Hey everyone!
Jason here, digital marketing consultant.
So the common mantra, when it comes to email marketing is the money is in the list.
Well, that only rings true, if number one, people are opening your marketing emails and
number two, they're actually clicking on them.
So this is a simple three-step copywriting process to writing marketing emails that actually
get opened and clicked.
Timestamps below, along with some other helpful videos, that goes through how to actually
create an entire sales sequence and of course set up your automations.
So there are only three things we need to do with your marketing email.
We need to get them opened.
We need people to read and engage with them, and then we need the right people to click.
And the best way to get your emails opened is by using curiosity.
And then of course, when it comes to subject lines, there are a lot of different things
you can use in the subject line to drive curiosity and get someone to actually pay attention
and open that email.
But using questions is one of the simplest and most effective way to make sure the right
people are opening your email.
Especially if you're sending this email out to a general broadcast list, you want to make
sure that you're calling out the specific person, that your offer or affiliate offer
is best suited for.
And so here's an example that we'll be going through during this particular three-step
process.
So as an example here, let's say we are doing an email that's promoting some sort of offer
to help consultants grow their new business, right?
So we could have questions like, How much do you charge?
Are your prices driving potential clients away?
How much should you be charging?
Are you sure that's how much you should charge?
Now, if you don't want to use a question, subject lines, like it looks like your prices
are too low, or I think your prices are a little off are also great ways of building
curiosity and speaking directly to your ideal customer.
Now this one, it takes a little more finesse, but essentially what you're doing here is
instead of just asking a broad question, you're picking out something your ideal customer
is probably doing and then saying, “Hey, I think you're probably doing this thing wrong.
And it's a great way for you to stand out in the inbox.”
Because if we were speaking to new consultants who are presumably trying to figure out what
their price should be and they see a subject line saying, “Hey, I think your prices are
off.”
That's going to grab some attention and get them to actually click through, because they
want to know if they are at in fact doing something wrong.
So that's all there is to it to coming up with your headline.
I highly recommend it just setting a 5 to 10 minute timer and just writing out as many
headlines as you can think, Oh, headlights, subject lines, as you can think of.
I'm so used to talking about ads, write out as many subject lines as you can think of.
And then you're ready for step number two, which is going to be broken up into two parts,
and this is establishing rapport.
So number one, you need to hook the reader or your subscriber in, and then number two,
you want to establish some rapport and actually create a very, very short story.
We're not writing a novel here, a short story, following a very simple formula to show that
clicking the link is going to actually be helpful to them, in what they're currently
dealing with.
So all the hook is designed do is to get people, to keep reading the email, and then you'll
be able to go into your story.
Now here's the simple four step story formula, you can use with your own emails.
Of course, we kick things off with the hook, which would actually be the climax or the
drama of your story.
It may sound counterintuitive, but you want to start in the middle of your story, pick
out a situation that your ideal customer may be in or begin your email with a low or high
point in your story.
So think about the part of your story.
You can make dramatic and put it at the beginning.
Then you're actually going to rewind a little bit and set the stage and the context for
your story.
Now, this works best, if the situation that you're in is very similar to the situation
that your ideal customer or client is in, by the way, if you're doing this story that
not about yourself, it can be about one of your clients, or it can be a story that you
made up to illustrate a point.
You just have to make sure that before you begin the story, you do have to say it's hypothetical.
So unfortunately that would have to go before the hook, but it still works out.
Even if it's a story that you've created just for illustrative purposes.
And so your setup is designed to mirror, whatever situation your ideal customer is in.
Then we go onto the roadblock where you introduce the struggle, the problem, something that's
in the way of the results that your hero in your story is trying to achieve, which is
you, your client or the fictitious character, or this is the roadblock or struggle that
your ideal customer is dealing with.
And you want to dedicate three to four sentences to talk about how you failed, illustrate the
painful consequences of that failure.
And if there are alternative solutions to whatever your offer is, you can actually tie
those in as well saying, and I tried this and it didn't work.
And I tried that, and it didn't work, but you really only want to mention one or two
solutions that you tried, that didn't work.
Otherwise it's going to come across, like you're listing out everything that didn't
work, except for whatever you're setting up your offer to be.
So make sure that you choose only one or two, if you decide to go that route in this particular
section of your story.
Now, finally, you come with the solution, what you created or discovered that allowed
you to overcome the roadblock and ultimately persevere.
So let's go through one of our emails as an example of how this story formula can work
out.
And as you'll see, it's not an exact science here.
We are copywriting.
So there is some art to this, right?
I'm not saying I'm the best copywriter in the world, but this is a formula, that you
can use to create your own.
So here we go, 43 minutes and 28 seconds in, my palms are starting to get sweaty.
Up until this point, I’ve been calm, but I'm coming to the hard part.
The part where I never know exactly what to do or how to do it.
It's been almost a year.
And yet I can't get over this last hurdle.
And I chose this particular email because it's one of the ones where we have a little
more drama than usual, but this is about as much drama as you need to actually hook a
reader in.
So your subscribers, they're reading a bunch of boring emails.
And so telling a story is something that can keep them entertained and keep reading.
And so you just want to start at some intense point yeah.
To help hook them in and actually get them to continue to read the email.
And then of course, going to rewind and go to the situation here, the setup I'm on my
third sales call of the day.
And this happens every dang time.
Now, just 90 seconds away, I can feel it.
The question I never know how to answer.
And so in those two sentences, we've set it up.
Now, this is building a little more curiosity than usual because the reader at this point
doesn't act technically doesn't know what the question is, without the headline, right?
So you saw the sample headlines.
So the person who opened the email notes, this has to do with pricing.
And so you can kind of use your headline to build some curiosity, and then you don't have
to repeat it in the email.
So then we go into the roadblock, right?
How much do you charge?
Gulp.
Will I get it right this time?
Unfortunately, most of the time I'd get it wrong, really wrong.
Some calls ended in a high ticket sales.
Others ended with a sense of dread for the low price I’d settled for it.
And so here, we're talking about the problem, some consultants being on calls, not on not
knowing what the heck to charge and then either, and then talking about the emotions of, “Wow,
I'm really happy that I got the high ticket”, right?
Or, “Oh my gosh, I can't believe I agreed to do that much work for that little pay”,
right?
And so you do also want to think about the emotions that you want to invoke during this
story.
And of course this mirrors, what a lot of new consultants go through.
And then of course, we wrap up with the introduction of the solution.
It was out of frustration of my cowardice, that I created a simple system for pricing
and carefully formulated structure to keep me confident and profitable with every client.
And so in that one sentence, I'm introducing a solution.
And the end result, I was able to be confident with clients and I was able to be profitable
because I came up with this solution.
It could just as easily be some other solution, especially if you're doing affiliate marketing,
you could say until I found this or until I tried that, right?
And so that does it for the four parts of your story formula.
And as simple as this may seem, you see it's very surface level.
We're not going super deep with any of the details.
We're just focusing on a key, a few key emotions and one specific problem.
So it really works when you choose one specific problem or roadblock for your story.
That way you don't have to worry about writing more than 500 words to communicate some emotions
and get a point across.
And so once we have that, we're ready for step number three, which is the call to action,
here you don't want to be shy.
Now, this isn't the part where you say, “buy this now” or “you're a complete idiot”,
or “you're a schmuck if you don't click this link”, right?
We're not going to make people feel bad for not clicking the link.
However, we don't want to be shy at this point either.
We want to be very clear that the next step for them to overcome the roadblock that just
talked about in the story is to click the link.
You don't have to do any sales stuff here.
You're only setting people up to click the link, because at this point, if they've gotten
to this point, the roadblock that you talked about in your story is something that they're
dealing with.
The solution that you have presented is something that they're interested in.
And so the next logical step, step number three is to just click the link, right?
And so you want to make it very clear that the next thing to do is to click the link
and give some indication on what the link is.
So if the link is a video, or if it's a report, a case study a webinar, or if you're doing
some sort of physical product, then it could just be click here to learn more about XYZ,
whatever the product, whatever the product is that you introduced, that helped with the
solving the problem of your story, right?
And so that's how you want to go through your calls to action.
So if we go back over to our example here, our email concludes with two clear calls to
action.
If you've ever struggled to determine what you're worth or how much you should be charging,
check out this video here, you can see we're not using any sleazy sales tactics here.
We're just saying, Hey, if you relate to this problem that I just talked about, that you
just read through in this email, click this link, because it's going to be helpful.
And that's it.
That's all you have to do, right?
All of the heavy lifting of the sales will be done on whatever should be done and whatever
the next stage of your processes, especially because when you're sending emails like this,
you don't actually know for sure if this person's a good fit for your product or service.
So you don't want to use any high pressure sales or salesy or sound salesy with someone
who potentially might not be a good fit, right?
So we also need to keep in mind that when we're sending these general marketing emails
to potentially segment our lists, or just see if someone's interested in something,
we want to make sure that we're calling out and driving action to the people, the small
percentage of people who should be taking action, but not turning off everybody else,
right?
Because we want them to continue opening our emails later on down the road.
And so with the PS section, this is a great place to essentially state the unique selling
proposition of whatever your offer product service affiliate link is.
In this particular instance, instead of talking about the unique selling proposition, we go
the other route and handle some objections that someone would have to what we just presented,
which is a video showing them how much they should charge.
And a common objection would be, well, my business is different, right?
Or my clients don't want to pay me enough.
So we have PS.
There is no one size fits all.
When it comes to pricing services, you have to balance your worth with your client's ability
to pay.
Watch now to make sure you aren't leaving any money on the table and then another link
to the video.
And that's all there is to it, to the three steps to writing your marketing emails.
So go ahead and comment below if you have any questions or how to use this template
for your own niche or industry, make sure you hit that like button subscribe for more
deep dive marketing videos, just like this one.
And until the next key building the business you love.