PODCAST – Email Marketing Made Easier w/Liz Wilcox

In EP 59 of The Wild Womn Hotline, we are joined by Liz, Wilcox (aka The Fresh Princess of Email Marketing) who answers every question you could possibly have about growing your audience and selling your offers with email marketing.

From ways to get your first 100 subscribers, all the way to launching products/services and creating successful sales, this conversation with Liz covers it all! 

And if you’re new to Liz Wilcox – The Fresh Princess of Email Marketing – Liz 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.

In this episode, we discuss…

• How Liz got her start being an email marketing expert as an RV travel blogger
• Top tips for starting to feed your email list, no matter how many people you have in your audience 
• How to troubleshoot common email marketing issues such as improving your open rate, click rate, etc.
• Using the “email staircase” marketing framework to turn your email list subscribers into paying customers 
• Why getting replies on your emails might be the best way to measure engagement in your email list
• Liz’s top tips for “skimmable” email content that will keep your readers engaged
• What should go in your subject lines to ensure your audience opens your emails
• How to write an epic nurture sequence for building engaged readers from the start 

Meet the Host and Guest Expert 

Links and Resources

Connect with Liz Wilcox:

• instagram.com/thelizwilcox.com
• lizwilcox.com

Looking for more email marketing resources? Check out these suggested articles from the Haus Editorial!

• How to Develop Your Brand Voice Like a Pro
• Brand Launch Messaging – How to Absolutely Crush Yours
• PODCAST – How Copywriting Will Make You More Money w/Angelica Ross
• PODCAST – How to Find Your Authentic Voice w/Kelsey Formost

Audio Transcript

HOST: Tristan Thibodeau: [00:00:00] Liz, the fresh princess of email marketing. I wanna hear your story. Tell me all about how you got into doing, what you now do, and why you call yourself the fresh princess of email marketing. I want, I need to hear the story, . 

GUEST: Liz Wilcox: Okay. Super dope. I’m so excited to be here. Thank you so much and thank you for listening at home.

So I actually, unlike a lot of email marketers where the story goes, like, oh, I was, you know, A copywriter and I, you know, bust my chops there or whatever the phrase is. I don’t know, it’s late in the day. Um, but, you know, and then I, I started going in at it alone. Like that was not my story. So my story is I started off as an RV travel blogger, right.

And so I was actually, Living in chaos when I started emailing people and started my online business. But I saw like I, no joke, I Googled how to make money from my rv cause I wanted to travel. I was like, there’s gotta be a way, there’s gotta be a [00:01:00] way to do this. And I. I Googled it. I saw some kids, I say kids, they were like two years younger than me.

They were like in their twenties. And I was like, what? They have a blog? They’re making money. You can make money online. And so I was like, I’m gonna do that. And so I started this RV travel blog and I mentioned that backstory cuz I didn’t start a blog as like this passion project. Like, Ooh, I just wanna talk about RVs like y’all.

I did not know anything about RVs, but here I was with the RV travel site. But, you know, I listen to podcasts like Tristan’s and everybody was saying like, oh, I wish I would’ve started my email list earlier. And Mama didn’t raise no fool. I was like, that’s what I’m gonna do. So of course I, you know, I did the blog thing, but on the side it was really all, everything was to.

Feed into the email list. And so I started emailing people. I launched my very first product with an email list of like 300 people, and I wanna pause and say My very first product, let this be inspiration. If you’re like, uh, [00:02:00] I can’t sell my thing, or I can’t come up with a good enough idea, I. My fir, and I’m gonna lean into the mic here.

My first product was a book about poop. No joke. It was called, I was gonna say Tristan, you can’t see her. But she’s muting and she’s dying laughing. I was wondering if she, I, cause 

HOST: Tristan Thibodeau: I tell all my guests, I’m like, listen, I live by an airport. There’s planes flying over me every day. I don’t wanna mess up your audio, but I, that is hilarious.

Oh my goodness. Tell us about the poop book. Why 

GUEST: Liz Wilcox: this? So, yeah, and this will go into, uh, why they call me the fresh princess of email. Uh, I got some real fresh ideas. 

HOST: Tristan Thibodeau: That’s a real interesting segue by the way. 

GUEST: Liz Wilcox: I, yeah. So I. I didn’t know what I, I didn’t know anything and I didn’t know anything about RVing, but that was my subject matter.

So I was building my email list. I was like six or seven months in, and I was just kind of feeling deflated, like, I’m sure you can relate, right? And I was like, what [00:03:00] the heck am I gonna do? How am I gonna make money? You know what? I can’t create a course on X. I don’t, I don’t even know what X is, . And so I just asked my audience, I said, You’ve been following me a while.

I sent it out to my email list. I put it on social media. I said, why the heck do you follow me? Sometimes I’m talking about RVing. Sometimes I’m talking about, you know, this other thing, talking about motherhood, whatever, whatever. I’m all over the place. They said, well, Liz, you know, You can tell a really good story and you’re pretty funny.

So that’s when it kind of hit me. I was like, oh, I should create a book of funny stories about RVing. Like I wanna be an RV lady, so it’ll be about RVing. So it was called Tales from the Block Tank. And if you’ve never camped, the black tank is where your sewage goes and. I actually sold, I sold, um, to an email list of 300.

I made over $7,000 in the first 90 days. It got picked up by an international sponsor that [00:04:00] gave me money for, they were gonna use it as a lead generation tool, and they gave me like, Seven bucks for everyone. Like I was only selling it for 10. It was crazy. And that’s where it really kind of lit a fire.

Like, oh my gosh, this is real. I could really do the damn thing. Right? And so, Uh, fast forward, I created some more products. I created my first, finally created a digital course. I had 141 people on the wait list, and I launched it a few months later after some pre-launch stuff. And I did Monday through Friday, typical cart close, and I made 141 sales.

So yeah, take a second. Breathe that. That is when I went into email marketing. So I started telling people about that. I went to like a copywriter’s conference. I have no idea what I was doing there. And everyone was like, wait, you did what? No you didn’t. That’s impossible. I’m like, girl, check the receipts.

Okay, , I’ve got receipts, , they’re on my homepage. Now you [00:05:00] can go to liz wilcox.com, the screenshots there. Um, but I just realized in that moment, like meeting with other people. Sure people were seeing results from email, but it wasn’t the results that I was seeing. I was apparently, you know, two, two, that’s me tuning my own horn.

Like I was just seeing wild results. And once I started noticing all my friends, you know, we are doing similar things to me, but having, you know, the quote unquote flop launch. I was like, y’all. Come over here like, mama Liz got you. Like, we’re gonna do this. So that’s when I actually sold the RV blog, went all in on email.

And you know, that’s a really long story of how I got, uh, to be the fresh princess. So they call me the Fresh Princess cuz I have fresh ideas and I love, I love the Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Right. 

HOST: Tristan Thibodeau: And you literally look like. Will from the Fresh Prince right now, . 

Oh, well thank you. Yeah, you can’t see me. I got a back 

shirt, the backwards [00:06:00] hat.

I love it. I do. Yeah. Yeah. I’m very nineties themed. Um, so just makes. 

And what a cool franking story. And I think this is so refreshing because so many people ha share this experience where they’re like, had no clue. And now here I am as an expert, right? Didn’t necessarily go to school, didn’t receive any sort of like, Formal training necessarily, but here you are creating these wild results, doing things on your own term.

And I think that’s such a refreshing story cuz so many people, especially those that have the ambition to get into a different career path or have the ambition to pivot in their brand, are terrified of that lack of, uh, like professional experience, right? But it’s like, no, no, no, no. You can find your own way and you can use your own methods and you can create these type of results.

So tell us what you think the core driver of [00:07:00] that success was. And you mentioned like you can tell a really good story and you have a great sense of humor. Is there anything else that’s missing from that equation that you think really helped you to create those sorts of results? With your first official course launch.

GUEST: Liz Wilcox: Sure. So let’s just be real. I was hungry. Y’all like, I don’t know if you don’t like, if you don’t have a driving force behind you, like I think, who is it? Like Mel Robbins or something I keep seeing on Instagram, like no one’s coming, no one’s coming to make you exercise or make you create that course or whatever.

I can’t. It’s. Some, you know, inspirational lady online, right? And I’m like, that’s so true. And so for me, like on top of strategy, and we can get into the strategy and tactics in a minute, I was hungry. I was like, I’m starting this as a business. I’m going to figure this out. And on top of wanting to travel the country with my family, I have [00:08:00] financially supported my mother since I was about 16 years old, either part-time or full-time, and so I didn’t really have any.

I don’t know any room to doubt myself. I just had to take action. I had to support my family. And by the time I had launched that course, we had hit the road. Um, my husband had gotten out of the military and my blog was pretty much the only money that, you know, was supporting us. And so I. I had to make it work.

I didn’t have any choice. And so instead of, you know, spending five days, oh, what, what course platform am I gonna use? I just picked one. Right? Just being able to make quick decisions, um, and just go with my gut. And because I had a very strong email list, because I had been, this is where the tactics come out.

I had. You know, pre-selling, I had been consistently emailing once a week for years. I had created a course that they again told me, [00:09:00] yes, this is what I want. Um, I saw great success. 

HOST: Tristan Thibodeau: Amazing. And I’m really curious if, cuz I wanna get into nitty gritty. I have so many selfish questions and everybody listening knows that I ask the selfish questions so you don’t have to.

For you, if you could go back or if you had all of the wisdom that you now had and you had to start from zero subscribe, like zero list. Mm-hmm. , what are the top things that you would do to a grow that list, but then also to kind of cultivate that list community so that. There is that conversion happening, like what do you have to do on behalf of the person writing?

And what would you do with all of the knowledge that you have now have, if you had to sum it down to like a handful of things? 

GUEST: Liz Wilcox: Yeah, so number one, just get on Facebook or wherever you are most active on social media and just tell people you got this new email [00:10:00] list. Hey, I’m gonna send you tips on X, Y, and Z.

This is my new thing. I’m excited about it. If you’re interested, you know, sign up here type of thing. I’ve started three email lists, every single email list I’ve started on Facebook where I said, Hey, this is my new thing. Come along for the ride type of thing. Um, Just be as number two. Be as excited as you can about it.

No one is ever going to be more excited about your email list and your stuff than you, right? Like, you know, we can’t all have like the helicopter mom in the corner like, rah rah, rying you on. Like, that’s not real life, right? It’s just you and a laptop probably, right? Um, so you have to be excited. You have to show your excitement.

And that’s not to say, Pretend you’re not scared or something. You can even say those things. I actually, on Facebook right now, it’s like the anniversary of me launching that Tales from the Black Tank. So I’m seeing all these, to me, they [00:11:00] feel cringy, but that is actually what sold my book. I was like, Hey, don’t forget, I have this book out.

I really wanna hit, you know, 20 sales. I’m so nervous, I’m not gonna hit it, you know? But I was just being open and honest about the journey. And that I was just doing it naturally, but now from a strategic point of view, I’m like, wow, that was really something. Cuz a lot of people are too afraid to be that open and honest and vulnerable about their stuff.

Um, but it really worked in my. In my favor. And there are people out there that teach you, I don’t know, quote unquote, how to be human in your business. , where I was just, you know, if, if you, if you Google me and you see what I look like, you’ll be like, oh yeah, that lady’s out there, um, , she’s just doing the most

Um, but I really was truly doing the most, but just not being afraid to say like, Hey, this is my new project, or, Hey, I’m trying this new thing. Do you know somebody? Or are you interested in being on the email? And then just being [00:12:00] very consistent with your email list. Now, this isn’t to say, you know, you listened to this today, three months from now, you did all the things except be consistent and now you just give up.

I don’t ever want you to give up. You can always get those people back or build more. Um, but just being consistent and just saying, Hey, I’m going to email. One, if once a month is all you can do right now, just telling people, I’m gonna email you once a month for me. I, if you join my email list, day three, I tell you, I’m gonna email you every Tuesday.

Spoiler alert, it’s Wednesday at the time of this recording, and I did not email my people yesterday. I have to do that after this. People will forgive you, but nothing gets your butt in the chair more than telling. Your people in a welcome sequence. Hey, I’m gonna email you once a week, or I’m gonna email you once a month, right?

Mm-hmm. . Um, if I didn’t have that, I probably wouldn’t be emailing today . And I’m going to say like, Hey, normally I email on Tuesdays, but I was traveling yesterday, you know, it’s Wednesday. Get it [00:13:00] done anyway. Right? Um, and then the last thing is when you are selling again, uh, kind of going back to that place of don’t be afraid to be a little vulner.

Sharing the process along the way, not spending three months, you know, listening to Tristan, watching webinars, building out your course, doing it all in silence. That’s. That’s not the right way to do it. Think about when Beyonce and Adidas, they did some, what was it called? Tristan, do you know what I’m talking about?

It was called Something Park. Oh, 

HOST: Tristan Thibodeau: uh, is it Ivy Park? 

GUEST: Liz Wilcox: Ivy Park, yeah. Yeah, 

HOST: Tristan Thibodeau: yeah. But also with her Renaissance album, she talked about it and shared about it. Four months and then was like, yes, but it’s not coming out for a while. And everyone’s like, I’m sorry, what? Like, this is the craziness of that approach, right?

Is what you’re talking about is basically like inviting people into the journey with you and building anticipation and just the Beyonce [00:14:00] moment. Like, let’s all learn from Beyonce’s Renaissance album here, because why not learn from the Queen? She. Hyped it up for months. And in the effects of that, the interest in what she was doing became so big that the word renaissance became a top performing keyword in Google in analysis, like data analysis or projecting that because of that, people going to Renaissance festivals is going to increase because they’re gonna be shown more things about Renaissance festivals because the term renaissance, how funny is.

Like, yeah. The anticipation and getting people hyped is so real. 

GUEST: Liz Wilcox: Right. And maybe you’re thinking, you know, oh, well I’m not a hype man, Liz, like, I’m kind of an introvert. I’m shy, or I’m soft spoken, or you know, all I wear is the color black, or whatever you’re is going on in your head right now. Like, you don’t have to be Beyonce, but we can learn to just share the process and people will [00:15:00] invest when they know you are invested, right?

So, Hey, I, I spent two hours today on my course. Uh, you know, I got X amount done and I’m wondering if there’s anything I’m missing. Hit reply. And, you know, if you can think of a module I haven’t talked about yet, or, um, you know, I’m thinking I’m launching a new podcast. Uh, what should the cover art be?

Getting people part of the process, sharing the, you know, the checklist, so to speak. Once the thing launches, they feel like they are a part of it. They have seen that you were invested, that you spent your time, money, energy, other resources on it. And so it’s worth it for them to do the same. Right. And that’s why I saw such great success on top of really knowing my email list and knowing the type of product that they wanted.

Mm-hmm. helping them or having them be a part of every single [00:16:00] decision of the. Of course they’re gonna buy it or at least check it out, right? They’re gonna be like, oh yeah, that’s, I know Liz has been working since December. I know she had to do this. Um, I helped her with the cover art. I did this, you know, whatever.

Um, that really, really helps you sell. So, you know, just getting it out there on social media, starting your list there, being consistent, and then sharing the process every step of the way. Even if you’re not b2b. Guys, I was doing this. Men in their sixties. My email list was men in their sixties. Like they don’t give a crap about nsync, fresh prints, whatever.

Right. But I was able to connect with them, know what they want, be consistent and have them part of the process so that they bought from me. Mm-hmm. and 

HOST: Tristan Thibodeau: one thing. You did mention, which I find really interesting is there was no freebie to, Hey guys, sign up for my email list. It was literally [00:17:00] just a call to action to get people to join your list so that you have a more like private way of communicating with them.

So do you absolutely need. a freebie to grow your email list. Did you just completely break the box right now? Or ? 

GUEST: Liz Wilcox: That’s so funny. Of course. Yeah, of course. I have a freebie. Of course. I want you to go to liz wilcox.com and grab it, you know? But at the end of the day, when you’re first starting, and if things feel overwhelmed, just get going.

Just say, I’m going to share with you XYZ tips, or This is gonna be where you can get discounts, or whatever the heck you’re doing, right? This is where you’re gonna see the next product launch. Is enough for the right people. And to Tristan’s point, those are gonna be the intimate people that are super interested, that are actually gonna open your list, give you the confidence, click on your thingymajiggy, um, and share with their friends.

Right? And then you can think, okay, yeah, of course, you know, I need a freebie for when I get on a podcast or a summit or [00:18:00] something like that. But just to get started, You don’t need the perfect thing. You just need to find a few people, build up your confidence and go from there. 

HOST: Tristan Thibodeau: Beautiful. Amazing. Are you ready to get into more of the hands dirty nitty gritty of email marketing?

Because I have so many questions and I know that people have questions too, so I’m gonna ask on behalf of. Now, let’s just say we’re in the beginning stages of starting our email. Cause I wanna do, I want, I would love to hear your advice for beginning and then also for somebody that maybe has a larger list.

And I think a really common issue that both of those can experience is obviously open rate and click rate. Not from the standpoint of a vanity metric, but from the standpoint. , why are people not interested in this thing that I’m putting all this time into? And then why is it not converting? So I’m not so much interested in like the strategic [00:19:00] side of, well, how do we get our click rate up?

Like how do we actually get people engaged with our emails and then cause that conversion that we’re trying to create with buttons, calls to action, et cetera. 

GUEST: Liz Wilcox: Awesome. Great question. Um, So every email has three jobs. Number one, get it seen. Number two, get it opened. And number three, get the person to take action.

So I love that Tristan said like, you know, let’s just talk about, let’s take it back, right? Cuz that’s the first job, right? Let’s get it seen. So in order to get it seen, that means, you know, they either. Find it in spam or hopefully it just lands in the inbox, which if we do these next couple things, you will land in the inbox as much as possible and not the promo folder.

Right. Well actually Tristan, I’m so glad you brought that up. Let me tell you something. Yes. If you land in promotions, Google Gmail is actually doing its job. You [00:20:00] are a promotional email. Even if you’re not sending a sales email, you are a company. And so Google is, you know, pretty much one of the largest companies ever.

And so it’s actually doing a great job of putting you in promotions and it’s doing its job correctly now. Outlook as much as nobody uses it, you know, AKA hotmail, I don’t have my Hotmail count, does it? They they do it. They do it differently, and they actually do a better job. They don’t use the word promotions, they use the word like other, and it’s much easier.

But most of us use Gmail because it’s 2022. You’ll find Liz Wilcox is stuck in the nineties. Forgive. Keep moving with me. But if you land in promotions, yes, it is frustrating, but no, you are not doing anything wrong. And as Gmail grows and as privacy policies, um, are put into place, , you will probably only see more of that, so I don’t want you to stress about it.

Mm-hmm. , that’s actually Google [00:21:00] doing its job. Okay. It’s a crappy job that we don’t like them to do. Right, right, right. Um, and there are way, you know, sometimes I land in promotion, sometimes I land in the inbox. Um, At the time of this recording, it’s mid 2022. There’s a lot of changes going on, um, that, especially if you’re a beginner, like please just fast forward cuz I don’t want, I always want you to feel good about email and that stuff is like really technical.

So until you’ve been emailing for a couple years and you’re really trying to, to Tristan’s point about like increase those conversions, don’t even stress about. Um, but I’m glad you brought that up, cuz now, now I get to put on like my geek cat. I love it. And literally you can’t see it. I think I’m using it to prop up my mic, but I have like a 300 word book right now called like email marketing Rules and it’s like all that geeky stuff.

So I, I geek out on 

HOST: Tristan Thibodeau: email. I am glad that you do because not everybody does . 

GUEST: Liz Wilcox: That’s exactly. It’s job [00:22:00] security. I’m like, don’t. Right, 100%. Don’t freak out about email. Let me freak out about email and I will just tell you what you need to know and give you the next step as you need it. A hundred 

HOST: Tristan Thibodeau: percent.

And I didn’t mean to sidetrack you, but I had a client reach out to me and she was like, Hey, just so you know, your emails would do so much better if they went into my main inbox instead of my promotions. And I’m like, unfortunately that’s not anything I have control over. You can flag. So that it goes to your inbox, but you manually have to do that.

So anybody listening, if that has been happening to you, you’re not doing anything wrong. You’re not getting flagged as spam, it’s just Gmail. So thank you for cleaning that up, . 

GUEST: Liz Wilcox: Yeah, so, and Gmail is kind of wild right now. They’re changing a lot of things. You know, some good, some bad. Um, and so it’s just, that’s just kind of the name of the game right now, but that does not mean that email is less effective, that you’re never gonna get your emails opened.

Um, you know, it just means. That, you know, we have to learn. [00:23:00] Just, you know, just like Instagram over the weekend, they changed the update and then they went back on their word again. Uh, you know, like, you know, that’s just the name of technology, right? Mm-hmm. , if you’re in business, you’re in business for the long run.

So just hold on tight baby. Uh, you know, that’s a separate episode on all the tech stuff. Um, but in general, in order to get people to open your emails, You have to get them to care. So I want, you know, I gave you those three rules and what I want you to think about the inbox. Is, it’s just like a mailbox, right?

So you’ve got, you go out to your mailbox, you check your mail, like, oh, that’s a bill. I know it’s not due to the 12th. I’m not even gonna open it right now. And oh my gosh, this is, you know, there’s my insurance. Oh, that’s garbage. I don’t even need that. Oh, that’s for John. He did, he moved away three years ago.

Like, gosh, I quit. I wish they, you know, quit reminding me of my breakup. Right. And then, um, and. [00:24:00] You know, and then Tristan email or mails you something and you’re like, oh my gosh, Tristan emailed or mailed me something. I can’t believe it. Let me open this right now. You would if, if you got that snail mail right.

We all love it. We’re like, oh my gosh. Finally something I want to open and we forget about Everything else, you know, goes in the junk drawer. We all have that box in the kitchen. All the mail piles up in, and we open Tristan’s mail right then and there. We’re excited. We do the exact same thing. We act the exact same way in the inbox.

Oh my gosh. You know that’s the power company. Ugh. Didn’t I just pay that? I’ll look at it later. Oh my gosh. I thought I unsubscribed from that. Um, oh my gosh. Liz Wilcox emailed me. What does she have to say this week? I have to open it right away. Right. So if you can get that feeling, that’s when people open.

That is when people click, when people buy. Right. When they know like, oh, this is [00:25:00] special. So in order to do that, in order to become that person, there’s just a few things I follow. Something called the email staircase. That’s my framework. So first you have a follower, right? Somebody you know finds you on social media.

Here’s you on a podcast. They get on your list. Then once they’re on your list, you turn them into a friend. And then when you have a list full of friends, you can basically just ask them the same way I. Hey, do you wanna buy this? And the right people will buy it and you’re not creating products that don’t make any sense because you have a list full of friends.

You know these people. So what do you need to do in order to know these people? Just three things. I think I already mentioned one. Number one, you’ve gotta invest in your people. They have to show that, or they have to see that you are invested in them. That means, you know, Hey, even if you are, you know, I was an RV travel blogger talking to retired RVs, RVs, I would say like, Hey, I just invested $2,000 in [00:26:00] this business.

Like, whoa, this lady’s serious. Right? It doesn’t matter what kind of business show that you are invested, show you’re spending time on the business, show that you are staying up to date, right? Like, oh, I just found the latest. I just told you, you know, I got a 300 page book. I’m clearly invested in truly knowing emails, so you don’t have to, just what Tristan said, I asked the question.

So you don’t have to, you know, she’s invested right when you. They invest. Okay. Number two is share in a relatable. So at the beginning I was talking about fresh prints, whatever, whatever. When I had my RV blog, like, do you think you can’t see it? But I’ve got in sync in the background. I’m wearing a Seinfeld hat.

You know, I’m very nineties. Do you think I was mentioning my love of Justin Timberlake to these men in their sixties? Absolutely not. Right. Tristan Tristan’s just dying over here. . I wa that wasn’t relatable. You know, I was maybe sharing, um, you know, my first concert was Aerosmith with my mom. I [00:27:00] love Jerry Seinfeld, Larry, David.

You know, those things are relatable to that audience. So sharing a relatable way, and in case that feels stressful, you’re a humans or you’re a human. Humans want to connect with other humans. So this is actually pretty simple. Don’t overthink it, babe. I know you can do it. And then number three. Stay top of mind, whatever that means for you in, yes, in like the grand scheme, once a week.

I’d love to see you doing once a week, but if you need to build that muscle, once a month is fine. Just as much. Think about who your person is and stay top of mind that way. So invest, share in a relatable way. Stay top of mind when you do that over and over consistently with a nice welcome sequence and some newsletter.

About a bing, about a boom. You’re gonna be off to the races. It’s gonna be over for everybody else. 

HOST: Tristan Thibodeau: I love it. Oh my gosh. So many questions. So many questions. Ok. Ok. So I’m gonna put a pin in this one because I don’t [00:28:00] wanna lose it. And this is a, this is a selfish question that everybody can learn from. Um, open rates, let’s say.

Okay, people are opening, like, I have a 50% open rate on my emails. I do. Okay. And for me, when my click rate is substantially lower, I’m thinking, okay, are people just opening this to then delete it? How do we know that people are actually scanning, reading, engaging with everything that we’re writing? When the click the click rate tells us 50%, but maybe the open rate is like 2%.

Right? What is happening? Are they deleting it? Are they scanning? Is there something happening with the cta? Like, what the 

GUEST: Liz Wilcox: hell, Liz . Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, it’s not realistic to think if you have a 50% open rate, a hundred percent of those people are gonna click. Now, the way that most email service providers show it is, let’s.

For simple math. Tristan has a [00:29:00] hundred people and 50% open. So 50 opened and two clicked. That is two out of a hundred, not two out of the 50 that opened. So just so that is, that’s almost every email service provider. Well, that’s confusing. Yeah. Um, um, but, Um, again, I, I don’t wanna get too technical, but that’s how it is.

Um, that’s, that’s what the metrics are showing you over time. So it’s not realistic to think, you know, if you’ve got 50 people opening, 50 people are gonna click. Um, you know, people are, again, think about how you behave. In the inbox when you, you know, you open your Gmail on your phone, whatever. Again, you’re searching for something that you want and maybe you’re behind on your inbox.

So Tristan was actually right. A lot of people are probably opening and de deleting just to kind of clean it out, right. Some might just even be deleting. They might be skimming for [00:30:00] something. Nobody is reading your emails. They’re skimming. Unless they are really like, oh my gosh, I love Tristan so much.

You know, I have to read everything. But that’s a small percentage. It can get bigger, right? As you, you know, get to know your list. But in general, that’s gonna be a small percentage, right? But don’t let that dismay you keep following up. Writing keep showing that you’re invested and that small percentage I talked about is gonna grow bigger and bigger.

You’re gonna get those, you know that, like I said, I had 141 people click to say they were interested in the course. Y’all, I sent that to like 3000 people, but those, I kept, those 141 people so engaged that they purchased that was a $15,000. Uh, launch. Now, I don’t know about you, but if I found $15,000 line on the street, I would run and grab it.

Right? Right. So it was worth that investment. Now, in order to get click rates up [00:31:00] or to see, to Tristan’s question about like, are they actually reading it? There’s nothing in metrics right now that can show us if we didn’t have a CTA that they got to the bottom of the email. You know, you can do that on a webpage, you know, you can do that on blogs.

They have heat maps. There’s no heat map for. So instead you can, you know, try to get that click rate up as much as possible, but also get replies. So this kind of goes hand in hand with what I was just talking about. It’s a great segue of getting people to reply. Getting to know them. You know, these are not just email addresses.

These are people you know, and so getting them to reply in the very beginning is going to help increase those open rates, increase those click rates, um, you know, for all times, so to speak. Um, and just. Asking them questions at the bottom and saying things like, no, really I wanna, I want, I want you to reply.

You know, not everyone is going [00:32:00] to, but if you can pick one person up by one person, by one person, change up your topics. If you see, oh, this, this email got 5% click rate, maybe the next email. Is a similar topic and you ask them to hit reply, then you’re talking to people, they’re gonna definitely open up the next email.

They might share with their friends. Like, oh, have you seen what Liz is doing? You know, da da da da. I love the way she acts, right? Like, you should check her out. Um, there are a, a lot of retailers especially will do, they’ll make the button at the bottom. And they’ll only do one. And that’s a way of seeing like, yes, that person definitely read through the email, but again, even if they skimmed, you can’t tell that they read every word.

So there really isn’t any like direct way of knowing, but getting, you know, trying to get people to click, keeping it very simple and making it very obvious what you want them to do. Like making you know all what I. [00:33:00] I just hit that all caps button. Do you know where that is? I bet you do hit the all caps and just say, you know, click here to read my latest blog post.

Or, you know, click here if you’re interested in my course on RV maintenance, you know, mm-hmm. , um, or making gifs that are clickable or pictures. Click the gif below. Um, you know, to let me know that you’re interested in this or to read the blog post, to watch the video Videos are a great way. To get people to click and just know that it is a long game, and the better that you do it up front, like in the welcome sequence, getting people to click and getting people to reply, the easier it will be in the newsletters.

Mm-hmm. . 

HOST: Tristan Thibodeau: And there is literally nothing more encouraging than having somebody respond to your emails when you didn’t even ask for it and say, oh my gosh, this was so incredible. I had a response last week from a [00:34:00] podcast that I put out and somebody re reached out and said, I have never heard the information that was shared on this podcast anywhere else.

Thank you so much. And you’re like, fuck yeah man. That’s just like the biggest win. So I love that you mentioned that so much. And one thing I would love to hear your explanation of is, What is a skimmable email? Because people are skimming, how do we have to write? Or is there a best way to write, to be relatable, act like a human while still sharing value while keeping in mind that people skim.

How would you go about coaching somebody on that or. You know, directing somebody in 

GUEST: Liz Wilcox: that. Yeah. Again, especially for the beginners, I don’t want this to feel overwhelming, just write however the heck you’re gonna write. But know that just like a blog post or social media, um, you know, keep the paragraph short.

And I want you, when you’re reading, if you’re like, oh, I don’t know, this seems x [00:35:00] or this is too formal, or this doesn’t sound like me. Read it out loud to yourself and wherever you would pause, or wherever you find. Skipping, like you yourself are skimming. I want you to hit that enter button, and that’s a new paragraph.

Uh, you can do this for blog posts, for social media, things like that, because people, yeah, they’re scrolling, they’re looking for information, especially if they’re not sold on you yet. You know, maybe they’re. They’ve only been on the list for a few months. They only open up, you know, every other email or something, making it just readable.

Legible, I think is the word. . Uh, you, you get what I’m saying? Um, you know, just whenever you find yourself like, oh, that’s too long, just hit the enter button. If you are reading it out loud and you skip over a word, Delete the word, you don’t need it. Right? Um, or if you’re like, it just sounds weird on your tongue.

Like I say the word stoked, you might be like, I would never say that word. I don’t even, [00:36:00] people still use that, right? So if you find yourself writing that and you read it out loud to yourself and you’re like, oh, that feels weird. I wouldn’t actually say that. Replace it with a word that you would say and just know like, all this information I’m giving.

Practice is gonna make it better. You’re not gonna get this right off the bat. I do not want you to not email because you’re like, Ugh, I can’t edit myself yet. Or, I don’t know how to get, no one’s gonna click on this. My open rate is so low, it doesn’t matter. I haven’t had a new subscriber in a month. You know, I don’t want those things to, uh, hinder you because the more you do it like anything else, the more you’re gonna be like, oh, I’ve, I’ve figured out my flow.

HOST: Tristan Thibodeau: Yeah. Okay. Love, love, love, love. And just to kind of keep things pragmatic. Can we talk subject lines and can we talk nurture sequences? Yes. How do we crush those two things? [00:37:00] 

GUEST: Liz Wilcox: Okay, so what, this is what I wanna say about the subject line. The subject line does not matter if you are that person in the inbox.

Tristan sent me something. Okay, I’m going to repeat The subject line. Does not matter if you are that person in the inbox, right? So think again, like the mailbox, you go out to the. The mailbox does not have a subject line. It’s not like, you know, open inside for a coupon or whatever, right. You know, it’s just, oh, it’s just from the sender.

So when you get really good at email, people will look at the sender first. And even, I want you to test this right now. Um, you know, you could pause this podcast, go like, think about. How you answer emails, you’re looking at senders first, like, oh my gosh, you know? I’m looking at a picture of Barbie, so I’m gonna say Barb Barbie.

Oh my gosh, I forgot that’s client. I was supposed to [00:38:00] send that. You know, I’m gonna open that one first because I know it’s urgent, right? They’re, she’s not looking at the subject line. You’re not looking at the subject line. The subject line is the second thing people look at. So you wanna really follow that email staircase.

You really wanna get as many replies as possible in the beginning, and we’ll talk about how to do that in the nurture sequence. Get as many clicks so you become that person. I know for a lot of my subscribers, like this is me, tutu my horn like I am Liz Wilcox. It doesn’t matter if I have a subject line, you’re going to open it.

Now you’re thinking, yeah, but Liz, what about the other half of people who actually don’t care about you and just want email tips? Right. Okay, sure. So with the subject line as you’re building this reputation for yourself, cuz of course you’re not just gonna be that person today. Awesome nurture sequence, which we’re gonna talk about, and with the subject line, just write it for a friend.

Remember, we’re trying to build friendships. We’re trying to make real connections with [00:39:00] real people. These are not email addresses. These are folks, right? These are human beings. And so just write it for a friend. So if you were writing me. Listening to this podcast, what would you, what would the subject line be?

You’d probably be like, oh, I just heard you on this podcast, or Great episode, or, I disagreed with everything you said, , or, you know, whatever your feeling is. I hope it’s a good one. I hope you’re feeling motivated, but think about that subject line you would write to me after listening to this episode that would be like you were really trying to connect with one person, with a real person on the other side of the screen.

So do that with your newsletters, with your subject lines. Uh, it’s not like a blog post, right? Where we’re trying to seo it. We’re not using hashtags. We’re not like top tips for writing an email subject line. Right. It would be like, have you tried this subject line yet? Right. I would, that’s what I would literally email Tristan if we were having a conversation in the dms and she [00:40:00] was like, Hey, can you send me some good subject?

I would say, you know, have you tried this one yet? That would be the subject line of my email. Right. So really thinking about that and. Do not. This is the ding, ding, ding. Do not stress about the subject line until after you’ve written the entire email. Yes. Once you’ve written the email. Yeah. We don’t know the book title until the book is written.

Right? don’t. Same blogging, same thing with blogging . Right? So don’t stress re, you know, write it out. Read it out loud, and then. You know, if I was sending this to Liz, if I was sending this to Tristan, what would the subject line be? And just put that and hit send before you chicken out. Do it quick, chicken.

Do it , and you’ll, you will, you will, um, you will get better. It will become more naturally to you. Um, and then we wanna talk about the nurture sequence, right? Mm-hmm. . 

HOST: Tristan Thibodeau: Okay? [00:41:00] Yes, because, uh, I think. There’s so much overcomplicate advice on how to build your freebie sequence and your nurture sequence. We’ve got trip wires, we’ve got springboards, we’ve got freaking Acme black holes that people fall into, right?

Like it’s just this crazy world of super complex backend automation funnels. So how do we simplify people coming into our email and our email list, and what is just like, how do we knock our nurture sequence out of 

GUEST: Liz Wilcox: the. . Yeah, so your nurture sequence and all your emails and your brand, really, it should just do.

Three things. You’ve gotta lead with some personality, your vision and your values. Okay. That’s just the market we live in, right? You gotta have a little personality. There are a million to one, uh, email marketers out there. It was probably a bit of my personality that, you know, got Tristan and I together on this episode today.

Right. [00:42:00] Um, so leading with a little bit of personality, leading with your vision, sharing with your audience. What is you want for them? Right? So in my email, and I’m gonna break these into four emails and you can get them for free. I’ve already written them. Please steal them. Uh, . Please do not, you know, make, do we 

HOST: Tristan Thibodeau: find these free emails?

Everybody listen. Liz 

GUEST: Liz Wilcox: wil liz wilcox.com. Okay. I’ll pitch myself. I’ll pitch myself at the end. Don’t worry. I’m sure there’s a link somewhere. Um, Leading with your vision, sharing with your people where you want them to go. So we all know that scene in Forest Gump, right where he’s running and I’m literally, you can’t see me, but I’m literally like jocking in place right now,

Um, and you know, he’s got all these followers behind him and he’s in the middle of the desert, right? And he turns around and he is like, I think I’ll go home now. And that’s not real life, okay? That’s not how you build a following. You can. Start and nobody knows where you’re going and they’re just gonna blindly [00:43:00] follow you.

That’s not real. Right. That was a Steven Spielberg film, I think. Right? That was, that was Hollywood Magic folks. You have to tell people where they’re gonna go with you. So with me, in my very first email, I share a little bit of personality and. My vision, I say, as much as I love the nineties, I love the idea of you making money with email even more so you can steal that.

As much as I love X, insert a little bit of your personality. I love the idea of y. My vision for you, even more so what is it you want your person to do if they’re graduating from, you know, you university, like what is their degree in? Share it right there at the top. That way they know, like if they’re on the right email list, right?

If they don’t, if they’re not interested in making money with email, they’re like, oh, whoops, I don’t know how I got on this list. Unsubscribe, right? Or if you’re, you know, a pet photographer. Whoops. I don’t even have a pet. Like, lemme get outta here , you know, I [00:44:00] dunno. I have a lot of pet photographers in my audience,

Um, so I’m gonna share just four emails here. So the first email is just the freebie and a quick intro, and I already kind of talked about this, where, you know, whatever your freebie is or even if you don’t have a freebie, I said, you know, I wrote something like, Hey, thanks for coming on my email list.

You’re gonna get some tips. Uh, you know, by the way, I’m Liz. And, you know, I love the idea of you making, uh, money with email even more than the nineties or whatever, right? And then get out of there. Remember, we’re climbing an email staircase here. We’re, we’re trying to make friends, but we’re not friends yet.

This is not the part of the story where you tell your story. They do not care. They want the thing, right? They wanna know, they, you know, they’ve got the thing, or they’re on the right email. Number two is your best content. So if you have a podcast or you know, a blog [00:45:00] or even social media, or even if you have, you know, like I have my framework, you know, it’s not anywhere on my blog or anything, I might share it there.

For me, I personally make a video because I know my best content is when I’m speaking, and so I just share a quick tip on video and I say, Hey, a major video. You know, check it out. I’m gonna give you my number one tip for email, right? So that’s your best content. The third email, and this is the, I wish I had sound effects.

Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. This is like, if you learn nothing else from Liz Wilcox, and I know she’s talking a lot, this is the thing I want you to take away. This is what I want you to do with email in the third email or wherever, honestly, do your thing. I want you to set expectations the same way at the top.

Tristan had an intro for this episode and she talked about, oh, you know, we’re gonna talk about X, Y, and Z, and Liz did this and whatever. And I think pretty sure she’s probably gonna have an outro too for you where she tells you what she wants you to do. Right? Setting [00:46:00] expectations, you know. Being the leader that you are.

So tell them when you’re going to email, I think I mentioned this, you know, uh, I’m gonna send you an email every Tuesday telling them, you know, I’m gonna go live on social media, or I’ve got a new podcast or a new blog post up, you know, at least once a month. And then this, and this is. Where a lot of people really mess up, and this is what I really want you to put somewhere, anywhere, oh my gosh.

For the love of your business, put this, I am going to offer you free and paid products, free and paid resources, free and paid services on your journey to whatever the hell it is you do. Right? This takes them, especially if you’re building your list, uh, from freebies or something like that, it takes you from.

Oh, I’m getting all a lot of this free value, right? That welcome sequences tend to be, they tend to overdeliver to, oh, Tristan’s a business. Liz is a business. [00:47:00] Michelle is a business, right? It just flips the switch in the back of their mind that, oh, they’re gonna offer me free and paid resources. And then the genius part of this, the real psychological part is, When you do send out a sales email, you are actually fulfilling the promise.

You said that you would, right? You’re, you’re telling them up front, I’m going to sell to you. Then when you do, you suddenly become more trustworthy because you did the thing you said you were gonna do. Right? When you say you’re gonna send out, you know, on the third Monday of every month and you do your fulfilling a promise, you’re becoming more trustworthy just by actually doing the things you need to do in your business.

Extra work required. So please, please, please put that. And then the last one, this is when, if they’ve gotten to the fourth email, um, They’re starting to warm up to you. They really wanna know more. This is where you can share some of your story. This is where you share the big why. This is where you know why I got into doing what I do.

For me, I shared it at the beginning. I had that crazy [00:48:00] course rate conversion. Everyone was like, No way in hell you had that. And I was like, girl, it’s not even that hard. Let’s do this. So that’s what, that is part of my story. So that is where I share it and I save it for the end. Because at first, again, they’re not our friends.

They just want the thing that we promise them. They wanna know that we have some value and we have to set expectations, and then we can say like, Hey, this is actually why I do what I do, hopefully. Jives with you. That’s sharing a little bit of our value system that I talked about earlier, and you’re off to the races.

Oh 

HOST: Tristan Thibodeau: my gosh. I don’t know what we’re missing from this con. I feel like we hit literally everything. What are we missing from this conversation? I asked all of my questions and you gave the best answers and it just like clicked in the most intuitive way. So thank you for that. What’s the last, is there anything missing from this conversation that you’re like, oh, didn’t touch on that.

Let’s talk about 

GUEST: Liz Wilcox: this. [00:49:00] Um, Well, I just love email and I just want you to get going. So if all of this, if you’re like, okay, but I don’t know what this actually like tangibly looks like. Right. You know, you just mentioned these four emails. You talk about how to get people to click. How do I. Get people to reply.

Like, I literally wrote all of this for you so you can get it. This is where I’m pitching myself and , so it’s perfect segue. Thanks. Yeah, hear it. You can go to liz wilcox.com. In the top right hand corner, there’s actually a hot pink button. You can’t miss it. It says free email swipes. And in it, you’re actually gonna get everything we covered, like.

Holy crap. This was perfectly set up. Thanks Tristan. You guys need to give her a five star review. Pause it, give her a five star review. She set me up so beautifully. I’m sneaky like that. So you’re gonna get all those welcome emails I talked about. They’re already written. You can take and make them your own.

And then you’re not only that, you’re gonna get three newsletter examples. Uh, one to [00:50:00] show you how to get clicks. One to show you how to get replies. And number three, one to show you how to get people to buy something. And on top. But wait, vmo, you’re gonna get 52 subject lines already written for you that have garnered me 40% open rate or higher.

So everything we talked about today, the nurture sequence, subject lines, how to get people to actually open and care about your emails. You get all of those already written for you, templatized, so you can plug and play. That’s completely for free at lis wilcox dot. 

HOST: Tristan Thibodeau: Um, I’m sorry. Just bomb drop. Everybody like, stop everything you’re doing.

Go click the hot pink button and download. I’m going to like, I’m like, I’m gonna, the right number’s, the hot pink button. I’m coming free. Liz, I appreciate you and your time so much. This has been an epic conversation. We covered a lot of ground and still kept it very approachable and digestible, which is not easy to.

And so I just respect your [00:51:00] teaching style and your just overall personality. I think it’s just absolutely incredible. 

GUEST: Liz Wilcox: Thank you so much. I really do mean it when I say. I freaking love email and it changed my life. We didn’t get too much into my story, but I grew up very poor. And when I realized I could click a button and send an email and make money, I was like, move over Jeff, Jeff Bezos.

Like y’all, these rich folks been lying. And so I really do like to, you know, un uncomplicate, like untangle the knot that is email marketing and I can’t wait to do that for you. And, uh, you listening at. 

HOST: Tristan Thibodeau: Thank you so much. Well, everybody listening, go click, go click the hot pink button. That will be in the show notes.

and thank you so much, Liz, for your time. This was an awesome 

GUEST: Liz Wilcox: combo. Yeah, thank you so much.