The fears around email and how to conquer them
Even though social media has grown in importance, the email isn’t going anywhere. It’s the most professional, fast and secure way to transfer information and get your message out there. The email remains one of the most important communication tools and a cornerstone of your online business. That’s why writing and sending emails the right way is so important.
Tarzan Kay is an expert in all things related to emails. She started off writing email copy for clients and is now moving to exclusively writing for her own business and teaching others how to write great emails. “I was working as a copywriter and was looking for my niche. I knew I had to do something more specific,” she remembers. She came across an email copywriting competition hosted by influential people in the industry. Tarzan decided to give everything she had – and won! After that, people started seeing her as an email-expert. “I thought to myself: This is something that I really enjoy doing and I have a talent for it. It’s all about the strategy, when to send your emails and how to send them, the formatting and the segmentation. I love great writing, but I’m also very interested in sales funnels and automations.”
Today, Tarzan teaches a lot of small list strategies. “There are really cool things you can do when you don’t have hundreds or thousands of people on your email list. You can personalize your outreach much more, for example with videos, and create your emails in a way that will be exciting for the receiver.”
Because emails are so important, there are a lot of fears around them. What if you send out too many emails? What if people start unsubscribing? What if no one reads them? Together with Tarzan, we’re going to unmask these fears and prepare you to create your best email yet!
Fear 1: Unsubscribing
There will always be people who won’t like your emails and unsubscribe, says Tarzan. “That’s completely fine. You actually want people to take action, whether it’s to do the thing you’re asking them to do in your email, or go off your list.” See it like this: You have succeeded as soon as the people on your list have made a decision.
People leaving your list is part of being in business. Celebrate the number you have, because next to the number of people who leave, you have the number of people who decided to buy your service.
Fear 2: Opening rates
Today, so many emails get sent that people are less excited about receiving emails and in many cases don’t even open them. To increase your opening rates, it’s important that you keep a few things in mind, starting with the subject lines. Try adding a question mark to boost curiosity. Make them captivating. “If you feel like your writing isn’t great, there are some helpful tools with which you can test your subject lines. We all started somewhere – your writing will become better the more you practice it,” Tarzan says. The most important thing is to be consistent, real and authentic. Reply to your subscribers whenever possible. It’s all about developing a relationship.
Also keep in mind to scrub your email list regularly. “Make sure you’re not emailing people who aren’t even seeing your emails because they’re going straight to junk mail.” If you experienced a drop in your opening rates, it’s almost always because you need to tidy up your email list.
If you have a few thousand people on your email list, a consistent opening rate of 35-50% is amazing. However, as your list grows, this number will go down. The important thing is to monitor your numbers and see how they’re changing. If you haven’t changed much in terms of strategy but suddenly your opening rate drops, you know that there is an issue you should resolve. You either need to scrub your list or check if there is a delivery problem.
Fear 3: Sending too many emails
You don’t want people to unsubscribe, so you might hesitate to send out a lot of emails. However, Tarzan says this is the wrong strategy. “If you hold back and don’t send your emails, you might not lose as many subscribers, but you also only make half of your sales.” When you send out emails and end up with ten or 20 new clients, you’re not going to feel sad that 20 or 30 people have left your list.
Are you worried you’re going to annoy people with your emails? Then ask yourself these questions: What do you believe your work is worth? What do you really have to give? Once you’ve satisfyingly answered these questions, you won’t worry about annoying people anymore.
Tarzan recommends sending a weekly email as a minimum. “Once per month is not enough. Not only for your subscribers, but also for you to be consistent.” In an ideal scenario, your email contains a call to action. This can be a link to your new course or workshop. If you provide a service, you should have a built-in call-to-action at all times, linking to your contact. But even if you haven’t created any new content and you have nothing to click on, it’s no excuse to not send out your weekly email. You can just share something that you’re inspired by or tell your audience a story. Not every email is about getting something from the receiver.
Fear 4: Launching
When you’re in a launching phase, of course you want to do everything right and make as many sales as possible. During a launch, what email strategy you use can make a big difference. Tarzan advises that in the pre-launch phase, emails should be all about getting your audience to take your free class or webinar or whatever it is you’re offering. “I usually send five emails during pre-launch. People are much more likely to buy if they get engaged in your pre-launch content.”
Then follows the hard-sale phase. Give them a reason to buy immediately. This can either be a fast-action bonus or another benefit for buying at the beginning rather than waiting another few days.
In the middle of the launch, send out an email announcing a payment plan or a new bonus and towards the end, follow up with a FAQ email.
“Beware of guilt-based marketing,” Tarzan says. “A message like: ‘If you’re serious about solving this problem, you will buy this program, otherwise you’re not serious’ could backfire.” Be aware of how you phrase your message. The message Tarzan often uses is along these lines: “If you don’t buy this program, that’s fine, but what are you going to do about your problem? Unless you take some decisive action, things are going to be the same a year from now.” This is asking for decisive action without being manipulative.
If you are worried that sending all the email above is too much, be aware that a very small percentage of people will really read all of them. By sending different types of emails, you can appeal to different people. While some people can decide straight away if they want to buy or not, others want to be entertained by your story first, still others are more emotional and want to read success stories.
It’s all about building a relationship
Emails are important and you shouldn’t be scared to implement your email strategy. Once you start working with emails and the relationship with your subscribers starts to blossom, once they start hitting reply and start thanking you for all the advice you give them, that’s when you really start to see how powerful emails can be.
Episode-Bonus
Need some inspiration? Head over to tarzankay.com/sigrun and download Tarzan’s free templates for promotional emails.
[tweetshareinline tweet=”“Doing well with email is so much more than just writing great email. That’s only one part of it.” – Tarzan Kay” username=”sigruncom”]
Resources Mentioned:
Connect with Tarzan Kay:
- Tarzan Kay website
- Grab your FREE Email Promo Sequence Swipe File
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