Episode 044: How to Use Emails to Make Friends with Liz Wilcox
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The people who sign up for your email newsletter are actual humans, so what are you doing to connect with them and build trust? In this episode, Liz Wilcox, the Fresh Princess of Email Marketing, joins us to share how you can use your emails to make friends, connect with potential customers, and personalize email templates with your own interests!
The Business-First Creatives Podcast is brought to you by CRM and Dubsado expert Colie James. Join Colie each week as she discuss how to build a business that brings you joy and a paycheck! From business advice with fellow entrepreneurs to sharing automation tips and tricks, Colie and her guests are sharing industry trends and resources, along with a little bit of sarcasm.
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Guest Bio
The Fresh Princess of Email Marketing, Liz Wilcox is an Email Strategist and Keynote Speaker showing small businesses how to build online relationships, package up their “magic” and turn it into emails that people want to read and, most importantly, purchase from.
Here are the highlights…
[1:13] Get to Know Liz
[4:30] Utilizing Templates
[9:00] The Email Staircase Methodology
[12:09] Think of Your Leads as People, Not Numbers
[13:18] Connect in Newsletters through Imagery
[15:10] Connecting Your Personality with Your Audience
[18:14] Personalizing Your Emails with Personal Updates
[22:00] Other Email Types
[25:10] Welcome Series/Sequences
[31:58] The Phrase that Changes Perspective
[35:35] Simplicity in the Email
Want to avoid a blank screen while setting up your Dubsado templates? Steal mine 😍
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MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE
CONNECT WITH LIZ
facebook.com/The-Liz-Wilcox-103239837942432
Review the Transcript:
Colie: Hello. Hello everyone and welcome back to the Business First Creatives podcast. I literally don’t think I’ve ever been this excited for an episode. Today. I have Liz Wilcox herself the fresh princess of email, and that does actually mean something. She’s gonna tell you all about it. But Liz, welcome to my podcast.
How are you today?
Liz: I’m so good and I’m so stoked. I feel like I was getting like extra jazz. I was thinking like, today’s just kind of a rainbow kind of day. I get to meet with you, get on the podcast. I was like, I was so excited. I was even like picking out an outfit. I was like, what can I wear? That’s like cool and fun.
Colie: I approve of Lisa Simpson. 100%.
Liz: awesome. I’m so, I’m stoked.
Colie: So the funny thing about this podcast is while I do have lots of just entrepreneurs, I also have a pretty big audience of just photographers, and I feel like photographers may not know who you are and how awesome you are. So why don’t you tell the listening audience where you’re located and basically what you do for a living.
Because I, I’m gonna be quiet. I’m gonna try to let you talk
Liz: I’ve got a, I’ve got a spiel, I’ve got a spiel, and I actually love helping photographers and other service providers because I feel like, You have the biggest opportunity to, you know, leverage email marketing, but also it’s the simplest thing for photographers. Like you can just show off your pictures, share a couple words.
Anyway. Anyway, what’s up? I’m Liz Wilcox, and you know that feeling you get when you listen to an amazing podcast episode like this and there’s some crazy lady screaming about email marketing and telling you, oh my gosh, for every dollar you spend. 40 bucks in return and you get really hyped up and you go home and you open up your computer and you know, you get on your Convert kit, active campaign, MailChimp, whatever you use, and you say, today’s the day I’m gonna send a newsletter.
And then you, you know, you promptly feel kind of dumb cuz you have no idea what to write. Well, I help you eliminate that problem. I make email marketing super simple, email writing, super simple. I currently live in Orlando, so if you ever come to visit Mickey, uh, hit me up and I cannot wait to share.
Really just the simple tweaks that you can make in all of your emails, any kind of email campaign, to show off you to, see the results that you need to be seeing.
Colie: and guys, Liz is obsessed with rainbows just like me. I feel the need to say that because if you guys are not watching. She has the most awesome like thing on top of her screen. She’s gonna have to tell me how to do it after, so I’m gonna have one of my very own. But I don’t know how I first came across Liz, but I will say I am in her email marketing membership.
which is literally the cheapest thing that you can spend towards your business, and you get such a big return. Guys, I’m talking $9 a month. It’s the most ridiculous thing that you could possibly spend money on for the return that you get. I mean, I will just say like sometimes I sit down and I’m like, I really need to write an email, but I don’t know what the fuck to say.
I just go into Liz’s membership, I find an email that makes me laugh, . I customize it and then I send it out. So if you guys have ever gotten one of my emails and you’re like, that was a really good email, I gotta tell you it was probably cuz of Liz.
Liz: I love that so much, and I, I love that you called it cheap, because honestly, especially in, Colie and I’s world, a lot of people will say, oh, high ticket, high ticket. And there’s nothing wrong with that. But for me, it just wasn’t for me. So I was like, I think I’m gonna do more like Netflix style and I’m just gonna create.
Something where, you know, just like Netflix, you go in, you pick a movie, it’s just like she said, you know, you go in, you pick a template, nine bucks a month, it’s kind of a no-brainer. And it just brings me so much joy to serve people. And now at the time of this recording, , we’ve got something like 2,700 members and it’s, it’s so fun.
And yeah, and I, I really mean it when I say like, I just wanna make this simple for people. I really want to eliminate that. Like she said, like, what the fuck do I write? ? I really wanna eliminate that for you. So I tend to just write things for you,
Colie: And I mean, I will say, so I wasn’t planning on a, starting with this list, but I do wanna talk about templates because I feel like templates get a really bad name. Whether it is a template for an email or a template for a proposal or a template, people are always like, yeah, but if I use a template, it doesn’t sound like me.
So how is it that you help people use the templates inside of your membership so that they are excited about sending the emails but so it still feels very on brand for them, even though you’re providing them with a template to get started.
Liz: Yeah. And you know, of course, like this isn’t meant to be a pitch or anything guys,
Colie: isn’t a pitch, but I
Liz: take it. Yeah,
Colie: when I love something, I talk about it all the time, Liz. So don’t feel bad. I will sing your praises.
Liz: Yeah. And ano another thing is like it’s guilt-free when it’s nine bucks, right? So , so I thought about that in creating, and maybe, you know, as you listen, you think of how to overcome those objections that are likely to come up for whatever it is you’re selling.
Right? And one of mine, like holy just said, is, you know, yeah, I use templates and it sounds like Liz Wilcox. And if you’re not seeing me on the screen right now, even just from what I’ve talked about in. Five minutes, you can probably tell like nobody does Liz Wilcox the way Liz Wilcox does. Right? So, inside the membership.
I actually have like an explanation of the video of why you would send this sort of template. So whether it’s email, social media, whatever kind of templates you’re creating, like when you can tell people why they can already start to get a better f. Feel a firmer grip on what they’re sending out rather than just copy and pasting.
I also give a skeleton outline, so it’s like literally bare bones showing you what’s inside the email. It’s kind of like when you see go on Instagram and there’s that IG guy that’s telling you this is the trending audio. Right. It’s very easy on social media to kind of see patterns. It’s hard with email cuz you can’t subscribe to a thousand people’s emails.
Right. That would be obnoxious.
And so the skeleton outline just shows you kind of like the, again, the bare bones. And then I give you the actual detailed template, which is exactly like madlibs, right? It shows you, you know, like insert adjective here or whatever. And then on top of that, because like she just said, you know, copy and pasting a template can feel very, you know, this isn’t me.
I’ll use it because it’s there, but it doesn’t sound like me. I actually give you two Swipes and swipes are let’s say, a plus examples of something that’s already written. So actually before this call I was writing the templates, uh, for next week’s content. And I actually wrote, the first one was written from the perspective of someone who owns a bar.
So a local based business. Yeah. Super fun. And then the second one is just from a service provider. And now that we’re here, I didn’t get, I didn’t finish writing it. Maybe I’ll write it from a photographer’s perspective, cuz we were talking about photographers right.
Colie: I would appreciate that
Liz: Okay. Awesome. So, really if you create your own templates or if you go into my membership and check it out, really having those examples, I think allows a person, allows your customer to see themselves in it.
Even with the swipes, I’ll often say, oh, this is written from the perspective of someone who is really uncomfortable writing emails, and this is written. Perspective of someone who’s been emailing their list every week for a year. So you can even see different styles. Of course, you know, sometimes I have like grief coaches, so I’ll write it in a more like serious loving tone.
And then the second example will be, you know, maybe someone like Coley or myself who’s like, Hey, I am who I am. Screw off . Uh, you know, and those are two different emails, but it’s coming from the same template, so, Given all those, you know, four or five things I just listed, people can get a really holistic, viewing of what the template is, what it will do for your business, and how you can use it for yourself.
Colie: That was amazing. I’m gonna come back and I’m gonna ask you follow up questions. So number one, you mentioned whether or not you are trying to write your list for the first time, or if you are someone who actually writes your list, like often. So let’s talk about, you know, the elephant in the room. How often should people be emailing their list?
Liz: So it depends. That’s, that’s everybody’s favorite
Colie: I know . I knew you were gonna say that.
Liz: in in general, the general rule of thumb is once a week. Right? I have a methodology called the email staircase. So first you have a follower, you get ’em on your list, you turn them into a friend, and then you turn them into a customer when you have a list full of friends.
So how often do you need to email? Let’s reframe that question. In order to turn these new leads into friends. Now, I don’t mean you know your friend, that you share all your dirty laundry. But somebody that you have something in common with. Right. So, you know, the photographer example, a friend that’s interested in getting family portraits done.
What do you need to tell her in order for her to feel like, yes, you know, that’s the photographer for me. I feel really comfortable with her, especially if you’re doing, maybe you’re doing more of like a studio portrait style, uh, photos. Those people have to feel really comfortable with you. Right. So how often do you.
To email in order for that person to become a friend, in order for that person to feel comfortable with you. And you have your answer there, with photographers and other service providers. It can actually be relatively simple. You can email once a month and go from there. Maybe you decide, oh, I really like email.
After six months, you start to see some results and then you say, okay, I’m gonna go with my once a month newsletter, and then whenever I have a sale or I have an opening, I’m gonna email and you just email more and more. It’s really, you know, you don’t get six pack abs overnight, right? You gotta build up that muscle.
But think of it, not like, oh gosh. You know, the rule of thumb is once a week, what the heck am I gonna say? Every week? Just think of it as, you know, how often do I need to talk to this person in order for them to feel comfortable with me, in order for them to feel, like they know me and that they know that I’m invested in them.
Once you can do that, you know, you’ll really have a good answer on how often you need to email your list.
Colie: Absolutely. And the funny thing is, I mean, I have the photography side of my business and then I have the DTO setup side of my business. And while I email the potential dsto clients every week, because it’s like a business, right? It’s business to business. I send them all kinds of tips and and things about dsto.
I would never do that with my photography clients. Like if I emailed them every week, that would just be so out of place and so overwhelming. They would probably unsubscribe. I mean, those are not people that I need to constantly nurture. , I just need to send them updates. So how I speak to those two different audiences would be very, very different.
And so I’m super happy that you mentioned that. But the one thing that is true, no matter which one of my audiences that I’m talking to, is that I try to pack as much personality into my emails as possible. Which Liz, you are the queen of. So can we talk. Like ways to pack your emails with personality so that you do turn those leads into friends in a timely manner.
Liz: Yeah, so. number one, I just want you to think of your leads not as leads, just as real people. Like if you log into your MailChimp or whatever and you see, you know, Joanna at blue blah, blow.com has joined your list. You know, don’t think, oh, I’ve got another one. Uh, who’s that? DJ Khaled, another one. . Or, you know, don’t think of that.
Think of them as Joanna. Like, oh, I wonder who? , Joanna is, I wonder what she, you know, oh, she signed up through X. That must mean she’s interested in X. What can I say the next time I email, that’s going to help her with X even more, or going to, you know, pique her interest even more. Right? And so I like to think of all my email addresses as real people, and every time that I email, I’m thinking about individual.
People I’m thinking like, oh, you know, I know Coley is a photographer and she just joined my list. What do photographers need to hear in order to feel comfortable enough to email? Right. number two, show, show pictures.
And, Colie, when she emailed me for the first time, she emailed a gif or a gif, we’re not gonna debate how to pronounce it. And it was actually her, like on the teac cubs at Disney World or Disneyland. And I was like, immediately I’m in. Immediately. I know everything that I need to know about her to, you know, like, yes, I’ll come on your podcast.
And by the way, we’re best friends now. , uh, . Allison Wonderland is my favorite. And I also love, you know, going to the Disney theme parks. So when you can. Make your own personalized gifs or you know, even just send a picture. You know, we all know this. A picture is worth a thousand words. So is a gif. It shows a lot of personality without saying one word, and I know that email feels like this.
Not, you’re never gonna untangle. So why not use pictures and gifs and things of that nature to. , uh, you know, say what feels complicated to say, you know, nobody wants to read an email. Like, if she would’ve emailed me, Hey, uh, you know, my name’s Coley da da da da da. I love Allison when I’d be like, why is she telling me this stuff?
Like, just get to the pitch. Right? But the picture. Said all of it without her having to say a word. Right. You know, I think the pitch was like a hundred words. The email was very, very short. But having that gif up top was like, you know, it was everything. And so adding things, not ev, you don’t have to do this in every single email and you don’t even have to have your own, you know, if you share, I know a lot of people love that show, shits Creek,
Colie: I have an entire folder. Liz
Liz: That must be why it’s top of mind, because you sent me an email today, like, don’t forget, we’re talking and I think Eugene
Colie: It had one in it. Yep.
Liz: And so if you’re into that show, you know, putting that into your emails, you know, every once in a while, once a month, once every six weeks, putting something in your personality into your emails is gonna say a lot by saying a little right.
If you go to liz wilcox.com or you’re watching this video, or you heard Coley say, Lisa Simpson, I’m wearing Lisa Simpson right now. Right? That shares a little bit of Liz without having to say like, oh, Liz is a nineties fanatic. You know, I’ve got Will Smith on my mug here. I’ve got like cassette. Eminem cassette tapes on my mug.
My other mug is like literally from 1997, you know, like I’m very much a nineties freak, , I’ve got rainbow glasses. And so sharing pictures or even, you know, gifs of other things, or even just mentioning, oh, today I’m wearing my Lisa Simpson sweater. Uh, it’s cold where I am. How about you? That tells you something without having to say a lot.
Colie: I, yeah, I mean, and it was funny that you did come around to Schitts Creek cuz in my mind I was like, yeah, I mean, and I feel like a good mix, or at least I try to have a good mix of gifts that are just me and then ones that are pop culture. But one thing that I’ve realized that I have to be very careful of.
as I get older, my audience isn’t necessarily the same age as me. So like I was talking to someone today and I realized that she was born the year before I graduated high school. So some of the things that I might mention, as a person who loves the nineties and the eighties, just like Liz, I mean, those just might not hit with them.
But I will say one of the things that I love about Liz is that she packs every single one of her emails with personality. and her branding as the fresh princess of email is so on point that, I mean, I think the only thing that rivals it is like my branding with Disney, cuz in case you can’t see, I have a picture,
I mean there’s all kinds of Disney pictures on my wall, but when people think of Coley, I really do want them to associate it with Disney. And I feel like. For you. I associate everything in the night. I mean all the boys bands, all the Will Smith, everything. I associate it with you. And I do think that part of that, it’s not just what I see online with you, but also reading your emails every single week.
Cuz I do read your emails, Liz, every single week.
Liz: That’s, that’s so awesome and great to hear. And if you’re thinking like, oh, I don’t have a person, like I’m not a loud person like Coley or Liz, you don’t have to be, but you do have personality. If you’re thinking like, oh, you know, I don’t know what to share. I don’t know, uh, you know how to tell these amazing stories or just name drop Lisa Simpson sweater.
What I want you to do in every email, and I know a lot of email marketers, if you’ve listened to other podcasts or been on webinars or whatever, a lot of people will tell you to tell stories. I actually hate that advice. I feel like that’s why nobody emails because suddenly, like if you’re telling a story, suddenly you’re in 10th grade English class and Mrs.
Miller is over your shoulder and being like, , you know, you introduced a new idea in your conclusion and therefore you’re an idiot , right? I just want you to forget about Mrs. Miller and this will help with per, you know, sharing a little bit of personality too at the beginning of every email instead of trying to say like, oh, I’ve gotta tell this story and segue it into, uh, you know, my services or whatever.
Just give a personal update. Just share two to three sentences about something that you’ve done since the last time you emailed. So if I was writing my email today, you know, be, oh, I was on this podcast interview, uh, I didn’t realize we were recording for YouTube and my daughter trashed my living room, and that’s just gonna be in there forever, right?
Two to three. That’s two to three sentences. And then I can say, anyway. You know, don’t forget I’ve got 25% off until Friday, or, you know, whatever, right? I’ve got two bookings for X, Y, Z, my join, my non membership, like what? I got a new blog post, whatever actual content you wanna share. , but what I didn’t mention earlier about turning people into friends is just share in a relatable way.
Just be relatable and I want you to know like relatable is not the same thing as interesting. When we tell a story, we’re trying to be interesting, and that’s really hard to do. That’s when all that. You know, imposter syndrome or you know, I’m not interesting. I don’t do anything. You know, I’ve got, I’ve just got kids carpool’s, not interesting.
I don’t have a story, you know. , but when you can be relatable, suddenly everything in your life is relatable because humans want to relate to humans. Right. Even if, you know, I mentioned the nineties and you’re like, oh, well to Coley’s point, I was born in the seventies. I’m an, I like the eighties better.
You are relating, oh, Liz likes Will Smith, like I love DJ Jazzy, Jeff. Liz loves in sync. I’m b t s crazy cuz I was born in 2006. Right? You’re relating in some way, you’re trying to find a connection. So stop trying to be interesting in your emails and when you think about your personality and how to tell stories or whatever, just think, you know, how can I just be relatable?
Walking the dog is relatable. you know, even Coley and I related cuz we’re wearing the same type of glasses. You know, anything can be relatable, right? And so when you can do that, you know, suddenly it kind of takes the pressure off. It’s like that release valve of email marketing and suddenly that knot we were talking about starts to untangle itself and you can really get going with your newsletters.
Colie: Yeah. I will say last night, my relatable piece of news that I’m gonna put in my newsletter for this week is that I cooked a roast and no one ate, but me , and I know that there are so many moms that are gonna be like, yes, I keep on cooking. Food and none of my family wants to eat it with me. I mean, it’s fine.
My roast was delicious and I just told them, y’all are on your own. Make whatever you want. But I mean, I sat down, I thought about the roast I ordered, you know, the ingredients, had ’em delivered. I was really excited and my husband took one bite and walked away and my kid was like, nah, in case you can’t see me, I’m doing a thumbs down.
And she was like, can I have a hotdog?
Liz: Oh my gosh. Yeah.
Colie: Yeah.
Liz: Yeah. But even that sentence, coli just said about like, I made a roast and no one ate it. Like even if she just put an emoji, like the thumbs down emoji at the end, like that could be the only sentence she writes. And then she segues into, you know, I’ve got three spots for X, Y, Z, like, Newsletter done.
And I know Colie, you wanted to talk about, other types of emails. You can do that in other types of, like, we were talking about this, you know, we have this podcast coming up and Coley’s sending me emails. And even the one this morning was so good. It was just, you know, hey, in case you need a reminder, and it was Lu Eugene Levy, you know, like waving at me or doing whatever, like, don’t forget.
And it was just, Again, it was probably like 50 words, a picture of Eugene Levy. I was like, oh yeah, I do have that interview. Let me go put on something nineties. Let me take a shower. Right? And it was just so simple, but it was so packed with personality. And guess what? I was two minutes early to the interview, , because I remembered, right?
So you can do this in all, in all your, emails.
Colie: Yeah, I mean, cuz when Liz usually talks, she’s usually talking about newsletters and then welcome series, which is what we’re gonna talk about next. But one of the things that I brought up to her, cuz of course you guys are my listening audience and you know, I do all of the Dubsado stuff where I feel like people fall flat.
is you write good newsletters and you, you know, you get a good welcome series if you have a freebie or when someone just joins your emails for the love of emails. But when people think about writing things that happen after someone inquires, like a lead automated response, I’ve talked about that ad nauseum guy, so I’m not gonna make Liz go over it, but we were just having a very brief conversation about making sure that the things that she’s teaching you to put in your newsletter and your welcome series.
Carry over into what we would consider to be very mundane reminder emails. Cuz like Liz said, she’s on my podcast. I sent her, this is how many emails I sent Liz guys, I sent her an email to invite her. . I sent her a confirmation email after she scheduled, I sent her one reminder yesterday that said, tomorrow’s the day.
And then I sent her another email today. I can’t remember if it was one hour or 10 minutes. It was probably one hour, but that’s four different emails that I sent Liz and every single one of them was packed with like, My kind of personality because it sounded like me. I used a gift that was very on brand for me and I’m basically just sending these emails so that people don’t forget about me and that they get the important piece of information, which for this podcast was, don’t forget you agreed to be on my podcast, Show up so that I’m not sitting here alone. But Liz, this is the perfect place for us to segue.
Into talking about a welcome series and I wanna admit to you guys, I think what pushed me over the edge, cuz like I said, I love Liz, I’m in her membership, but literally what pushed me to contact her was she was recently on the top copy to me podcast, I think I was driving to the airport to pick my mother up.
I’m pretty sure that’s what I was doing. But I was listening to this podcast and when Liz was talking about how to write an effective welcome series, and I think she gave like four bullet points that you should do, I literally pulled my car over and made notes, , like I’m on the way to the airport to get my mom.
And I pulled over, I made my notes and my daughter was like, what are you doing? And I’m like, I have to write this down before I forget. And when I got home, I rewrote my entire welcome series for my course student. So if you’ve gotten that email, Thank you, Liz. But Liz, let’s talk about the welcome series.
So why is a welcome series so important, and then what are like the four key things that we should keep in mind when we are crafting a new welcome series, or we’re giving our current ones an upgrade?
Liz: Yeah. So again, I’m gonna refer back to the email staircase, right? Follower, friend, customer. We’ve got to start the friendship, right? And. It doesn’t. So if you, if you started emailing today, you know, you listened to this podcast, you’re like, oh, this is great. I haven’t emailed my list in three months, but dang it, I’m excited.
Liz is dope. Like, let’s go and you email your list. Your, if you, if you never had a welcome sequence in the first place, or if you haven’t emailed it in a long time, you’re probably not gonna see the results that I was talking about at the beginning of, you know, for every dollar you get 40 bucks in return, et cetera.
You have to have a firm foundation, and that firm foundation is your welcome sequence. So I look at emails as you know, number one, if we’re going with the friendship thing, like number one, you’ve gotta start the friendship. That’s the welcome sequence. Continue the friendship. Are the newsletters and solidify the friendship?
Are those sales emails? Are those automations? You know, hey ladies, show up to this thing you sent. You were gonna show up to right. And so we have to start the friendship somewhere. We have to build that foundation, and that is within the welcome sequence itself. If you do not have a proper welcome sequence, I, I don’t even know what you’re doing.
It’s like taking, you know, taking a photo if you don’t have a proper lens, right? Like, if you, you know what I mean? Like, if you, if somebody hired you and paid $5,000 and you’re showing up with your iPhone, they’re not gonna get what they thought they were gonna get, right? They’re gonna be like, mm. And so it’s the same, it’s the same as, uh, you know, if you don’t have a welcome sequence and somebody just starts emailing you, they have no idea.
You know, what the picture’s gonna turn out to be. They have no idea what it is they’re even doing on this list, especially if you’re building your list, with a lot of, either you’re doing like in-person networking, oh yeah, let me, you know, join my list for, you know, more info on whatever. Or if you’re getting a lot of people from some sort of freebie or lead magnet, they have to know where the bus is.
So within the welcome sequence itself, I really want you to do three things, and we already talked a lot about the first, so you’ve got to share some personality, your vision for your clients or students, and some values. Okay. I’m actually gonna put that if you’re watching the YouTube, you can see it on the screen now.
So the welcome sequence should show off your personality, your vision and values. We talked about personality. Again, if you feel like you don’t have a loud one like me, you know there are certain parts of your personality. Pick the ones that you want to, You know, portray and put them out there. Again, you can pick pop culture, you can pick, you know, something that you drink, a favorite character of yours.
It can be very simple until you feel more vulnerable to open up about different parts of your personality. Right? And so within that, Well, I’m gonna share a sentence in a second that you can steal. Then you also wanna share your vision. So where is it you want people to go? So thi I like to think of it as like Liz Wilcox University.
If you are walking across Liz Wilcox University, what is that degree that I’m handing you again for me? , you make money with email. I don’t care about your Instagram, I don’t care about your podcast downloads, nothing. I only care about how you can make money with email. That is the very specific vision I have for you.
So you might wanna, you know, like co said, pull over, write that down and think about later what is the vision you actually have for your students, your clients, your members, whatever words you wanna use, right? Really think about the vision, and you have to share that within the welcome sequence because again, they.
Kind of, sort of hopped on the bus. They got your freebie or they gave you your email ad their email address, but they need to know exactly where the bus is going. The last thing I’ll say about the vision as a, as a sort of visual for you, like you guys have seen again nineties, you’ve seen Forrest Gump, right? Colie, you’ve seen this. So, you know when Forrest, he starts running and then he’s gaining all these followers and they’re like literally just following him around and you know, he is in the desert. and he turns around and he is like, well, I think I go home now. And everybody turns around and they’re like, well, what are we supposed to do now, bro?
like, we’re in the middle of the desert. Don’t do that to your clients. And also that, that’s a movie that’s like Spielberg or whoever directed it. People are not going to blindly follow you into the desert just because you’re emailing them. , they have to know exactly where they’re going and why they’re going there.
So share the vision directly in your welcome sequence so people can say, oh yes, that’s exactly where I wanna go. I do need, uh, a studio portraits done, or, yes, I do need to get my email act together. I do need to finally figure out, do Soto so I can do X, Y, z. Share that vision right then and there. And then you can share a little bit of.
Now, this is not to say spew your politics everywhere and anytime something happens in the media, you have to, you know, send out a press release on your opinion, right? That’s not what I’m saying. We’ve, we’ve all seen, uh, some small business owners do that, and it’s good and bad, but there are certain values that drive the way you do business, drive how you do business, and you should share those upfront so people can know.
Yes, I’m fully aligned with that. I wanna be this person’s friend, right? I want, I’m starting to feel comfortable with them. So for me, one of mine, and we, we talked about my membership earlier, one of my core values in my business is affordability. When I started my business, I had exactly $0, and I just got really tired of people telling me, well, if you were really committed, you would buy this.
I’m like, girl, I’m committed as hell, but my bank account, You know, and so that’s part of my value system, and that’s what drives the way I do business. And so I share that right upfront in the welcome sequence so people know, oh, that’s the reason why her membership is $9, not because it’s not valuable.
This is just something she values. And so you can share those upfront. And what I wanna. The last piece, cuz I know I’ve rambled a lot here to share your personality and vision. You can do this very quickly in the very first email you sent. You can deliver the freebie, you can intro whatever, make it quick and then say, oh, by the way, my name’s Liz.
As much as I love the nineties. That’s that personality piece. As much as I love x, I love the idea of you making money. with email even more. Boom. I’ve shared a little bit of personality. Oh, she’s a nineties chick. Okay, I know a little bit more about her and I’ve shared the vision.
Oh, she wants me to make money with email. Suddenly they are really on the bus or they are really off. Nope, hate the nineties. I’m too old for this chick. You know, I’m outta here. or whatever, like, no, I’m not really ready to commit to email. Uh, you know, and so it’s, it’s meant to be a statement that really gets people on board, and you can put that right in the first email.
You know, as much as I love x I love the idea of y even more, please steal it. Write it down. Take
Colie: Oh, I did. As much
as I love Disney , I love the idea of you stop wasting your time running your business behind the scenes more. That’s what I updated my email to be. So yes, I did,
Liz: Mic drop. Amen. I love that. Yeah. And it’s just a simple sentence. And you know, even if you take no more advice from Liz Wilcox today, like just add that sentence and you can even steal that sentence and just drop it in there every few months. Put it in those automations, like when somebody signs up. A consult call or whatever, you know, you could put it in a ps, I know you already signed up, but in case you weren’t aware, you know, I love Disney, but I love blah blah blah more.
And it’s just this reminder, right. Just the way Coli remind.
Colie: value. Yep.
Liz: Yeah, like she reminded me, Hey lady, you signed up for this. It’s like reminding them like of who you are. Exactly. And you know why you signed up like these. This is what I’m all about. Hopefully you’re on board.
Colie: And I will say like that was actually what made me pull over because what I didn’t realize, listening to what other people told me my welcome sequence should include. My first email was always just, Hey, here’s the freebie. that you told me that you wanted, download it and I’ll be back in your inbox tomorrow with more tips.
That was literally the first email of every single one of my welcome sequences. I didn’t talk about who I was. I didn’t talk about what I did. It was, Hey, you signed up for this thing. Here it is. And don’t forget, I’m gonna be back tomorrow. So, I mean, I did like I was setting the table for them to look for an email from me tomorrow, but the one thing that I got from you that I hadn’t really thought about, If your email, if your welcome series is three emails, four emails, five emails, it doesn’t matter. No matter how interesting your emails are, that first email is the one that’s gonna get opened the most because it has the thing that says, here you go. And so I never really thought about leveraging the fact that that’s the one email that, I mean, you know, it might get like a 90% open rate and automatically your second email is going to be lower.
Because if people just wanted the. , then they’ve already downloaded it and you didn’t get to give them that extra value that went along with the freebie. So yeah, Liz, that’s what I pulled over and I was like, okay, email number one, it’s gotta get rewritten for all of
Liz: love that. Well, I love what she just said about, you know, it, it really should be a quick email. Hey, here’s the freebie. Here’s what you, you know, here’s what’s inside piece out. But adding that, like, oh, that’s why I say, oh, by the way, , I’m Liz. The one thing you’ve gotta know is blah, blah, blah. Right? Like just that.
Very simple. This is not us telling you to make your first email really long and tell
everybody you know, you know your mother’s story and all about your ancestors and whatever that comes next, right? We’re just starting the friendship. And so, you know, think of it like if we went to an event together, we sat down, we shook your hands.
Oh yeah, my name’s Liz. . I do email. You know, I love the nineties, but I love email more, you know, and then the, the guy on stage starts talking and we stop talking too. Right. You know, we’re just starting that conversation. So yeah, keep it quick, but definitely add a little bit of the personality and the vision so that, you know, instead of saying, oh, by the way, I’m gonna email you tomorrow.
It’s like, okay, don’t care. You know, it’s like, oh, this chick’s kind of cool. I’m gonna open that email tomorrow.
Colie: Yeah. And the funny thing is, when you just said the meeting in person, I had this vision of someone literally sitting next to me at a party and just telling me their whole life story. And that is what you want to avoid, guys. Like, even though it’s email, it’s the same thing. You would not sit down next to someone at a party and tell them your entire life story, like how you met your husband, how you had babies, what you do for a living.
Like that’s just not appropriate. So keep that. , you know, energy going when you write your emails.
Liz: And that’s why, that’s why I call, I say like, turn them into a friend. Right. Because you wouldn’t start a friendship like that. Exactly. I I love that. At a party. Yeah. Totally. Wildly inappropriate
Colie: So, Liz, is there anything else that you wanna say about a welcome series? Because I feel like you just dropped so much knowledge that literally everyone should be either writing a welcome sequence if you don’t already have one, or basically upgrading the one that you have to, you know, turn it more into a conversation short and sweet in the beginning, and then you build with each.
Liz: Yeah, the only thing I’ll say, you know, just remember personality, vision, values, and if you’re having a hard time conceptualizing this, or if you’re looking at your welcome sequence or thinking about it and you’re like, yeah, I know this is way off. , it’s not performing the way it should, but I don’t know what I should do.
You can just go to liz wilcox.com. There’s a hot pink button in the top right hand corner, and you can just sign up and I’ll give you an entire welcome sequence that’s already written, for you. That way, you know, you can just, again, like, just steal my strategies, steal my methodology, take out Liz, put in you, and you know you’ll be good to.
You can also always just email me any questions. I’m available, baby
Colie: All right, Liz, I think that’s a good place for us to stop. I am gonna have all of Liz’s, contact information, including a link to her amazing membership in the show notes. Liz, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast. I have loved having you.
Liz: Yeah, this was so fun. I cannot wait to see what everybody does with their emails, so I’ll talk to you soon.
Colie: Yeah. Thanks guys. That’s it for this episode. See you next.
