Market Your Business Weekly with Email with Dama Jue [Marketing with Intention]

Do you hesitate to invest time into email marketing due to all of the different rules you have to follow? In today’s episode, Dama Jue joins us to share the rules she’s breaking in her own email marketing strategy that are helping her find success! Plus, listen in as she walks us through her approach to a nurture sequence and the one section of her emails that is driving additional revenue with minimal effort!

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Guest Bio:

Dama is a funnel strategist and Thrivecart expert who loves helping biz owners build a profitable and impactful online presence through strategic funnels and all the automation you never knew you needed with high-impact-low-stress trainings and templates. Don’t miss her collection of modern, conversion-optimized Thrivecart templates!

Today’s episode is brought to you by my Content Organization Hub! If you are drowning in a sea of post its trying to keep track of all your content ideas or maybe you’re struggling to remember what you posted on which platform and when, I totally get it.

That’s why I created the content organization hub for Airtable for just $9. You can finally put an end to content chaos. Imagine having all your marketing content in one central location. Easily linked, perfectly organized, and ready to go whenever you are. Grab the Content Organization Hub and get 10% off with code PODCAST!

Here are the highlights…

The Power of Email Marketing

3:04 – Breaking Rule #1

5:38 – Breaking Rule #2

9:28 – Breaking Rule #3

15:31 – Conversions & Selling in Your Emails

16:54 – Nurture Sequences

19:07 – Getting Organized with Email through Airtable & Zapier

21:06 – Evaluating Email Campaign Success

21:33 – Airtable for Email Management

22:04 – Writing Emails in Different Platforms

24:02 – The Power of Drip for Email Automation

26:07 – Maintaining Evergreen Email Sequences

28:37 – The 4×4 Footer Strategy

36:54 – Affiliate Marketing Insights

41:50 – Starting and Growing Your Email List

Connect with Dama

Website: damajue.com

Instagram: instagram.com/damajue

Facebook: facebook.com/damajuellc

4×4 training: 4 by 4 Footer Training (aff link)

Threads: threads.net/@damajue

Shop: thrivecarttemplateshop.com

Instagram: instagram.com/thrivecarttemplateshop

Facebook: facebook.com/thrivecarttemplateshop

Review the Transcript:

Colie: Hello. Hello. And welcome back to the business first creatives podcast today. I’m chatting with my good friend, Dama Jue and we have this plant. Okay, guys, like we don’t have strict notes, but I have questions that we are going to hit. And I promise that this conversation is going to be amazing. And especially with my newfound love of email marketing, Dama, good morning, and welcome to the podcast.

Dama: Hello. Hello. Thank you for having me friend.

Colie: Let’s just kick off with email marketing. Why is email marketing like the hill that you will die on? The one thing that you will never give up in your business.

Dama: She’s my one true love. When I was a little kid, I used to write short stories and I secretly thought I would be a writer, but then like first gen daughter of immigrants, like you must go and make money. You must have the opportunities that like we didn’t have when we came to this country. So I went to school, I went to school for accounting and business and finance and writing.

We just don’t do that. You just write the driest email possible. So I didn’t have this. Outlet and my corporate career. It wasn’t until I started my business and it wasn’t until I started email marketing for my business where I was like, well, this is cute. I like this. And then not only is it like satisfying to write and I really literally just write like I sound, but then I started learning.

Funnels and learning conversion copywriting. And I invested thousands of dollars in learning how to do conversion copywriting. And I was like, Oh, this is how we buy my husband a new truck. This is how we buy me a new house. And like, this is how I’m getting paid. And so, yes, as a big fat data nerd, I can simply say the numbers are there.

All my sales for them. A lot of my sales, the majority of my sales come from email marketing, but I have tested. Ads. I have tested social media. I track the numbers on all of that and baby, it ain’t it. It’s all about email marketing. The numbers don’t lie.

Colie: Your return on investment is incredible, which guys we are going to actually talk about some data because she is a data nerd. And of course I love data too. So anytime someone brings like the receipts, the numbers, I am all about it. But when someone, I would say most people, when they come on my podcast and they talk about email marketing, they’ve all got some rules that they like for everybody to do, right?

They tell you, you know, you must give somebody a freebie to get on your email list. You must nurture them before you ask for the sale. And you should only ask for the sale so many times. So Dama, I’m going to start with. What are the rules that you choose to ignore in your email marketing that everyone else says is a must do when you write emails?

Dama: I kind of a lot of them. I first of all ignore that you, have to send value only emails. like periodically or when somebody first gets on your list, serve the heck out of them. Value, value, value. Like you’re writing blog posts in these emails as if people are sitting there on the edge of their bed waiting to read your email.

Like I’m laying in bed scrolling my inbox a. m. Maybe chill with all the details of like how the step by step to how to do this, that, and the other. It’s too much. I don’t go to email. To learn a ton. I know my user behavior. I like, if I’m going to watch a YouTube video, I’m going to buy a course, I’m going to watch a webinar, or I’m going to read a blog post.

I don’t go to email to learn a ton. And so I also have found that that makes your emails could possibly be too long. They’re too scrollable, especially if you make them too bullet y. So I don’t do a ton of value emails. And when you say value emails, that means you’re not selling, like there’s no link to click.

There’s nothing. I’m out. If there’s no link to click in an email, I just, I’m out. Move on. I’m not reading all that. I don’t even know what you want from me So I’m not even gonna like if you don’t know what you want from me and I can’t tell from this email It’s actually one of my biggest email pet peeves when I just get an all text email and there’s no link.

I’m like I don’t even want to read it. I don’t, I don’t even want to. I’ll look. We’re just not doing this. So I don’t believe in sending value only emails. I sell in every single email. So that’s another rule that I ignore, but I do send value, valuable emails, but they always have a CTA. There is always a point.

There’s always, always, always a point. And there will, I always do value up top. And then here’s my pitch at the bottom. Because once you learn how to write funnels and how to write conversion copy, I can’t unknow it, and I don’t know how to just write blog, like a blog type email where it’s all value. So, that number one goes out the window.

Colie: I mean, I’m totally with you. I, even if I’m writing an email that gives you value. And I’m writing something that you could literally read and take immediate action on. It’s almost always related to either one of my offers or one of my podcast episodes. And so regardless, I’m giving you a link. Go click here to listen to the rest of this episode.

Go click here and read this blog post or buy this product or watch this freebie or whatever it is. Like. I am honestly not sure that I’ve ever sent an email that didn’t at least have one link, but that does bring us to that second rule. You should only have one CTA in your emails girl, only one link or one CTA.

How do we feel about that?

Dama: I don’t care. Bye! Okay, I kicked that to the curb. When I first started writing emails, and I do think that if you’re in a funnel, if you’re specifically somebody signed up for this webinar and they, you’re trying to help them make this decision to buy, okay, don’t distract them with other things. So, I, I don’t.

I do kind of in like my sage old, what is it, 6th year in business mess around with this rule, but like in general, if it’s inside of a funnel, I won’t, confuse people with like multiple links. It was just like, if you’re in a funnel, you’re getting by this or back out all good, what you’re when one way or the other, but for regular, my newsletters, my weekly emails, even a sales email that is not inside of a funnel.

Like I’m selling, I’m sending an email to let you know about ThriveCart sale. It’s a hundred bucks off this weekend. Guess what? If you don’t want that, that’s cool. I got other links for you. I got links for days, like not a problem. So I don’t believe in. One email, one link, unless it’s specifically inside of like an evergreen funnel, but like my weekly newsletters, you have options, honey.

There’ll be lots of options for things that can tickle your fancy because I, you know, you could do, you can poll your audience, you know what they’re interested in, but you don’t always really know. These are thousands of intelligent people at a wide array of points in their business. They’re beginners to experts.

Sometimes you don’t even know who’s creeping on your email list, right? So there’s people at all points. So if I’m talking to beginners this day, I make sure that there is something in the footer, in my, in my four by four footer that talks, that is not for beginners, or that is not for that, the people that I was talking to in the main audience, or that they might also be interested in because you kind of, kind of never know what people or where they’re at on that given day.

So I like to give them options.

Colie: I mean, that is, I’ve never really thought about this, but in your emails, you really should be thinking of who your main audience is, and if it’s not beginners, you should always have something in there for them so that if they read the email and they’re like, oh, no, that’s way past me. Like, I’m not there yet.

Yes. But like, I have this other little thing that you should probably check out. That’s going to help you get prepared for this bigger thing. And to, you know, consume more of the topics that I’m talking about that are for more advanced business people. I mean, that

Dama: keeps you relatable. Oh, thank you. It keeps you relatable because no matter what you do, you can be squawking on your website till you’re blue in the face that I only work with seven figure blah, blah, blah. But you know what? The newbies are going to come anyway. They want to know what you’re doing.

They want to learn from you. They want to learn from the best of the best. And so you can pretend that you only Screen out with your messaging a certain kind of business owner, but you don’t, you absolutely don’t. You’d be surprised when, yes, in my sixth year of business, occasionally, I’ll look at some beginner stuff to just see Just for yucks.

I just want to see what’s up. Like I want to see your teaching style. I might be looking at that. Like you teach beginners, but I’m looking at your teaching style. I’m evaluating what you do or something caught my eye. So I’m hooked in anyway. It’s, you may as well be adaptable and make, make sure that there’s some options for people at all points in the journey.

And I think too, if you only talk to advanced business owners, you’re neglecting the people who are already on your list. And it also makes you kind of seem very like elitist and distant and I only work with seven and eight figure business owners. Well, guess what? I made 42, 000 in my business last year.

I’m super proud of it. Maybe I’m a beginner, but I’m not exactly a beginner and I want to get to this level. You know what I mean? You’re alienating those people. So I think it can very quickly get elitist, um, when, and not relatable. And then that means people not only are unsubscribing, but they also have a sour taste in their mouth about your brand.

Which is not good, and that follows you around for years.

Colie: Third and final rule that you feel like you should ignore with email marketing. Girl, tell me your opinion on welcome sequences and or nurture sequences. Cause I’m going to admit, I’ve spent a lot of time and energy writing my welcome sequence, but you’ve got me rethinking this position. So how do you break this rule?

Dama: God bless them. I mean, good for you for having a welcome sequence. Sometimes I think I should, but I just don’t. I don’t care. You buy a thing. I would rather welcome buyers into my world. So I don’t put a lot of emphasis on freebies, on that style of lead gen, where it’s like, I have an irresistible freebie, it’s super valuable, blah, blah, blah.

I did that with my previous business, and that was great. But it ended up with me having a lot of like a list of freebie seekers and not people who were really ready to dive in. I have cultivated a list of buyers and I love that. I love that for us. I love that for them because they’re taking action.

They’re getting what they need to do and they’re, Standing on the shoulders of those who have already figured the thing out. So, I personally would prioritize a list of buyers. Now, that means that your first entry point into my world is you’re getting a post purchase email. So, you’re getting your little receipt from Thrivecart, you’re getting your little login for Thrivecart Learn, and then you’re getting an email from me.

And then, It’s not a sequence. I only have a welcome sequence for my 9 Google Docs training on brand fillable workbooks. And only because that freaking thing is like jet fuel. It is, it has like 5, 000 students in it. I don’t even know where they’re finding it at this point. Like it’s, um, excels of it every single day.

So I have a three email welcome sequence. on that post purchase, but I don’t have any welcome sequences built on like, Hey, you’re new to my list. Let’s nurture before I sell. Do you know you’re here? Cause you already bought. And so I have circumvented this by having a little bit of like color and me and who I am in the email.

So I hit them with what they want to know post purchase you’re here because you bought the product name is in the subject line. The product mock up is in the top of the image in the product. And that like, it’s very clear. what you got. I hate generic post purchase emails. And then I tell them like, here’s the thing, here’s everything you need to know about Access, and oh hi, if this is the first time we’re meeting.

And I do one paragraph in a different color font that is like, a little about me, and then bye. Then they go into their purchase. Like, here’s a big fat button to log in and access your purchase. In the first lesson of every course, I have a little about me section. So it doesn’t distract. It doesn’t, it’s not about me.

It’s about them and the reason they bought this. So sure, it’d be great if they wanted to learn a little bit more about me, but if they stay on my email list for three weeks at minimum, they’re going to get an idea of my slang, my culture, my business values, the things I stand for, all that stuff. So, eh, I would rather let my weekly emails be.

Topical and relevant AF like this is super timely then oh, I’m not going to email this whole chunk of my list because they’re in a welcome sequence that I wrote. 17 months ago. And it’s like, do I even remember what it says? I don’t know what it says. You know what I mean? So yeah, I don’t have a welcome sequence.

People can get on my list by a straight up form on my blog, on my Thrivecart template shop blog. That is like, it’s not even like a freebie. It’s just like, do you want to stay in the loop? Like, I don’t even know what it says. It’s just like, do you like it? Okay. Get over here. You know, like get on my list, whatever.

Like it’s, it’s a hello bar. And I also have that on the, like, Bottom third of every page on my Damajoo website, like. Do you want to be the first to know what’s new in marketing tech and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. There’s no freebie and I’m fine with it. And it also doesn’t put them in a sequence. And the literally, as soon as they sign in, it’s like, you’re not in a welcome sequence.

Anyway, here’s a little bit about me. Here’s some stuff, here’s some links and, see you in the next email. Like it’s. I’m just like, I used to have a welcome sequence. It’s great. I respect that you have that. I would love to know stats on your sales. I know I’m not interviewing you, but like, I want to know the people who went to the trouble of creating their welcome sequence.

Is it bringing in sales or is it just bringing in replies?

Colie: So recently I did a little, okay. So I originally had what would be considered, I guess, a fulfillment sequence for every single thing that I sold. So when you, or I guess when you got a freebie, it would deliver the thing. And then it would tell you more about the thing and about me. And then it would tell you, Hey, have you done this thing yet?

If you have, this is probably the next thing that you should look at. And then it dumped them into my newsletter. As I expanded my freebies, I ended up making that delivery sequence, only one or two emails, depending on which freebie or which product it was or whatever. And then they get dumped into the welcome sequence.

Because what I was figuring out was that no matter what freebie they got, everybody was, Pretty much interested in writing better emails and or improving their workflows. And so that is what my welcome sequence does. And when I say it’s a welcome series, it is, but again, like, I think I’m selling you in an email number two.

Like I’m, I’m mentioning the things that I have inside of my template shop right off the bat. So I think it’s become less about welcoming them as much as making sure that we all have the same base knowledge before you get dumped into my newsletter. But that is probably

Dama: the same page.

Colie: Yes, but that is probably going to get slightly tweaked now that I have an evergreen sequence, which I finally made live.

I think you and I talked about this a few months ago, but I finally made it live. And so I do now know what everybody is getting in like those first few emails. And so I think the welcome series is actually on its way out because it’s being replaced by the evergreen sequence. But again, I’m like you, even in the first two emails of the, of the evergreen sequence, I’m selling you on something.

Like there are links to something, a training. A template. My

Dama: Even on post purchase emails, there are CTAs. I want you to join my affiliate program and I want you to look at my 4×4. Like, there just, there just is. And it’s all conditional. So if they’re already in my affiliate program, then they won’t see that. But like, you did ask me earlier about welcome sequences and nurture sequences.

And I think they’re different. And I do have. A what some people call like a forever funnel or an evergreen nurture sequence. And I love her. So because all my emails, we talked about this earlier, like all my emails are essentially sales emails. They have value up top party up top. Right. And then the business on the bottom.

So the sales, there’s always a sales pitch, at the bottom, or at least SCTA to join, buy, sign up, whatever. What, what’s amazing about that is that they are then recyclable. I’m not throwing these babies in the garbage and only the people on my list at that given moment are gonna see it and then it’s gone.

I don’t necessarily believe in like repurposing an email into a social media and a reel and a tweet. I’ve tested that and Have conclusive data that it does not work for me. What works for me in email does not translate to a reel, does not translate to a caption, does not translate to a post, no matter how much I tried.

So I’m done with that. I really feel like very released from social media because it’s just, she just does not make me sales. You know, I track and there is no money in this for me. Maybe it works for other people. It’s just not for my audience, but my emails, that’s gold. So what I set up last year is a.

evergreen nurture sequence. So every couple of months I will take emails that I’ve sent in the past, strip any like dates or anything like that, sort of make them evergreen. And then I have a conditional content CTA at the bottom. So if the person already has the offer that I’m pitching, then I tell them to log in.

If they don’t, I tell them, here’s where you grab it. I have a few other elements for it. So right now that sequence is nine months long and growing because I just, I just keep writing emails during the week, Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday. And then my nurture sequence goes out on Saturday. So what I might’ve sent on a random Tuesday in February is now going to hit an inbox on the third Saturday in August.

And whether or not the person was on my list, In February and still is, or they won’t, even if they are, they’re not going to remember, it’s going to look slightly different. And so I’m recycling my number one revenue generating asset. Like I refuse to throw her away. She’s beautiful. So I just recycle them right into my nurture sequence.

Currently it’s nine months long. There’s plenty more to be added there. And. Yeah, sometimes it’s just like a little random sales email and we just pop it into there and it because all my stuff is available evergreen. Once I sell it and I do a launch like I don’t kind of like low key don’t want to look at it anymore.

Like it’s still so so good, but like I can’t yeah it’s like the person from the bar last night like it I can’t anymore You know, so like I once I’ve done a big fat launch and talked about it ad nauseam I never want to talk about it again. So I essentially We’ll take that email from a launch I did in February, put one email in like month three, another email in month six, and another email in month nine.

So like periodically I’m making sales of all of my offers. I have a few other features in it like a template of the month, and I include my 4×4 footer on it. So they don’t necessarily even know that I wrote this email like a million months ago.

Colie: Okay. We are going to get into the 4×4 next, but since you just gave me all of that juicy information, I want to ask you two questions. Number one, how are you organizing your newsletter? Like, where do you have it laid out so that you know what offers you are doing in each email and that kind of thing? well, actually you answer that and then I’m going to ask you my second question because you might answer it by default anyways.

Dama: I think you know the answer, but your

Colie: I do.

Dama: know the answer. So everything lives in Airtable. Everything lives in Airtable. I have a system where I am a weirdo. A lot of people teach like you should write your emails in a Google Doc and then put them into ConvertKit or Drip. I don’t. I find that I lose the magic somewhere in translation.

 I like to take, I take, it’s a little risky because you could lose the email, like, as a draft, but drip, I use drip as my email marketing and it saves those drafts for me. So even if my power goes out or we’re approaching for landing and I need to like close my laptop it’s saved anyway, so I’m not worried about it.

So I write my email straight in drip and I’m never going to think to go back in and like pull them out. So I have a zap set up where it’s like, when an email comes in from Dama, Dama, do. com to a specific inbox, I will take the body of that email and put it into air table. And now it’s tagged as a potential.

Like, is this ever greenable? And I’ll either then go in and every couple of months we’ll review it, like, should we use this in the sequence or not? Or like, this was really, Specifically for a summit, but is there anything good at the top of this that I could then, you know, like, okay, this is for the membership momentum summit, and I’m waxing poetic about this, that, and the other, my little thoughts about memberships.

Well, I have a membership training, how to have a membership inside Thrivecart. Um, I have a A membership template for thrivecart, we could reuse this. You know what I mean? But like some summits, it’s like, no, I really can’t , I really can’t reuse this. Like, okay, fine. So anyway, I have an automated system where it will pull the email straight into Airtable and it’s marked as a call me, maybe.

And then later, every couple of months I’ll look in and think like, is this worth reusing? Did it have good results? Did I make good sales? Blah, blah, blah. And then if so, we’ll strip any dates and things like that and evergreen it up. Spend 20 minutes. cleaning it up and slapping a dynamic CTA on it. You know, if you’re interested in memberships, then grab thriving memberships, my training, and you know, here’s my blah, blah, blah training.

And I could even do a little template discount in there. So, you know, I’m always looking for different ways to repurpose my best work, which is my emails. And it all goes into Airtable. It’s all tracked in Airtable. And I also, like, use linked records for what CTAs, what links, the conditional content, all of it.

The liquid code for all that. Yeah, it’s all in there.

Colie: you and I are both obsessed with Airtable. I actually, listening audience, I didn’t know she was going to say Airtable. You know, I’m obsessed, but what

Dama: you imagine if I had said, like, Google Doc?

Colie: my face would have been like, um, that is not where I was expecting you to go with that.

Airtable. I will say though is that I find it absolutely fascinating that you are just writing them in drip and then you are zapping them in the Airtable because what I finally started doing was writing my emails in Airtable. Like I have been trying legitimately for almost 18 months to start writing emails in Airtable.

I did the interface like Ashley Pendergraft told me to and Angela Tan also teaches it. I finally started and I was like, I would go in and it just didn’t feel natural. So then I was writing my emails in ConvertKit. But in ConvertKit, you can’t search for anything, which just drove me insane. So I’m actually writing everything in Airtable now, then I’m putting it into ConvertKit.

So it’s already inside, but I didn’t know that I could zap it. I may try that just to see if I like it better. I

Dama: My problem with writing it in an interface, and just like you, I love Angela and I love Ashley. These are people that I, whose brains are magical and they’re amazing humans and I like learning from them. But I don’t like writing my emails in interfaces, and it’s because Interfaces. Airtable in general uses markdown.

And so now, like if something is bolded, it’s gonna have two asterisks in front of it and behind it. And I, I cannot, like the, the level of ick, I cannot, I, no. So I don’t like the way it translates from Airtable to drip. And there’s something like, I design templates. I used to design funnels, like I like the visual element of my.

I like to screw around with the colors and the fonts and like I don’t believe in like, wow, my email should be like Flodesk and they’re like a fashion magazine for an email, but I do like to have, I know the trash. I like to talk about Flodesk. Sorry. It’s just not for me as an, as an automation girly.

But anyway, yeah, so I just like writing them in drip. Because I tried writing them in Docs, hated it, tried writing them in Airtable, really didn’t like it because of Markdown, but also I want to see what it’s going to look like, so I, and then I do a lot of, I think if you know, you know me, I am all about Airtable.

The automation, the marketing tricks, like using the tech to the max. There’s so much power inside drip of like trigger links and expiring links and conditional content and liquid code and wah, wah, wah, wah, wah. You know, global content snippets. Like I want to do that. in the full, like, in all its glory inside Drip.

So I would rather write it where it’s gonna live and I feel good about it. Like, I cannot pre write my emails. If I email you on a Wednesday, like, low key, I woke up that morning. chose violence and

Colie: Unless it’s the evergreen email. Unless it’s an evergreen email, but

Dama: Well, and even then it’s, I’m saving that, like, fire I felt in the moment. Maybe I wrote that in December 2023, but like, I was lit up that December 23 morning and like, that fire is, I recorded it in the moment.

And so I think that maybe is possibly why people like my email so much, because, you It’s just very, like, a la minute. It’s not premeditated, so to speak, or stale, or formulaic. I don’t do formulas, so, anyway. Yeah, anyway, long story short, I like to write them directly in Drip. I love that they save my work as I go.

So if I get distracted, or if I lose power, it’s still there. But I’d rather write it in Drip and then hit send and, like, know. the joy of like this email is about to go well and no but the automations will scoop it up the automations have you know have my back on the back end i’d rather do it that way personally but i’m like you i tried the interface 

Colie: if your automation fails, you can always just go and copy it and stick it in Airtable. It’s all good.

Dama: yeah and it’s it’s working for me and i do have it it goes into air table i can see it in the interface i like that i just yeah i just had to do it the way

Colie: Yeah, the way that it makes sense for your brain, Dama, I am here for it. I was just very surprised because I have legitimately never thought about zapping the email into Airtable. See, you taught me something new today. Yay! The second thing that I was going to ask you, and I think you kind of answered it, but I want to pinpoint your actual response.

How often, because you said, You kind of gave us an idea of how often you’re adding stuff, but how are you making sure that, like, the emails that are in your sequence are still good enough to stay in your sequence? Like, I get when you’re putting new things in, but what is your process for kind of taking things out, or have you ever taken anything out of your Evergreen sequence?

Dama: I it’s sort of a delight for me every Saturday. It sends an email unless I’m specifically in a launch and I’ve paused it. I don’t know what people are getting all the time because it’s. I don’t know. It depends on when they joined the sequence. It depends on when they joined my list. So sometimes I’ll like get, I get replies like almost every Saturday.

I, yeah, since I started this, I get a reply every Saturday. I usually get some sale notifications because yes, honey, it is working for me. And so I’m always just sort of like, what are you guys buying? Like, what are you guys reading? Like, what are you, I, I am on, uh, so I have like, uh, Five or six different emails that I’m signed up for my own email list because, you know, I use them for test purchases or whatever.

And so all of them are at like different points in the email and in the sequence. And so I’m very curious, like some of them are getting, Oh, someone are getting this one and some of them are getting this one. So I sort of have a, like a finger on what everybody else is getting. But. So far, a lot of them have been getting, like, pretty much every single one has gotten replies, most of them have gotten sales, at least some of them have gotten, like, really high click rates, so I’ll go through and look at it, but I just launched this in, I want to say February, so it’s

Colie: So it hasn’t been long enough. Okay.

Dama: It might have been sooner than February. I don’t, I don’t remember when I did it, but most people are barely in month two or three, and there’s nine months. So

Colie: They got a ways to go, girl.

Dama: I sent something, one of the emails I sent was like about evergreen, like urgency and scarcity, and I use and love and stand deadline funnel, but I had mentioned Countdown Hero in that email because I wrote it seven months ago, and I no longer recommend Countdown Hero.

So somebody replied and said, Hey, You still have countdown hero and I was like, look, let me go and fix

Colie: Thank you. I’ll

Dama: that’s a Saturday task that I’m not even going to wait till later to do. I’m going to go do it right this second because people are getting it on time zone too. So like, let me fix it now while I’m thinking of it.

And then maybe the afternoon people, the people in Pacific won’t even see it. Yeah.

Colie: Yeah. Okay. So we’ve mentioned 4×4 a few times and 4×4 I think is to me your most brilliant thing that you’ve come up with. So tell us what a 4×4 is and how you came up with that concept, which is of course related to links and clicks and sales and everything that you’ve been talking about

Dama: Yeah, it’s like . It’s my masterpiece, isn’t it? So four by four footers is an email strategy where you write your regular email, whatever you’re gonna say, what you’re gonna say, say what drives you at that moment, but below the sign off, and like, you know, your, your sign off and all that. Below your PS I throw in a section that I call my four by four footer.

And essentially I wanted to. Add more opportunities for myself to make more affiliate income, to shout out things that I wish I were, that I was thinking about buying, that I was. Summits I’m in. Sometimes I don’t want to send a dedicated email about this one thing, or I already sent a dedicated email and I needed to send an email about something else, but I still wanted to mention it.

So, um, flashback to 2020, I was on Ashlyn Carter’s email list. She has like a YouTube channel. She’s a copywriter. Her emails are good, but they never grabbed me. And I noticed that the thing I liked most about her emails. And this sounds terrible to say because she’s a great writer, but I just, I wasn’t a copywriter at that point.

So it was like way over my head. Which goes back to our point earlier, Colie, like I was a beginner baby and I was on this, like, I’m a seven figure copywriter woman’s list. And a lot of her concepts were just going way the heck over my head. But I would scroll to the bottom of her emails and she had this like, What I’m watching on, you know, what I’m binging on Netflix, what book I’m reading and beauty product I’m loving.

And the like rabid way that I would scroll to the bottom of lists. I thought that was really interesting. And, but she never had clickable links and I don’t care about beauty products. So like, eh, it was interesting. I want to know what you’re binging. You know, that’s cool. And then I started thinking about different ways Like I kind of shelved that and then in 2021, I read someone else’s email and they were like, you should have a super footer where it’s like, here’s three ways you can work with me today.

And that’s the popular thing, but I don’t read that. No one reads that. Now, if they’re intrigued by you, they might creep. And if it’s like, Hey, come connect with me on Instagram. But usually it’s like book a sales call. And it’s like, I just don’t care if it’s important to you that I do that thing. Then write me a dedicated email about it.

I don’t know. It just didn’t, I just didn’t love the strategy, but I saw it and I thought, what if I could write something that is business focused. So it’s not about beauty products that is showing people what I’m doing and how they can work with me, but without saying ways to work with me, because I just don’t want to click that.

That’s not interesting. And also I know for a fact, based on my own user behavior and conversations I have, you will not believe. How many times I get asked the question, what’s your tech stack? What do you use for this? What do you use for subtitling? What do you for this? People want to know what’s going on in the BTS of my business.

And I have found literal hundreds of thousands and sharing the BTS of my business. So I have a mini training, um, that is like. It’s literally a behind the scenes of like one of my oldest funnels inside Thrivecart and I people are funnel hacking me anyway So, you know what? Let’s do a BTS like it’s like a mini 20 20 minutes training.

It’s like here’s the sales page Here’s the bump. Here’s the integrations blah blah blah blah blah And so I show people that and then they’re inspired and go on and buy for me they get Thrivecart with my link and then they buy this and they buy that and Like it’s such a good entry point into my world that the money is in the BTS.

People are really curious about the BTS. So anyway, long story short, kind of taking all these elements, I created this concept of footer that I would update every single week. And it’s, I put four categories and I started using this. I started using, I started doing this when I was in MailerLite and it was just simple black and white text.

Like, What tech I’m testing because as a funnel builder, everybody wanted to know about my tech anyway. What sale or event I’m watching or joining. Exciting business ideas and you know, like, so basically kind of like what’s going on in my business and there’s a link for all of them. Sometimes there’s no link, but for the most part, it really served a lot of purposes.

More sales of my own products. More affiliate income and referrals to like summits I was speaking in. More sales of the SaaS that I use and love. And then the exciting business ideas. I almost never have a link in that section. It’s always building anticipation for the next thing coming. So if I’m working on, like, I’m going to do a launch for a particular product, I’ll start teasing it there because I know that people, the 4×4 footer, because I have the data, is the most engaged part of my email list.

They might skim the whole email, but they are looking and clicking at my 4×4. So I added a few other elements to it to make it, like, to have it work really, really well. But because I started with it casually with just here’s the tech I’m testing and that I started doing this in 2021 or 2022 and it’s now 2024 and it has still been a massive revenue driver in my business.

I have numbers. Do you

Colie: Yes, let’s talk about those

Dama: Okay. So, in January of 2024, I, I created a strategy training all about this. I started to notice That people I had had my four by four for a year and a half and I started to see people kind of low key Hacking the idea or copying the idea and doing it their own way.

And then I had somebody whose email list I was on who copied and pasted it verbatim, like my categories, my fonts, my colors. And to say I was triggered was like, you didn’t even let, I was so offended. And when I met, when I spoke to them, they were like, I thought you’d be, flattered. No, honey, no, I’m not, I’m not flattered by copying.

So I was like, I really. need to teach this strategy because if people are implementing it, but they’re missing key elements, they don’t like, they didn’t do this.

Colie: They don’t understand the strategy. Yes.

Dama: it’s like you threw out the parsley, but actually the parsley did this. And like, you didn’t include this. Like you didn’t deglaze the pan with the red wine.

Like, ah, like you don’t, you know what I mean? Like, it’s just, you’re missing the strategy. So I was like, I need to teach it. So anyway, I taught it in January, 2024 and I included templates and all that. So I collected some numbers then. And I started tracking. the data of how many sales were directly attributed to clicks from my 4×4 somewhere in like about three months into 2023.

So this is about nine months of data of 2023 alone and it brought in An extra 10, 066 of my own products. My own products that I was casually linking or mentioning in the 4×4. Now those things were getting sales emails. So they might have read those emails, but not clicked until they hit the 4×4. Or they might have scrolled right past the emails and just said, Hmm, that looks like a lot of text and went straight to the 4×4.

I know from talking to People on my email list that when they’re in a hurry, they just scroll right past and just read the 4×4. Yeah, Colie. Yeah, Colie. People do

Colie: hand.

Dama: People do that and I’m fine with it. That’s why I’m, I am a okay with it because if you wanted to read my email, here it is for you. It’s right here.

But if you didn’t have time or if it’s not your thing, that, or the body of the email is about something you don’t care about or isn’t relevant to you, no problem. I got you in the 4×4.

Colie: Yeah. And then we had a discussion and I just want to preface this guys. Tracking affiliate money is hard when you’re doing it for somebody else’s product, but so I was curious because I mean, I think all of us would 10 grand that we could attribute to this one thing that we’re adding to the bottom of every single email without a single thought, but I did ask you because you do affiliate.

work for a lot of really big SaaS companies. So

Dama: hmm. Mm hmm.

Colie: how much money do you think you made off of affiliate sales from your four by four versus how much money you’ve made off your own products? Because I think that we should have Dama back to talk about affiliate marketing at some point, because this is amazing.

Dama: I love affiliate marketing. And I can say when I was a brand new VA in like 2019, I hired my first like VA coach and I asked, I told her like, I really like, we talked about my big business goals, which were a charming. I want to make 3, 000 a month back then. I was like, this feels very stretchy and like, bless my heart.

I was like very, like, it felt like, Oh, this is such a big ask but I really want to make 3, 000 a month. So anyway, and I told her, I really want to get into affiliate marketing. And she said, Oh, that’s for like influencers. That’s, you really need a big audience. And, and I said, okay, you know, like, okay, I’m going to do it anyway.

Like that’s just,

Colie: That’s just you.

Dama: okay. Tell me I can’t do something and then watch me go ahead and pursue it anyway. But anyway, yeah. So I knew that I wanted, I wanted to be intentional with my, affiliate marketing goals because it just felt like this is something. I think it’s like a really big opportunity for me. So anyway, I Started with affiliate marketing in 2020, and I think I made like 200 my first year.

The next year was like 1, 200. The next year was 12, 000. In 2023, I made well over six figures in affiliate income. Well over. So that was like a very like, ah, like almost like a, I can’t even believe this is real moment. When I looked at my stats, December 31st of 2023, it was like, dang dude, I did that.

That happened. And I think. That the way that I weave affiliate marketing into every aspect of my businesses, I think in a way that is serving, I think is a big part of that. And I also think that my four by four footer is a big part of it. Now I looked on January when I did this training, how much I could verifiably track to affiliate income to my four by four footer.

And it was like just under 600 bucks, but I can tell you. And I can tell you for a fact that it’s that is an inaccurate number my sales numbers for my own products Yes, I feel good about that. But for affiliate income, that is way low. That’s like two Thrivecart commissions But the reason why is because I chose convenience or convenience Let’s just call it what it is.

Laziness, um, over tracking by just sharing pretty links. So every time I sign up to someone’s affiliate program and I grab my affiliate link, I immediately create a pretty link. So it’s like damaju. com forward slash drip. So I never have to be like, Oh, let me go to my computer and get you my drip

Colie: copy that link!

Dama: yeah, I’m not going to do that. And it’s like a bunch of numbers and letters. No, I create a pretty link. I create a short link, as it were. So I never, ever, ever forget what my most popular, you know, referrals are. And I have them handy just at the back of my mind. So, when you do that, You would have to create a specific pretty link with the UTM parameters or the reference tracking parameters and whatever, and I just don’t do that.

It’s just, I choose laziness or convenience over killing myself to get the details. And the other thing that makes really hard is most affiliate programs don’t allow source tracking. In fact, pretty much all of them don’t allow you to, If you put UTMs on it, it’s like, that’s cute, and it chops them off. Yeah, I mean, it’s a wasted exercise.

Most of them don’t allow you to create a reference. Like, some WordPress based ones do. Thrivecart definitely does, but most don’t. So it’s pretty hard to track your affiliate income. From the source anyway, you, it’s, it’s pretty impossible.

Colie: Yeah.

Dama: I just pulled up while I was blabbing. Well, I was like talking about my VA and my, my, affiliate income goals. So my four by four for 2024, so far, so about five months, six months into the year has brought in 4, 300 already. So I’m on track for it to be another 10 K year of just my four by four, helping me make more sales.

from like, yeah, helping me make more sales without me actually trying or without me actually doing any more than like 12 seconds worth of work.

Colie: Every week you’re changing it up and that’s your 12 seconds of work. Dama. I’m everybody listening. I have the four by four training. It is amazing. If you look at my emails, you will notice I actually don’t do four by four. I do three, but it’s the exact same concept. If you would like to learn from Dama about how to create your very own four by four, I am going to have that linked inside of the show notes.

Dama, is there any last words that you want to say about email marketing before we wrap this up? Do it

Dama: it’s never too late to start your email list, but start your list. And can I just tell you, like, let me just break it down really quick. Start your list. Yes, you can start with a freebie, but you don’t have to. You don’t have to have a freebie. If the freebie is paralyzing you or stressing you out, then you don’t have to.

Do a mini training, and it, it literally just be like, I’m gonna send you a loom, like a link to a loom that you record once. Do something simple, but get people on your list, give them ample opportunities, so forms, pop ups, slide ins, whatever, but make sure it’s not hard to get on your email list.

Like, I shouldn’t have to think or work hard to get on your list. Form on every page of your website. and then once they’re on there, all you have to do is commit to writing two emails a month, write an email every other week, and then work your way up to writing an email a week. And I like to scroll like threads and see what people are talking about, what are people triggering.

And instead of me becoming a comment or thread warrior and like getting all passionate in the threads, why would I do that? Yeah. I’m going to go in like, you know what? I posted a thread the other day because I was beating myself up. Cause I was like doing, I wasn’t doing any revenue generating activity.

And I was like, ugh, I need to get to work. I like make some money. So I went to threads and was like online business friends. Like what are, what was the revenue? And what was the last revenue generating activity that you did today? And it just reminded me, like, I need to go because the revenue generating activity could look like a lot of different things.

It can look like a thread. It can look like a post. I like recorded a YouTube. I did this, I did that. And so. It just went me. I was like, okay, I’m going to go off and now write an email. And before I sit here and like write all my gold in a hundred and whatever characters on threads, like I’d rather just go write an email.

You know, what are our thoughts on memberships? I’m not going to just go crazy on Facebook and post about it. I’m going to go and write an email. So, you

Colie: going to use it where you make money. I got you, Dama.

Dama: yeah, you can use that spicy take instead of responding because people are like, what’s your spicy take? Or what, if you could write a podcast or you could speak on a podcast today with no preparation or if you could give a present, you know, those posts that is like.

You’ve, we’ve all seen them. Don’t reply to that. Get your butt to your MailerLite or to your ConvertKit or to your Drip. Hit compose and start writing. Just do that. Just do that. Let other people even inspire you with what to write, but don’t waste it on a platform that is not your own. Write it to your email list.

Colie: Yes. So that you can go and repurpose it in a future email inside of your Evergreen Sequence. Yes.

Dama: up the stats, by the way, on my Evergreen Sequence because I do really detailed tracking. 2, 600 so far and I just started it two and a half months ago.

Colie: Yes, guys, I really hope this was a different kind of email marketing conversation. I really hope that by listening to this conversation with Dama, that you are inspired to do more in your email in order to do the sale. And of course, we started this conversation talking about the three rules that Dama breaks inside of her email marketing.

And I concur. And I think I might try to break a few more of those rules myself going forward. Dama, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today.

Dama: It’s your list. It’s your rules. And yes, thank you so much for having me. This was a lot of fun.

Colie: All right, everyone. That’s it for this episode. See you next time.