“Building a Better Email Strategy: Tips for Engagement and Growth”

We are continuing our series for the month of May on email marketing reset. Today  is entitled “Building a Better Email Strategy: Tips for Engagement and Growth” with special guest Claire Winson. We will discuss ways you can re-engage with subscribers who may not be opening your emails and how to stay connected to those that are. Claire is a Christian entrepreneur and copywriting expert, passionate about helping Christian business owners align their work with God’s purpose. With over 12 years of experience in marketing and PR, she has worked with top brands like Dave Ramsey, McDonald’s, and Macy’s. As a mom and entrepreneur in Tennessee, Claire combines faith, business acumen, and down-to-earth wisdom to inspire others to use their businesses as mission fields, leaving a lasting impact for God’s Kingdom.

How to Begin

Alyssa: For this month we have been talking about email marketing. This is one of the favorite topics among my listeners because it is such an important piece of their business. We are basically doing an email marketing reset for the month of May, and I wanted to bring you on when I saw that you had this area of expertise and could help those of us who struggle with this.

What I want to talk about first is if someone is trying to do a reset for their email marketing strategy and maybe they have not been consistently engaging with their list as much as they should. How can they begin to re-engage their list?

Claire: That is such a fantastic question, and I say that because the world tells us that you need to do this, you need to show up every week, you need to have an open rate of this, you need to have a click-through rate of this. When we don’t have that we’re afraid to look at the numbers. It ends up in guilt and shame and the feeling of “I haven’t done it, I’ve got to do it”.

It creates a spiral where we’ve put so much pressure on ourselves that we can’t perform at all, and it just becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I wanna make emails fun again, it’s not something that should be a drudgery. When the world is saying that you need this, that, and the other things, I want you to completely ignore it.

It’s like running in a race against other people, but you’re also running against yourself. That’s exactly what’s happening in your email. So it doesn’t matter right now whether you have a 10% open rate or a 60% open rate, whether you have been consistent every week or every day, or you haven’t been consistent, you get to start where you are right now.

Know the Numbers

Claire: Where you start right now is simply knowing the numbers. We are afraid to look at our numbers, but we shouldn’t be. It really doesn’t matter what the industry is doing. It only matters what you are doing. When you look and see how big your list is, how many people open, and how many people click through, that’s your starting point.

Let’s make it fun! Make it a challenge to ourselves every week or however often you are going to send your emails out. How do you do better every week? If you are at 20% this week, who cares what the industry says. How do you make it 20.5 next week? How do you make it 21 the week after that?

It’s just a game that you’re playing on your own. Take that pressure off. You can play with things, like your subject obviously matters, the topic that you’re talking about, but then also your subject line. So play with it. Write it so that it drives curiosity but is also clear. Take the pressure off and have fun with it.

Claire: Re-engage with the list itself and have the list re-engage with you. As you are sending them out, I want you to look back and see, for example, who has not opened in the last three months. Three months is a good point to look at. You are going to look at the people who have not opened and try and re-engage with them specifically.

This isn’t just a vanity thing, we want more people to open our email list, but it affects your deliverability. It’s a big word for me to say, deliverability. In other words, your email providers, like Yahoo and Gmail, will look and see if the emails are being opened. If they’re not, they are going to assume that your emails are not interesting and will actually send the email to spam not only for that person, but other people on that list as well. That’s a big deal!

So while we wanna hold our numbers close to our chest, if you’ve got 500, a thousand, whatever it is on your list right now, and we don’t wanna get rid of them, it actually affects deliverability if they aren’t opening them so you may want to declutter them .

Send a Special Email

Claire: So that’s a re-engagement campaign we need to put together for those people. It is usually two or three emails and should be really easy to put together. You’ll segment that list of who hasn’t opened in three months as an example. It will depend how often you send emails.

If someone hasn’t opened in the last three months, you are gonna send them something super juicy. A one-on-one PDF depending on how many people you’ve got on that list. Something that is just so irresistible and make it really clear in the subject line that this is for them.

Alyssa: So you would segment your list down and pull out using your software, those that have not opened in the last three months, and send this particular email just to those people, correct?

Claire: Correct. What we want is to have people to open the emails, but we also only want people to stay if they are the right people. It’s more important to speak to a smaller audience than a bigger audience that’s not listening. Not only because it’s just a waste reaching the wrong people, but it actually does affect the deliverability for everybody. So whittle that list down. If someone has opened, then they would be moved off that segmented list and you’ve decreased that. Then you send that special email again to the people who have not opened in the last three months.

It could be something fun like “Are we breaking up?” “Is it me? Did I say something?” “Hey, I miss you” and a little emoji. Something like that. It’s cute and fun and it just gets someone’s attention and you don’t feel like “Oh, I’m getting sold to”.

Alyssa: Yeah, I’ve gotten that type of email.

Claire: For me, I would talk about sales pages, emails, funnel DIY, that kind of a thing. They can click and it would go to a thank you page. Then you’ve got them recorded. If you don’t wanna do that, you could just say “Hey, hit reply and let me know which one of these topics is most interesting to you”. Now you have made it about your reader. If you have time or a VA, you can make these links to the thank you pages.

If they are really interested about one, all they have to do is just reply back and say “Sales Pages”. When they’ve opened they get moved off the segmented list and we’re just whittling it down for the people who really wanna stay. You could honestly just leave it at that stage if they didn’t open any of them or you could send a final one just saying “Hey, it doesn’t look like you’re interested. Let me know if you want to stay. I can take you off the list. I don’t want to make you have to get my emails”.

Alyssa: Yeah, exactly! I’ve received emails like that and been in the receiving end but I’ve never sent an email like that. I like that option to do that because I feel like that way you’re not paying for it anymore if you’re paying per subscriber. I did not realize that it did that amount of damage to all of your lists and those that are receiving your emails cannot receive them anymore and go to spam. So that’s good to know.

Claire: So if you are paying for a particular number of subscribers, you’ve got that to worry about. Then you have the deliverability to worry about. Rather than clinging to this big number that maybe people aren’t opening, just whittle it down to a smaller audience who really is engaged. Then you can build it back up from there. At least you’ve got your ideal audience on that list and they’re reading it.

How to Keep Them

Alyssa: Another piece that we talk about is as you’re re-engaging, you will also wanna keep those who have started following on your list. One of the things I’ve always encouraged people to do is to have a nurture sequence or a strong welcome sequence. So, could you give our listeners some advice on how to create that strong welcome sequence?

Claire: Yes, this is my favorite thing I am so glad that you asked that, Alyssa. The welcome sequence, that first one, is usually the delivering of what you are offering. The PDF, the free course, or the class, whatever it is. Most funnel platforms will do a very simple template of “Here’s your offer. Thanks” it’s just automated and so we leave it at that, however this is your gold mine email. It is the only email that they’ve asked you to send. They’re putting up with the rest, but this is the one that they’ve asked for and they’re expecting it. So out of all your open rates, this should be the highest.

Alyssa: The highest. Yep.

Claire: We want to really use that opportunity. This email you know they are going to read. What we normally do is just send out that PDF, leave it at that. We then start the nurturing in the next one with something like “Hey, my name’s Alyssa. This is what I do. This is my background”. We might have lost them already because all they wanted was that freebie. So let’s use that first email to really engage them.

I call it my Basecamp email and I let people know right off the bat “Hey, Welcome. Here’s your PDF. Save this email”. Inside, I’ll curate a small list of other places, where I am that I want them to follow, but not just a simple, “Hey, follow me on Facebook. Let’s connect on Instagram” but specific posts, blogs, or a podcast episode.

An example of this could be, lets say you’re a health coach. I’m gonna make something up here but you might say something along the lines of “Most coaches say you have to exercise 45 minutes a day in order to lose weight. That is completely wrong. Watch this short video that I did on Facebook where I explain what’s really going on”.  You are not just sending them to Facebook to fall down the rabbit hole. There’s a very specific thing that you want them to watch that would probably interest them based on the fact that that have downloaded that PDF.

Or something like “Hey, I talk about emails all the time. You have to see this podcast that I did with Alyssa where I spoke about how to re-engage an audience”.  Make sure they are not just opening your emails and getting lost into social media. They should contain specific things that you have curated for them.

It could be a YouTube video, or maybe you could say “This is the most controversial thing that I’ve ever said. Click here for that one”. Or “This was my most popular Facebook post that I ever did. Want to see why? Click here”.

Email is so important compared to social media in some ways because that’s your list and you get to keep them and no one’s can take that list away. At the same time, there’s no real engagement on an email. It really is just you talking to them. Your social media can be where you’ve got engagement, where if they’re on Instagram, they’re gonna see you once they’re following you.

Too often we just say “Oh, follow me on X, Y, Z”. Then we leave it or we say the same things that everybody else is saying and people stop hearing it. It’s like talking to your kids the 10th time you’ve asked them to clean up their room. They ain’t listening anymore.

Alyssa: Yeah, they gloss over it.

Claire: You got to say something different, and that’s what this welcome email is doing. It’s saying “Hey, don’t just follow me on Facebook. Here’s a specific post that you might love” and than tell them what it is. You could be talking about the biggest mindset issue that plagues authors. Whatever it is it needs to be something specific to get them over there. They then start to engage and you’re now in that person’s world in multiple places.

Alyssa: Right and it’s not just like a blanket statement of ” follow me here or there” like you say, it intrigues them and gets them curious to actually go and click those links and follow you in those other places.

It’s In the Click

Alyssa: From what I understand about Facebook, it engages them with the algorithm and they’re gonna see you more often. So that’s even helping you over on your social platforms as well.

Claire: Yeah, exactly. And it’s also the clickthrough rate on the email. It can be really difficult. How do you get somebody to click the link? When you’re starting off on the right foot then they will get used to clicking on the links. This will help you increase that open rate. When it comes time to actually sell an offer or promote an offer, you are going to want them to click the link because it’s gonna go to either a checkout page, sales page or something else. You want people to be used to seeing that button or link.

Alyssa: Yes, exactly. So they’ll actually want to click when you add important links like that in the future. I love that because I have never put very much in my welcome email other than “Here’s your freebie” “Here’s how to go get it” that kind of stuff.

I would start to engage them in the other emails. It is super helpful to know that we can start from the beginning at the very first email because that’s the one that people open the most. I can attest to this. I have had dozens of lead magnets over the years and have almost a hundred percent open rate on those.

Plan Ahead

Alyssa: So the purpose after we get them into our sequence is to ultimately sell to them in the future. What are some ways that we can use the content we already have, to align them with the offers that we want to ultimately give them?

Claire: Great question. So I think this happens in two ways. One is to plan ahead. Always plan ahead. Sit down and look three to six months out. Where are you anticipating launching something? Mark that in a calendar. Now, if you have a one-on-one service provider, you might think “Oh, I don’t launch per se because its mostly done for me”. You still wanna promote offers at least once a month.

Unless you have income coming and you’re generating revenue, you don’t have a business. It could be something like a small workshop or a small course. You should promote something once a month. If we you look long term over three to six months, decide what you will promote each month and on what days. This is where your launch sequence would go. Then you can fill in the blanks on what would naturally lead into that particular offer.

Avoid Mistakes

Claire: One of the biggest mistakes that we all make is we think “Oh, I’ll give you some tips, and then when you can see my expertise, you’ll come back for the whole course”. That often backfires because when we’re giving a small tip to somebody, we are the expert in what we do, and we can really gloss over how difficult something might be for someone who doesn’t have all that expertise and background knowledge.

Here’s an example. I can tell you right now how to write a sales page. Sales pages are like the bread and butter of my business. You need a great headline, you need the problem, you need to agitate the problem, and write the solution. Additionally you have got to introduce the offer, features, the benefits, your guarantee, your frequently asked questions, and we’ll sprinkle some testimonials.

All of that was true, but I haven’t actually equipped somebody to go and do it. However in their mind they may think “oh, okay, I can do that” but they won’t get the same results.

I have a functional medicine client, who is absolutely amazing. She did a challenge where she said to beat brain fog and dementia, you need to essentially eat better, exercise, drink more water, sleep more, and decrease your stress. By the end of that, you may say “Why would I need to spend money on a course when I can do this myself?” We’ve got to be really careful that we’re not giving, with our best intentions, all of these things that cannot actually get the results by oversimplifying it.

Compare

Claire: Another way of looking at, instead of looking at tips on how to do things, is to look at how you do things differently compared to what the world says. For me, an example would be “The world, other copywriters and people in the industry will say this is what the industry standard is for an open rate, a conversion rate, an unsubscribe rate. I think that’s a mistake. This is why I think it’s a mistake and this is what you should do”.

Find your thing. What do you do differently? The world says one thing, but you say something else. Those are the kinds of things that you want talk about. What heats you up about your industry? What makes you really upset? Talk about those things.

Final Tips

Claire: Talk about the solutions from a higher level. I might talk about the importance of a sales page or what a sales page can do for you. Not because I don’t want you to have the tips, but because they’re not gonna be helpful. I do want someone to believe that they’re launched and that their emails are important. So you look at your own industry and that’s what you’re gonna talk about prior to launch emails. Sales emails are a totally different ball game, but we’re talking about the three weeks of the month when you’re not launching. You still want them in the frame of mind.

You could share testimonials or you can also look at objections and at frequently asked questions and then weave those into your emails. This way they’re already thinking on a higher level about the topic that you’re gonna introduce or sell. That’s what I would suggest, rather than doing the tips, that’s how you weave it into your content naturally so that when you go and sell something, people are ready to buy it.

Alyssa: That makes total sense. I love that. Well I have learned a lot on our short time together and appreciate you being on the podcast. I wanted to give you a chance to share with our listeners where they can find you and learn more about you if they are interested.

Claire: That’s great. Thank you so much for that opportunity. I spend most of my time on Facebook, so you can find me there. Send me a friend request on my profile, Claire Winson. I talk a lot about emails, about funnels, and about sales pages. I’d love to connect with your listeners right there.

Alyssa: That sounds great. That’s actually where I found you. We connected over on Facebook, so that’s perfect. I appreciate you being on the podcast.

Claire: Thank you so much.