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We've all gotten bad sales emails. As the person getting the email, at best,
you ignore it or you hit Delete. But at worst, it makes you angry
and frustrated. But as somebody with something to sell, how do you make sure
that your sales emails are appreciated and welcomed by your subscribers?
And more importantly, how do you make sure that your sales
emails actually sell? Let's find out. Now, one thing that might surprise you is that
success doesn't come from a single great sales email. The best sales emails are
actually part of a sequence that moves your prospects along in the
buyer's journey. Here's what I mean. How often do you buy something
from someone you've never met who knocks on your door? I bet that doesn't
happen pretty often. We want to buy from people that we know and trust,
and your customers are no different. The best way to sell your course
with email marketing is to create a series of emails that takes the subscriber
through all of the stages of the course buyer's journey, starting with awareness
when they become aware of the problem that you're solving, then consideration when
they're weighing their options, and finally, the decision,
when they're ready to commit to a specific solution. You can get endlessly
sophisticated and complex with your sales sequences as you grow, and you will.
But for now, just keep it simple and get it done. Use this template to write your
five-step online course sales sequence. You wouldn't buy a course on improving
your golf swing if you hadn't thought about golf in a few months, right?
And your prospects aren't going to buy a course unless the problem you're solving
is top of mind for them. So in this first email,
we're going to introduce ourselves, tell a story, and get them thinking
about the problem with a gentle nudge and an invitation to engage. For this example,
we're going to pretend that we're selling a course about knife skills,
and this is the first email that we're sending. Subject, "My three-year-old has
better knife skills than you." "Hi, Jane. I'll never forget the condescending way he
said it. I was watching an episode of Ultimate Recipe Showdown, a show where
home cooks were invited into a professional kitchen studio to pit their
best recipes against one another. One contestant, frantically working
to finish her dish before time ran out, drew the attention of Michael Psilakis,
one of the celebrity chef judges. 'My three-year-old has better knife skills,'
he commented as she rushed to chop an onion, leaving a pile of uneven,
jagged bits on the board. In that moment, I realized two things.
First, that either he's a jerk, or the producers told him to act like one.
And second, that my 'knife skills,' although I had never thought of them
in that way, were exactly like hers. I had never given much thought to how
to properly use a knife in the kitchen, and yet I often ended up with dishes that
looked nothing like the photos in the recipe. I'd call them rustic,
but really they were just sloppy. They took way longer to cook than recipes
said they should. I didn't realize this at the time, but that had everything to do
with knife skills, or my lack thereof. They came out wrong because I'd see steps
in the recipe that seemed tedious, and I'd skip them altogether.
Butterfly a chicken? Nope. I have to be honest,
even though they were directed at some lady I'd never met, Michael's comments
made me feel pretty bad about myself. Despite the fact that I liked to cook,
I was a complete amateur when it came to knife skills. I'll always remember that
moment as the one when I decided to do something about it, and I'm glad I did.
After years of practice and lots of trial and error, I'm more confident in the
kitchen than ever. I see recipes that call for complicated cuts. Did somebody call
for a brunoise? Or chopping huge piles of vegetables. And I'll just smile and say,
'Bring it on.' It's made cooking at home so much more fun, and the look on my
friends' faces when they see me in the kitchen is priceless.
'I didn't know you were a chef.' I'm not, of course. I've just learned how to cut
like one. It may seem like a trivial thing, but I can honestly say that
developing great knife skills has changed my life. And if you've ever been
frustrated by how long a recipe takes to make or backed down from cooking a dish
because you were intimidated by it, or felt bad that you couldn't impress
your date with a gorgeous meal, then it can change your life, too.
And tomorrow, I'll show you how. But first, a question.
What's your white whale recipe, the one you've always dreamed of being
able to cook but have shied away from? Reply to this email and let me know.
Best, Remy." What did you notice about this first email? First, it tells a story.
Stories are the best way to grab your subscribers' attention and engage them.
Humans crave stories, especially ones with vivid descriptions
and specific details. Second, it agitates the problem.
We're going beyond saying, "Having bad knife skills is bad."
Right? That's boring. Nobody wants to read that.
We're showing just how deeply the problem can affect us. And third,
it invites the subscriber to engage. It takes them from thinking about the
problem as you, the writer, faced it, and it gets them to think about the
problem and how it impacts them. Hopefully, you also notice that this email
feels like a human being wrote it, rather than a salesperson. In fact,
there's no pitch at all. The primary intention here is to begin
building a relationship with the subscriber, based on a shared frustration
about the same problem. Now that your prospect is thinking
about the problem, let's share some insights with them that can help them take
the first steps toward solving it. Why would we do that?
Why would we help them for free while we're trying to get them to pay us
for a course? I understand why you might be thinking that, but the simple answer
is trust. Put yourself into the reader's shoes. Wouldn't you be more likely to buy
from someone who had already delivered something of great value to you for free?
Of course, you would. You trust them more because they've shown
you that they can help you. The key insights that you share in this
email aren't going to be the ultimate solution that your course is.
They'll simply be useful tidbits that help your reader take those first few steps
toward success. As you see in this example that I'm going to share with you,
don't be afraid to get personal. Sharing stories from your own journey lets
your subscribers get to know you, which helps to build trust. After all,
we'd all rather buy from people we know. Subject, "The most important thing
to know about knife skills." "Hi, Jane. I spent more than four years trying
to improve my knife skills so that I can go from someone who gets scared of hard
recipes to someone who happily pursues them. I learned a lot in those four
years and, yes, I got much better. But I also learned a few things along the
way that, if I had known them on day one, I probably would have become an expert a
lot faster. Today, I want to share one of them with you. A sharp knife is
worth 1,000 hours of practice. A friend of mine is a restaurant chef,
and I asked him to come over and teach me a few things.
Secretly, I was also excited to show him the fancy German knife I had bought a few
months prior. I had been practicing with it and it just looked so cool.
The first thing he does is show me a technique for slicing tomatoes.
I could never do this without getting tomato juice all over the cutting board.
Ready for him to tell me how impressed he was, I sheepishly hand him my
expensive knife. He takes one look at it and grins. Except, instead of praising my
excellent taste, he says, 'Yeah. I can see why you were having trouble.
This thing is dull as a rock.' What he taught me that day, and what restaurant
chefs have always known, is that the most important part of cutting well and safely,
more important than the type of knife you choose, more important than how
expensive or cheap it is and, yes, more important than your technique even,
is how sharp your knife is. A cheap knife that's sharpened well will
outperform an expensive dull knife 10 times out of 10, and it's actually not
that hard to keep your knives sharp. A simple $30 tool can keep your knives
razor sharp for life. Here's a YouTube video on how to use it.
And if you do nothing else to improve your knife skills, keep your knives sharp
with monthly honing. It's a game changer. That's all for today.
I hope this helps you. Tomorrow, I'll share something I've been working
on that could help you transform your knife skills, no matter how advanced
or not you are today. Best, Remy." Now it's time for the pitch. In this email,
we're going to outline what our course offers and why it would be a great
solution for the reader. This is also a good place to point out who
the course is not right for. You're in this for the long haul,
and ensuring that you only attract students that are a good fit for your
course will help you build a tribe of delighted and successful students,
rather than ones who quit your course because they're not a good fit.
Just like the other emails, we're going to keep this one personal.
Your readers are buying from you, so your personality needs to come through.
Subject, "Finally, learn to cut with confidence." "Hi, Jane.
Over the last couple of days, I've shared some stories with you from my
own journey to mastering knife skills. It took me a long time,
and I made a lot of mistakes along the way. I took dozens of knife skills classes
from the local kitchenware shop to the culinary institute. I read every book and
watched every YouTube video I could get my hands on. I even hired a professional chef
to coach me for a day. And while I've learned
an incredible amount, I've also come to understand something.
It doesn't have to be that complicated. Out of everything I've learned,
only a few things, less than 10%, really matter when I step into my home
kitchen every day. All of that training was a great way to satisfy my curiosity,
and perhaps prep me for the culinary career I'll never have.
But as a home cook who just wants to be more confident in the kitchen,
it was too much. The problem is that nobody offers to teach you those few key
things, and only those few key things. To really master knife skills for a
home kitchen, you either had to spend a ton of time or a ton of money, or both,
learning more than you need to, and then try to parse it for what's
truly important, until now. Over the past few months,
I've been working on distilling those key lessons into a course that's designed
to teach you how to use a knife with confidence, no matter your current
skill level, no matter what knives you have, no matter what kind of food you want
to cook. And today, I want to share that course with you. 'Knife Skills 101:
Learn To Cut With Confidence' is a five-week course that will help you
overcome any hesitation you have in the kitchen so that you can tackle any recipe
you see with confidence, actually finish cooking recipes in the
time listed on the recipe, or often faster, and impress your friends
and loved ones with our chef-like abilities. The course is now available,
and I invite you to enroll today. Learn more and enroll now.
Looking forward to seeing you in the course. Best, Remy." All right.
We've made our first pitch, but our prospect still has
some reservations. And why shouldn't they? We all want to make sure that we're
investing our money and time wisely, so it makes sense that they want to take
some time to think about whether they should buy your course. In this email,
we're going to answer some of those key questions that they might be
wondering about. Subject, "Questions about the course?"
"Hi, Jane. Yesterday, I told you about my new course, 'Knife Skills 101:
Learn To Cut With Confidence.' Today, I'm going to share a few questions that
I've been getting about the course, in case it helps you decide whether
it's right for you. 'How much time does the course take to complete?' The course
includes 5 modules with roughly 10 minutes of video each, and several worksheets.
The coursework can be completed in about an hour each week, but the more
you practice, the faster you'll see results. I recommend setting aside two
hours per week. 'Do I need to buy new knives for the course?' Probably not.
The course will show you the techniques that work with many different kinds
of knives. And rest assured, if you do need a new knife,
you don't need an expensive one. The course has recommendations for some
great knives that are under $30. 'What if it doesn't work for me?' That's what
the money-back guarantee is for. If, for any reason in the first 30 days,
you're unhappy with your purchase, just email me and I'll refund
your tuition. Have any questions not covered here? Reply to this email and let
me know. Ready to enroll? Learn more and enroll now.
Hope to see you in the course. Best, Remy." All right. So maybe your subscriber
hasn't purchased yet, but they haven't unsubscribed, either,
so there's a good chance they're still thinking about it. Let's make one
final pitch, a last attempt that's going to show them why they should act now
and not ignore the problem any longer. This is also a good time to get them
to reach out to you if they have any questions at all.
Subject, "Dinner next month." "Hi, Jane. Imagine that it's Wednesday, March 24th,
five weeks from now. You come home from work. It's dinnertime,
but something is different. You're not thinking,
'Should I get takeout or grab something out of the freezer?' You're not resigning
yourself to another night of leftovers. You grab some fresh veggies out of your
fridge and you start chopping, not thinking twice about it. You're calm,
steady, and completely in your comfort zone. A few ingredients and 20
minutes later, you've prepared a beautiful, healthy, and delicious meal
from scratch. It would have taken you over an hour to make something
like this before. Not that it matters, since you probably wouldn't have
considered a recipe with so much prep. But that day, you breeze through it,
and you reap the rewards of a wholesome, tasty dinner that you made yourself.
That's the level of skill and confidence that 'Knife Skills 101' is built
to instill, and if you enroll today, you could achieve that in just five
short weeks. But to get there, you need to take that first step.
Enroll now. Hope to see you in the course. Best, Remy. P.S. The course is backed by a
30-day money-back guarantee. If you're not happy,
you get your money back, no questions asked." And that's it,
a five-step email sequence that you are free to steal and use for your own course.
Again, you're going to improve on this first version with time as you get to know
what works and what doesn't work for your specific audience, but don't
overcomplicate things when you're just getting started. It's way more important
to get this out the door than it is to spend countless hours trying to get
it perfect. A simple and effective email sequence can be the difference between a
course that falls flat and one that's a monumental sales success
but you don't have to be a professional copywriter to create one.
Just follow a proven framework and you'll be selling in no time.
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