are for our audience and for our emails?
Okay, so for CTAs or Call to Actions, in my opinion, effective one is, well, what’s your goal? So before I sit down for an email or before how my students do, I always ask ’em like, how do you want people to feel? What action do you wanna take?
And what is your ultimate bigger business goal with that thing? So sometimes it is just gonna be a reply, so there’s not gonna be any links out to anywhere, right? Because we just, we just wanna be casual, we wanna talk about it. Sometimes we want people to go over to a sales page or we want them to book a call.
So, If I want them to go over someplace, I’m gonna link out more than once. Cuz that just makes a lot more sense because people might not necessarily scroll up. So definitely in the PS I’ll be like, PS don’t forget to read this article to get, you know, five more tips for growing your email list. And then I always would wanna add something a little bit more intriguing, like, number three, help me get a thousand people.
Or my audience loved number six, right? So that way people have not only that sort of, if they call it benefits in copywriting. Copywriting with a W guys, not with an R. I can’t, I can’t help you legal wise, but writing wise, I’ve got you. So it gives them, yeah, another reason to go and click over. When I mention the blog post in the body of the email, I’m gonna make sure that’s linked out.
I might have, sometimes I’ll do like the little carrot guy or I’ll do like an emoji. Again, if it fits your brand, put one in there. If it doesn’t, don’t where it’s like the actual, like arrow that sort of highlighting it. Um, if there is a benefit, if it’s a sales email, particularly like for a course, anytime I mention the name of the course, I’ll just have it linked out.
You almost wanna think of this, like you’re writing a blog post where you sort of like interlink things. So you’re gonna have some call to actions that are very, very direct, right? Where it’s like, reply back and fill in this blank. You’re gonna have it there. Maybe it’s bold, so that way people actually read that line.
Other ones, it’s gonna be like in Love Your List. We talk about this. So if you want to be able to email your list and get flooded with replies and PayPal notifications. And so I will highlight with a hyperlink, if you will, to the sales page with an inbox full of thank you messages and PayPal notifications.
One, it’s a different color than all the rest of the text. And two, it’s it’s clickable. So people are gonna be like, oh, I do want that. And they’re gonna click on it. So again, Do you need to have like a million links out to where you’re going? Probably not, but I would say at least three depending on the size of the email.
Cuz why not? Yeah, it, it’s one of
those things that I know I tend to find myself being like, oh, have I linked to it too many times? But in reality, like you said, how many people are actually reading to the bottom of a
full email? And if they are, are they gonna go back up to the top? So, so towards the bottom, always like to have something out there.
And that’ll also a question that I’m sure is probably not, cause it’s like, okay, can I link to a lot of different things? Again, it depends on your goal. If you’re trying to get somebody to. Your whole goal is that you want them to sign up for a webinar. I’m not gonna tell them about another blog post that I have, or another podcast that I have going on, or even another product that I have going on.
If you’re sending sort of more of a casual email where it’s like, yeah, you know what? I like them to go to the blog post. Like, that’d be pretty cool, but they wanna check out my pay products. That’s fine. Cause every once in a while, it’s just your goal. It’s just kind of, you wanna be there, right? So if you wanna include some links down at the bottom of your email, that’s like, if you’re struggling with X, do y want blank?
Click on this. And so you can have like other ways that I can help you section down at the bottom. But if you’re like, no, Kate, like I am doing my Labor Day sale, then don’t look out to any place else.
Don’t do it. So speaking of sales emails, how can we, well first, let’s just start with this. What, other than the fact that you’re trying to make a sale, what’s the difference?
Between newsletter emails and sales emails.
I don’t think there needs to be any probably that you’re not going to send people out to any other place but that sales page or, but that link to book a call or you know, to buy on Amazon wherever you’re sending them. Um, if I’m sending more of a casual newsletter, like we had sent wine the other day cuz they’re just using my train of thoughts and I probably linked to like four or five different things.
And again, it was just like hyperlinking stuff because I was just like, My goal for this is just for people to see. I’ve got lots of random stuff. I hope that that answered your question a little bit. So that’s kind of where I would go if you just the general sales goal.
Yeah, absolutely. And then how do we, how do we use our typical weekly or biweekly emails or in our newsletters to move people towards those sales?
I think that people really underestimate what I like to call casual selling, and we talked about it a little bit already. It is, again, having those sort of like other ways that I can help you at the bottom of your email. It’s maybe for this email, you’re gonna give them a tip that, you know, you were talking to one of your students, or you had one of your clients, right?
It’s like, so the other day I was doing a photo session and you’re gonna link the word photo session to your booking page, right? With a client who said they were so on photogenic. Well, it turned out if you just actually, and then again, maybe you’re gonna tell them to position their head closer to the camera or to that thing where, You put your tongue on the top of your mouth and it gets rid of your double chin.
Just one of those sorts of things, right? So again, we’re just hyperlink to the top. We’re giving ’em that sort of tip. Probably have that visual if it’s like see me with the chin, move without the chin, and then at the bottom it could just be like, and I’ve got two spots open up for brand photo shoots.
Click here to snag one of the two while you are gone. Right before they’re gone. So that is a weekly newsletter, essentially, right? You’re giving them a tip, you’re popping in their inbox, but you’re just. Selling to them too. Cause
why not? And there’s so many things happening within that type of selling too.
You know, you’re giving social proof because you’re, you’re saying, oh, I was with a client. I was with a student. You’re showcasing that people actually want what you offer. You’re showcasing that you are an expert in what you do because you’re giving those tips. And then you’re also just casually mentioning that they can work with you.
And so there’s so many in just one small sentence. So many things you’re doing to kind of push people towards the sale. Without being super salesy. So I think that was a really
incredible example. Yeah. And so say if we’re still giving the example on how to be more photogenic, right? Then say layered on top of that, you’re like, okay, like I do wanna offer, you know, the next two people, or I am doing like a a 25% off sale.
You can mention that 25% off sale. The next email, most email servers, providers, I know ConvertKit does this. I feel like all of them do really will be able to give you a link to your last newsletter that you sent out, or previous newsletters so you can send one. You have full permission to send one. That just gets to the point, right, because sometimes those are going to be the ones that get the most open.
So that subject line right before the sale ends, we’re just gonna be honest with people. 25% off. Is ending blank. Two hours, three hours. It’s like, hey, first name. I’m also not a fan of these like last minute things, but I did wanna let you know if you are looking too blank, blank, blank and blank. Like, click here to save 25% off.
And don’t forget, last week we gave you that tip on how to look more photogenic. So if you’re worried about not looking so nice, don’t worry. I’ve got your back right now you’re linking out to the other newsletter. Well, guess what? You have that casual selling, you have that social proof, right? So you can give yourself permission because I can, we like to treat people like people.
I feel like. I don’t know if you guys are old enough to remember you, you can. Um, he’s just not that into you. This was when like sex and the city was really big. I think it’s actually written by a guy that wrote it on the show and he talks about Justin’s long character. Talks about how this girl waits to the very last minute to pay her credit card bill.
Even though she knows she doesn’t do, just because she likes that dopamine adrenaline rush. So there are going to be people that just like, they know they’re gonna buy. I’ve definitely done it to creators before. Like they know they’re gonna buy it, but they just don’t wanna wait till the last minute.
Right. Or there could be people that didn’t necessarily see your photogenic email, or maybe they don’t think that’s a problem and they think that they’re gorgeous. Right? So, but all of a sudden that top Senator line was like, Ooh, 25% off. I did need that. So that’s why you wanna offer it to both source sets of people.
Well
then you’ve also got the people like me, who I’m not, I don’t necessarily love the dopamine hit, but I’ll read something and go, oh yeah, I’m gonna do this. And then I get distracted by the 200 other things on my email list. And you get that last call and you’re like, oh snap, I gotta go do this right this second.
Or else it’s, it’s over.
I went, then I was, and presented that before I hopped on the call. I talked about how, so I have my husband’s a stay-at-home dad, and I’ve got my two girls, and it’s like all of them have fevers, right? So like I’ll get interrupted a lot and then having a D H D on top of it, like I’ll forget what I was doing when I come back and I’m just like, do like eight other ideas, 12 other tabs are going on.
It’s like, oh yeah, 100%.
There’s always. A million things happening inside of my brain at all times and, and it’s very easy for me to be like, yeah, I’ll get back to that. And then it is in one of those open tabs that I have 200 of, and my computer starts running slow and I’m like, oh, I gotta exit out of everything.
And then I lose it
and it’s gone. Are you like me? I use Google Chrome and I have that extension that’s called One Tab. So like if I’ve got a million, I’ll click on one tab and then it like puts them all together and then I’m like, oh yeah, I’ll definitely go back to one tab. It has so many groupings of links that I’ve never gone back to.
I’m very interested to see. But in the back of my brain, she, people, like people I know, all those old tabs are safe because I could not bring myself to just X out of them. What if they were important?
Uh, I get really frustrated when the computer starts moving at a minuscule pace. Yes. And I’m like, forget it.
I need nothing. And then 10 minutes later I’m like, oh, dang it. There were things I did need. And they, now they’re gone forever. It’s fine. So send that email.
Yeah. So, so do not feel bad. And again, if all of your emails are just like, why haven’t you booked this session yet, dummy? Like, you’re dumb. Right? Or again, if they were all just sort of all focused on the sale, like, don’t forget to save 25% off.
Why haven’t you saved 25% off I more, and you’re gonna have to pay 500 bucks more if that’s the general vibe. Then yeah, people are gonna hate that. And unfortunately since I don’t think there’s a lot of great examples of selling separate, Amanda, obviously she sells great, but there’s not that many examples of people selling and being really like authentic and genuine that you just default to sounding like that sham wow guy.
Cuz all you can think about is that used car salesman. All you can think about are those bad people in the movies, right? Or like those weirdos that like show up to your door to sell solar panels and you’re like, am I getting scammed for solar panels? Like pro? I know you’ve got a quote, but back up here, right?
And so also we talk about energetics, right? When you’re going into this as a spot of like, I’m doing this 25% off, not cuz I need business and maybe you too, but as an appreciation to my people and like it’s awesome that now they’re gonna be able to try my stuff out. Anna, I get to make more money. Oh, that’s sweet.
All of a sudden that paradigm shift is so different. And one of our students, and love your list, she needed. Just a straight up flash sale because the car was dead and they needed a car cuz it was just one car. And she had tried her on flash sails before and they had never worked. And so the first thing I had her do was get into a real nice, energetic state to realize that people had wanted to work with her, but maybe they couldn’t make ends meet and this was gonna be their perfect opportunity to fall in love with her.
Even more so. They’re gonna win. She is gonna win. She honestly booked out every single spot that she had to open up two more spots. So she got 12. She only needed 10, and there were three people on the wait list for the next time. And she had tried selling this offer before and she barely sold one. But when we’re coming at it, it’s like, Again, why does the thing that she’s helping with matter?
Hers was, I believe Google placements, her things are like Google reviews, something of that nature. Um, it was for local businesses actually. And so again, she was talking about the benefit of the thing. It’s like, oh yeah, and until Friday we can do this together for this much off again. So she has that sort of sequence of events.
So again, it hits those sort of different people. It’s not just like, give me your money dummy. So, but again, the last one always just has to be like, if you’ve got something ending. You’ve just gotta let people know, cuz you’re always 1000% gonna get people being like, can I still get it? Or, what’s this? We had sent an email, like literally it was at this point, it was almost like four weeks ago for something that was 24 hours only.
It wasn’t even a sale, it was just like access to a training cuz it was part of a launch. And I literally just saw the inbox when I was popping on here. Somebody was like, can I just have access to this? So I’m like, no. Like, no, I need to stay in integrity. No, you cannot. But again, I don’t want you thinking that you have to discount things or you have to have bonuses for things.
You can just bring up your services and it’ll be quite all right. You can bring up your books whenever you want to.
So good. Kate, every time I hear you, z I just feel like I learn a million things, so I know that everyone who’s listening is going to want more from you. Where can they find you and what’s the best place to get connected?
Oh,
thank you. So if you guys are struggling with what to send your email list, you can go to kate doser.com/two years. Amanda will probably have a link in the show notes that you guys can just click on cuz you might be driving or walking or doing the dishes. So you can just go to Amanda’s link and that is going to give you two or years worth of strategically planned email ideas so you don’t have to worry about what to send your email list until.
Like 20, 25 at this point, which is Banana Pen. It’s like mid 2025 at this point. And so it’s not just like a whole bunch of ideas. It’s like we have some students that’ll use it, it’s free guys. They’ll use it like, okay, I have third week of March talk about this. And they just talk about that. They have, some people like to month hop.
Um, I’ll always let you know if it’s something relevant. Like if you talked about like salary month, I’ll always let you know like, this is March, so don’t talk about this in June. Although if you wanted to, you could be like, did you know in March it was celery month? So if you ever miss one of those fun days, like.
Y’all did, you know, like two weeks ago it was Na nacho day and we missed it. Well, here’s how you can make some cheddar cheese for your business. Right? All of a sudden we got nacho cheese. Right? See how obviously casually it goes? And people really enjoy those because now they’re gonna be like, nacho day is a thing and I missed.
There gonna reply back and have a lot of fun. So hey, doster.com/two years. Wherever you’re listening to this podcast, you can always type in, do the Braves thing, or just Kate Doster, and it’ll show up. It’ll be a picture of my face, and I’ve really, really, really been enjoying Instagram lately. So I’m just finally getting hit to the train eight years later.
Uh, and I’m Kate underscore Doster over there. Um, in my stories you’ll see a lot of my power lifting. I don’t put it on my main feed too, too much. Um, but I stopped sharing them for a little while. My stories and people got mad at me. They’re like, what’s going? I’m like, you’re coming to us for business advice.
Like, do you really wanna see me? Wait, we do. We really do. So again, and this is in my opinion, when we were talking about. The way human brain, like when it’s positioning itself like, oh, I’m going to a blog so I know I’m gonna need to like really pay attention to things like I feel like your Instagram stories is where you can have those sort of casual more conversations.
It’s again, if you’re looking at my stories, you’re like pretty in it. Win it. And that’s the way I also like to think about emails. So I’ll toss in some power lifting stuff in there every once in a while. So
we’ll definitely link to all of that in the show notes also. It’s so wild to me. When I downloaded your freebie in 2018, it would’ve been to have something to send to your list every month until 2020.
And then what?
Like, and like I tell people, so if you’re listening to this stuff episode you’re listening to in August, you’re like, oh man, like I missed out on all of January’s until July’s. Those months come back. What? Uh, so you can just use them at the end instead of the beginning. It’s not one of those things like, oh man, again, I’ll make a note of if it’s like, oh, this is a third Thursday.
But again, you can just be like, did you know the third Thursday of the month? Or did you know that National Donut Day? That’s another fun one. Um, my favorite email that I ever sent, and then I will stop talking, was for a summit for one of my really good online friends and it was National Cheese Day. And I made so many cheese puns.
It was 14. It was the best email I had ever, ever written, and my assistant, Abby Mann’s my inbox because with my D H D, I’ll never get back to people. And she was like, we had two pages worth of for reply. We were like, what the top affiliates for that summit because again, it fit my brand and it fit my style.
Again, if you’re more buttoned up and serious, by no means could you send a shoes pun email. That’s just like so me, right? And so that’s why I wanna make sure all this stuff that you’re writing, especially when it comes to email list, and it’s okay if your tone voice changes at some points, but like make sure your things, like your landing pages or your social media, do they all sort of sound like the same person.
So good.
Okay, so if you would give everyone just one action step to take this week based off of this episode,
what would it be? I would say email your list. If you have no ideas, you can go for the two years worth of email ideas. If you are really scared cause it has been a while, then go with the example that we already shared in this episode with three things.
Things, places, stuff, apps, people love things. Um, even if it happens to be things to buy, just remember if you are pointing to something that is an affiliate offer, that you have the disclosure down at the very bottom that if they click on the link that you might get some type of compensation. But it doesn’t have to be, it can be things that are just free that will help people with whatever you sort of talk about, right?
Or, and if you’re like, but Kate, like I’m an author and I do like fiction stuff. That doesn’t work. Chances are if somebody subscribes to your email list in order to fiction, they’re also probably into writing. They’re also into book nerds, right? So now you’re gonna bond with people about your love of books.
So maybe if you have an aesthetic like book library, you’re gonna talk about where you got your stuff or how you put it up, or again, you can always think of things cause people are buying stuff. Even if they’re not buying stuff, they can use stuff. And then just add that, oh, wondering how I got your email address in the first place?
You’re also into vampire fan fiction.
So good. I love it. That’s a great tip. And also, yeah, don’t be scared. They’re, most people are gonna be like, oh, if they think of it, they’re gonna think, oh, I haven’t seen their stuff pop in my inbox. That’s weird. And then they’re
not gonna think of it again. Yeah. And like, why are you gonna be a jerk for like the five people that are super, I’m sure it’s more the five people, everyone, but like if there are five people that are so unbelievably excited to hear from you for a while, or it just made their day that they found it was natural nacho day two weeks ago.
Right. Why are you gonna let the one or two people, that could be a Debbie Downer. Holds you back from reaching the people who actually care. Like now you’re the jerk all of a sudden. I mean, don’t get me wrong, the people that had the time, I’m like, who has the time to be sending hate emails to people? But like, why?
Why are you gonna deny those other people who are genuinely excited? Same thing with the sales emails, whether it is there’s a discount or not a discount. There could be people who genuinely need your help with this thing and you’re gonna deny them cuz you feel bad. No, don’t be a jerk. You know the best thing that you’ve got is that course on how to have your chickens.
We have a Chicken Academy student instead of Love Your list. And so she’s the top of my brain cuz she just had an amazing launch. Like I. No. If you make things that are helpful, you need to tell people about them, don’t be a jerk. So good.
So if you could give everyone one book recommendation, what would it be?
It can be fiction, it can be work related, but it, it can be literally any book that you’re like, this is something everyone needs to
read. There’s, of course, there’s like two books that come to mind. Um, so again, I was like, oh, probably. Okay. Cause I feel like this one, the tone, a lot more people will enjoy essentialism.
Um, when you guys see it, it’ll be like black scribbles and how the word essentialism on there. And that’s just talking about actually like. Getting rid of all of those frivolous things that you think you need to be doing, but really don’t. And it’s not necessary about delegation. It’s about taking the time.
Cuz again, we’re also go, go, go. We all have a million tabs open, really about taking time to like ask yourself like what is it that truly matters? And so that way you can be really present in that time. Um, I’m gonna sneak another one in there. This one, not everyone’s tone’s gonna like it. So like if you don’t enjoy the attitude of say like a Michael Jordan or a Kobe Bryant, this might not be for you.
Uh, but. If you were a secret output, like call myself, uh, relentless by Tim Glover is ridiculous. Um, the subtitle is to go from good to Great to Unstoppable. And again, it’s one of those things and not everyone enjoys the attitude. I really did love that, um, the book about it, but it’s essentially about, they talk about how there are people that are like closers and cleaners.
So it’s like if you’re the person when the fire alarm’s going off, that everyone is looking at. You are the cleaner, right? And so it really talks about sort of embracing that and that sort of championship mindset. But again, that’s not really your thing. Um, you might not like it, but everyone essentialism is so great.
Well, we will
link to both of those in the show notes so you guys can check it out. Kate, thank you so much for being here today. I really appreciate that you took time out of your day to come and chat to us about email marketing. Thank you.
Email your list. They wanna hear from you.
Thank
you so much for joining me here today, friend. You can find this episode show notes as well as all of the resources you need to simplify your marketing over@amandawarfield.com. If you liked what you heard here today, be sure to subscribe to the podcast so that you never miss an episode. And if you could take a moment to leave a rating and review, it would truly mean the world to me.
Ratings and reviews are the number one way that you can support a podcast and ensure that it sticks around for many more episodes to come. I’ll see you next time. Now, go out and uncomplicate your marketing and business.
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