Email Marketing Strategies That Work - Content marketing software

Transcript: Email Strategies that Work

Page 1 Copyright © 2010 by Unglued Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Email Marketing Strategies

That Work

Brian Clark interviews Sonia SimoneBrian Clark interviews Sonia SimoneBrian Clark interviews Sonia SimoneBrian Clark interviews Sonia Simone

Brian Clark:Brian Clark:Brian Clark:Brian Clark: Hey Third Tribers, it's Brian Clark. Welcome to Email Marketing

Strategies That Work. I’m here with the lovely and talented Sonia Simone. Sonia,

how are you?

Sonia SimoSonia SimoSonia SimoSonia Simone:ne:ne:ne: I'm really good, thank you. How are you?

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: I'm doing okay.

So, email is coming back in a strong way. Everyone's talking about it, which is

ironic because wasn't email dead just a short time ago?

Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: Yeah, it was so hopelessly old fashioned only your dry cleaner would ever be

stupid, boring and lame enough to do it.

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: Or very, very wealthy internet marketers, right? (Sonia laughs)

So I see a disconnect. I don't know which of us has been doing email marketing

longer. You know what's funny — we've never discussed it because I think we're

afraid of who's going to win, right?



Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: Yeah, we know who's going to win. The same one who always wins. (Laughs)

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: When I started Copyblogger, I’d been doing email marketing for seven years

and I was sick to death of it. I saw all these deliverability issues, spam issues. It was

just a huge pain. I was looking into RSS and, oh my goodness, Dave Weiner is a

genius. This is the future because, obviously, RSS eliminates spam. It puts control

of the information in the end users hands and takes it away from the publisher. So I

can never spam you if you decide you don't want to listen to me. So I figured, hey,

that makes logical sense.

In 2005, 2006 I was a big RSS advocate. Problem is, normal people still don't know

what RSS is, but email is still the most common activity on the Internet, just ahead

of search.

It's so funny, “search and email are dead.” We hear this from the more progressive

social media types. But they're wrong so often. Now a lot of people are turning

more and more back to email. But you never gave up, right?

Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: No. In fact, I had an email autoresponder set up, going and sending regular

blast messages before I created my blog. So the first thing I did when I started

Remarkable Communication, which at that time was a copywriting business, was

an email autoresponder.



I'm just so bullish on email and particularly autoresponders. It was great for me

because I had been building a list since minute one. As soon as I started blogging

and doing stuff to get attention, I was building a list immediately.

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: So given that I was dumb and you never were, how about I interview you on

email marketing strategies that work. We'll try to make this more of a

conversational two-sided insight, but you and I are pretty much on the same page

about most of this.

I'm most interested in hearing your take as we go through this, so why don't we just

start off with some general basics. What are the fundamentals of good email

marketing?

What makes for good email marketing?What makes for good email marketing?What makes for good email marketing?What makes for good email marketing?

SoSoSoSonia:nia:nia:nia: I'm going to give five high-level, big components. Then we can dive into

them individually.

If you're going to have an effective email marketing campaign, you need to be good

at list buildinglist buildinglist buildinglist building. You need to be skilled at what I call cookie contentcookie contentcookie contentcookie content and you must

have an autoresponderautoresponderautoresponderautoresponder. You need to give people an opportunity to do businessgive people an opportunity to do businessgive people an opportunity to do businessgive people an opportunity to do business

when they are readywhen they are readywhen they are readywhen they are ready. Then you also need, sort of two sides of the same coin, a

good strategy for launcheslauncheslauncheslaunches.

Let's kind of take those apart one by one starting with list building.



It starts with building your listIt starts with building your listIt starts with building your listIt starts with building your list

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: That's a great place to start, since it seems to be where people hit the wall.

Frank Kern just released a product that's nothing but how to build a list, and I

think it was pretty expensive.

Now, there's a lot of different ways to build a list and I'm sure Frank's going to

cover every single one. But I don't know, what do you think? Is it really that

complicated? It really boils down to two things — traffic and getting them to opt in,

right?

Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: Right.

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: Let's talk about traffic. What are some of the best ways you know to get

traffic to an opt-in page in the first place?

Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: When you're talking about traffic, you can do paid traffic or you can do free

traffic. Paid traffic is risky, but if you know what you've got and you know how

much a customer is worth to you, you can do it.

I have done AdWords campaigns to build lists, mostly as market tests, but it's a way

to go.

But let’s talk free since I think it plays to our strengths a little more. This means

blogging, guest posting, Twitter, Facebook, all of those social media tools. We

haven't talked traffic in Third Tribe, which I think we'll probably remedy soon. It is



everybody's big question. How do I get traffic to my blog? How do I get traffic to

my email page?

The Third Tribe approach to free trafficThe Third Tribe approach to free trafficThe Third Tribe approach to free trafficThe Third Tribe approach to free traffic

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: Right, and obviously, we preach day in and day out that content combined content combined content combined content combined

with social mediawith social mediawith social mediawith social media is the great so-called free way to do it.

I mean, it's not free in terms of time, but you're not paying money out of pocket or

risking dollars trying to make sure you can get a return on investment. Social

media alone combined with an opt-in offer of some sort, and we're going to get to

that in the second part of this section, can work. It's hard to build a Twitter

following without having some initial non opt-in type value. Blogging plus social

media, (you don't have to call it blogging), and content marketing.

I was just talking to Product Launch Formula founder Jeff Walker. He's starting

blogging after all these years of being only an email guy, because he realizes no one

shares something that's behind an opt-in wall.

Now, behind the opt-in wall is very valuable and that's what we're talking about,

but you got to get people there in the first place. He's realized social media is so

powerful because the backbone is sharing. What people want to share is relevant

content. So it's the traffic strategy I started with four and whatever years ago and

it's getting more powerful as social media continues to grow. You have to have

something out there for free so people can share it. That allows you to grab their



attention. Then you can say hey, do you want more? Here it is. Just give me an

email address and we'll be friends.

Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: Yeah, it's make friends with people who share stuff and have good stuff to

share.

Incidentally, if you are not using the forums now in Third Tribe you are missing a

major part of the value of the site. You are leaving a lot of value on the table. A lot

of folks in The Third Tribe and The Teaching Sells forums, as well as some of the

other forums we run, have found huge benefit in the networking with other people

in similar related topics because what do they do? They tweet one another’s content

and promote their special reports. They blog about one another and create links.

Forums like The Third Tribe, particularly private forums where you're not dealing

with every yahoo under the sun, are really great places to start connecting, making

friends and getting those voices out there who are going to share your stuff and talk

you up.

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: Right. So we know, whether you call it a blog or just a website or whatever,

you should have some level of free, valuable and openly sharable content to kind of

kick off the attention. You did that to start with and then you started guest posting

for some blog.

Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: Some podunk blog.

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: (laughing) I can't remember what happened with that.



Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: (laughing) I ended up doing okay with it.

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: Guest posting can be so powerful. We've got examples like Leo's Zen Habits

and some of the other people who are just so prolific. They built an entire empire

launched by doing this combination of their own content, but promoting it with

blogging everywhere else. I mean, you don't have to go that crazy, but it's very

powerful. Share some thoughts on using guest posting as a catalyst for eventually

driving people on to an email list.

Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: The great thing about doing guest posting is it's the exact same amount of

work as posting for your own blog.

When you have 100 readers you get much more payback for that work if you're

posting on a blog that maybe has 1,000 readers or 10,000 or 100,000 or whatever it

might be. You can leverage your work for much more attention by guest posting.

You can also do a few guest blogs for people who are in a real similar place, because

sometimes people neglect to make friends with the people who are starting at about

the same spot, who are going to be big. When you meet those people when they're

small you create a relationship that's very, very tight.

I have a really tight relationship with Naomi Dunford because we started at almost

exactly the same time. She started her blog maybe two weeks after I started mine.

We were friends when we were really tiny and nobody knew who we were. So

certain amount of guest posting for those, again, even if that person only has 100



readers, you just doubled your audience. You just doubled the amount of people

who know you're cool and think what you're saying is interesting.

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: That's such a good example because you and Naomi became friends and co-

conspirators early on. No one knew both of you would end up being prominent,

but you two saw something in each other. Number one, you just like each other,

but number two you kind of went along a path together even though it wasn't

exactly the same. You both kind of said, I think that girl's got game and maybe we

should work together. Even though I'm not going to hit a home run guest posting

on her blog right now, she's certainly going to appreciate it. That's a valuable point.

One other thing I'd like to say about guest posting is the conventional wisdom that

you're doing it for the back link, right? That's smart. Whether it's in the by-line or

within the body content, which some publishers will let you do as long as it’s

related and can be even better, you should be really strategic about what you

actually link to in your about the author section. We're about to get into the offer

that you make to get someone to opt-in in the first place. If you've already

developed your opt-in landing page, and the ethical bribe to get people to go ahead

and sign up, you can guest post and directly promote that resource if it's relevant

instead of your general blog. I think a lot of people make that mistake. They don't

realize how valuable going direct is. It's like you're blogging on your own blog to

get people on your email list.



Well, you can do the same thing on someone else's list as long as it's high quality,

it's relevant and doesn't offend the sensibilities of your host. You just have to take

all that into account. We'll delve deeper into offers in a second. I want to talk to you

a bit about your experiences with using Pay Per Click to drive traffic, not to a sales

pitch, but to a content marketing offer that essentially begins a relationship that

eventually leads to a sales opportunity.

How to combine payHow to combine payHow to combine payHow to combine pay----perperperper----click with an email click with an email click with an email click with an email

content strategycontent strategycontent strategycontent strategy

Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: So this was something I tried as an experiment. It's not that hard to do if

you're willing to start small. I picked up a copy of Perry Marshall's book, The

Ultimate Guide to Google AdWords, I think it's $12.00.

Anybody who tries to do AdWords without one of the basic guides is really

throwing a ton of money away, because it not at all obvious when you get into

AdWords.

I just followed the directions, which is the smart way to do it. Google AdWords

changes somewhat, but the principles remain the same. Since this isn't an

AdWords call I won't get into it here, but follow the instructions. Send people to a

landing page, not to your blog. Doing that would be a terrible, terrible idea.

I sent them to a landing page that had no distractions or external links, but did give

people a sense of who I am. It wasn't a landing page like we're all sick of and laugh

at. It had my photo on it. It was written in a nice, personal, Sonia tone of voice. It



had value so it actually taught people a little bit of what they wanted to know —

email marketing and how to create a good newsletter. The page told them I was

going to give them a free email class on how to do email marketing.

That's all I did, send them to a page, then explained that I had this free class

delivered by email. I did reasonable well. I kind of stopped tweaking it at about 25%

to 30% conversion. You can always do better. That's with minimal tweaking of the

headline and any of the things you do. So I was able to buy leads for people who

were interested in creating email newsletters for about $5.00. In other words, every

time somebody signed up it cost me about $5.00.

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: Not everyone signs up. So when you did the math the conversion ratio

worked out that way. The final step is, is that customer worth $5.00 once I finally

sell them something, right?

Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: Right. So you have to convert about 5% for a $100.00 offer to the list.

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: You mentioned Perry Marshall and I’d like to take this to the next step. That

was your own test that kind of validated that. Perry is a big time Pay Per Click guy.

He can get the lowest amount per click with the highest conversion possible. He's

that good. He tested sending Pay Per Click traffic to a sales letter versus getting

them to opt-in to an email stream over time to see what made him more money.

The opt-in with the email sequence destroyed the direct sales letter.



Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: No question.

BrBrBrBrian:ian:ian:ian: It wasn't even close.

Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: Let's say you did my strategy and got $5.00 a lead. You convert 5% of your

list on a $100.00 product, meaning you break even. If you were dumb enough to

just do that, you would at least break even, but who would stop there, right?

So you continue to offer things that are going to be relevant and interesting. Dave

Navarro has a $300.00 email product. So I'm going to say, hey, this is good. I can

recommend it. You should check it out. Naomi Dunford has a small business

marketing product. Well, if you're interested in an email newsletter you're probably

interested in small business marketing.

You don't just make one offer.

Besides, someone is going to trust you a lot more after they've received and opened

10 high quality messages from you than if they're just on a sales page. I don’t care

how good your sales page is. I don't care if you're one of the legendary copywriting

guys, if you’re you're Eugene Schwartz. If you have a relationship that builds over

time, you're going to create more trust and thus better conversions than you will

with one shot.

How to sell your audience on “free”How to sell your audience on “free”How to sell your audience on “free”How to sell your audience on “free”

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: Absolutely. So you've touched on what I call the free offer. A lot of people

don't realize in this day and age that selling someone on free is harder than it used



to be. I mean, you literally do have to be persuasive and offer benefits and

overcome objections because people don't trust email marketers. Spam is a big

problem. Give us some thoughts on how you do that. How do you sell the free opt-

in?

Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: You're not just selling the opt-in. You're actually got to sell them on reading

it once they get it. Because somebody who opts in and then sort of never looks at it

doesn't do you any good either.

People think they don't need to learn about copywriting because they're not selling

anything, but that’s not true. You are selling something, even if it’s just an idea.

Maybe you're a Seth Godin type and you want your ideas to go all over the web.

You have to hit those basic copywriting principles. Let people know the benefit of

the information you have. What do they want to achieve? What do they want to do

or be? How does what you have help them be what they want to be or do what they

want to do?

It's exactly like selling any kind of educational home study course or a membership

site. You have to give them a reason whenever you can.

Finally, this is a bit tricky, but you also have to give them a reason to act today.

You've got to create a sense of urgency, and clear calls to action. You have to do all

the things copywriters do to get people to act instead of just sitting there passively,

absorb the information and not going forward.



You have to have a great headline. Again, I put a photograph of my face with a

caption on my squeeze page. Why? Because it builds trust. Anything you study on

how to make a sales page work better, you must use in your squeeze page or

landing page to convince them to opt-in for the free offer.

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: I would like to say we’ll be continuing with deeper and deeper seminars on

email marketing because it really is that important. One of the things Sonia and I

will be discussing in the future is copywriting in your email marketing. That will

cover everything from landing page copy to email subject lines to when you make

your offers. How do you write copy for that? All of that will be coming in the future,

don't worry.

Always study as much about copywriting as you can because it is central to

everything.

Let's move on. They've opted in. Some people do just make offers, and at least to a

certain degree you can make money that way. But we take a longer view. Instead of

maximizing the immediate buck and losing someone or most everyone, we prefer

to make a lot of money over a long time.

The key to making lots of money over the lThe key to making lots of money over the lThe key to making lots of money over the lThe key to making lots of money over the long ong ong ong

haulhaulhaulhaul

So what is this cookie content we're offering here?

Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: I don’t remember when I first came up with this idea, but essentially what

you're doing is training your reader just like you train a dog.



Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: I still can't believe Sonia, the nicest person ever, other than maybe Darren.

Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: I'm not as nice as Darren.

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: (laughing) I know that, but not everyone else does. When you wrote that

post on Copyblogger, Treat your Readers like Dogs. I was like, oh my goodness,

how is she going to get away with it? You did. I couldn't believe it.

Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: It's funny because I'm waiting for someone to take offense. We'll see. This

may be the time. (laughs)

But it is just like training a dog. If you want to train a dog to sit, then you give him

a cookie every time he does it. Pat him on the head and make him feel good.

Cookie content does exactly that — every time your reader does what you want her

to do, which is open your email and read it, she feels good. She gets a reward and

the reward is the content. So she doesn't ever, or at least rarely, open your email

and say, Oh, this is just some crummy ad. She's always opening your email and

saying, Oh hey, this is good. I can use this. I can use this tip. I can pass this tip

along to my friend who needs it and I'm going to look like a big smarty pants.

This is a principle for blog content and it's a really important principle for email

content, because just like you can train them to open it you can very, very quickly

train people that oh, that's just going to have a bunch of ads and it's probably not

going to have something I want.



Even if people don’t mark you as a spammer (which they may), they'll say, I'm

going to read that later because there's probably nothing good in it.

Later turns into never and they eventually unsubscribe because they're just not

getting any value.

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: So it's the difference between Pavlov's Bell, which is positive response based

on something yummy and electric shocks that create a diversion.

Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: Pretty much.

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: To bring this around to psychological testing on lab animals is probably

more offensive than your dog analogy.

Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: Let's just see how many people we can shock away with this.

Two key questions for email marketersTwo key questions for email marketersTwo key questions for email marketersTwo key questions for email marketers

This actually answers two questions I get all the time. Even people who are making

a lot of money with email still seem to struggle with these. I don’t.

In fact, I have an easy time with both of these. One of which is convincing people to

opt in. I know many people who don't do double opt-in because they lose too many

people between those two steps, which I think is not smart.

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: Let me clarify. You think double opt-in is not smart?



Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: I think single opt-in is not smart. I think avoiding double opt-in because

you lose people is a misstep.

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: You're probably losing the right people or you're not doing a good enough

job of enticing them I guess.

Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: You're losing people you don't really have.

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: True.

Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: There's not a lot of harm in it. The other problem, this is particularly a

factor if you write in any way about making money or probably if you write about

certain medical issues, which is getting out of a spam filter. I'm in this spam filter

and I can't get out no matter what I do, no matter what service I use and no matter

how careful I am about language.

There are some spam filters that simply block bulk email, full stop. So you can be

sending bulk email about organic gardening and it's going to get blocked.

Cookie content addresses both of those because you create so much desire in Cookie content addresses both of those because you create so much desire in Cookie content addresses both of those because you create so much desire in Cookie content addresses both of those because you create so much desire in

the person's mind for getting that information.the person's mind for getting that information.the person's mind for getting that information.the person's mind for getting that information. They know it's going to be

valuable that they will do the work for you. That's the only way to make it work.

The only way to make it work is if your reader will take a couple extra steps to

make sure she gets what you're sending.



Every day I get many messages from people saying, Oh, I didn't get message

number four. Can you send me message number four?

Actually, it's kind of nice to number your messages because then you get a sense of

how many people are opening them by how many people are asking you for the

missing ones.

So really, really good cookie content that people know is going to give something

they want will solve both of those problems for you. I have extremely low number

of people who opt-in the first time and then fail to confirm. It depends on the list,

but usually I run about 2-3%.

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: Nice.

Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: I know lots of people who lose 20-25% and they say, well I can't afford that.

The answer is to improve your cookie quotient.

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: Right. I totally get that if you provide interesting, valuable content, people

are going to continue to want to receive it and, more importantly, actually read it.

But you have another goal with your content too, because the premise here is that

you give something for free and sell something related. So you're content has really

got to be priming people for an eventual transaction without coming across that

way. How do you do that?



Priming the salePriming the salePriming the salePriming the sale

Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: There's a couple of ways.

One thing I do recommend is to make a small offer early. Make it clear to people

that this is not just some great charitable project, because they'll be less offended

down the line. If you give them 20 good messages and then you sell them you'll get

a certain number of people who are like Uh, what is this? This is sort of coming out

of left field.

Now, if you've already given 20 messages, you're going to make those people mad,

so just do it. But it's a good idea to send a couple signals early on that you are going

to make an offer.

The other thing is, again, we've talked about the sideways sales letter. Create

content that creates a desire or flames a desire. You can't create desire, but you can

fan it. Create content that fans the desire for a particular result.

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: By providing relevant content related to what you eventually sell, you're

channeling desire. The desire has to exist or they wouldn't have opted-in in the first

place.

Just remember you're steering a ship. Don't go producing content without a rudder.

Think about what you're trying to accomplish.



As far as the initial offer, I like to do it within a heavy content piece that has

independent value. Because it's not a stand alone and it's almost less of a shock to

the system, but it does indicate that it’s a commercial endeavor.

Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: Oh, we still get asked that all the time, probably a couple times a day. “I

don't get it, why are you giving me so much stuff? How do you make money?”

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: It’s interesting because it seems crystal clear to me. We have three

businesses surrounding Copyblogger, but a lot of times people are just like, Why do

you do this for free?

I'm like, Well, it's sort of free, but on the other hand it's working out for us.

I think that's good though. If you're not beating someone in the head with the idea

that you're cashing in, then you're doing something right because you're achieving

your business goals. Other people are just like, Wow, this is so great I can't believe

you're doing this for me.

Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: I just signed up for a new gym yesterday, which is one of my least favorite

things in the world to do. I like to go to the gym. I just don't like to talk to the sales

person who sells me the gym, because they always push too hard.

The sales approach I will always prefer is the one that says, look, here's all the stuff

we have. A lot of it is cool. Here's how you can get more of what we offer when you

want it.



That's the approach that we take. “Here's a bunch of stuff. It's cool and free. Here's

some additional stuff to let you go further if you want it. If you don't, that's no

problem for us.”

Most of our readers will never buy — that's not a problem at all. Those people are

giving us their attention and letting other people know that we're cool. That’s a

great thing.

AutorespondersAutorespondersAutorespondersAutoresponders

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: Right, absolutely. I want to ask you a bit about the use of autoresponders.

Using an email service that is reputable and has a good relationship with the major

email services is imperative not only for ease of use, but also for deliverability. You

try to email from your own server you're not going to have a lot of luck. But if you

use one of the commercial providers, and we'll talk about that later, you're going to

use a service regardless.

Those services allow you to send one-off custom messages when you feel like it.

Like something comes up or you just wrote something. More like blogging.

The autoresponder function is something that happens every time to everybody

who's signed up prior to that point. Some people don’t use autoresponders much at

all. Some people use them only at the beginning. Some people use them for the

entire email campaign. It goes on for months, but it's all a sequence that happens

for everyone who opts-in. What's your take?



Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: Probably the most popular bulk email provider, Constant Contact, only

gives you five autoresponder messages. I won't even start ranting about this. Just

trust me. I have about a half hour long rant, with quite a number of curse words in

it, detailing my problem with this method.

You need to have the ability to send an autoresponder, even if you're not using it

today. Don't use a service that's not going to let you send a robust — that means at

least 10 — sequence of autoresponder messages. Interestingly, Frank Kern said he

doesn't like them. I haven't tracked that down, but I need to so I can see what his

argument is.

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: I've been on his list off and on and sometimes I'll unsubscribe and start over

again to see. It's true. Except for maybe the welcome message, everything is custom.

Frank's promoting whatever the flavor of the moment is. That's kind of the way it

works. That's the new thing. When he provides substantive content it's usually in

conjunction with his own launch. It's all been created just for that. It’s his model

and there’s nothing wrong with that. A lot of people do it that way. It just means

you have a launch plus JV affiliate marketing model purely.

My approach has always been a combination of both. I know yours is, too. In fact,

that's how we approached the Copyblogger newsletter, which is, give you 20 core

lessons. You need to know at least this much before we can start sending you more

advanced stuff, or customer stuff, or an exciting new offer that's relevant, whatever.

You have to know these 20 steps first.



Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: I really like the rhythm of autoresponders. Launches are really exhausting. I

don't like to have to hunt every time I eat.

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: (laughing) You're more agrarian?

Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: I'm more agrarian. I like to let those little crops grow and smooth my

income, smooth the revenue that's coming in.

Kern and more of the traditional internet marketing guys I think were very much

influenced by Jeff Walker, although Jeff has evolved this model. They created a

massive event, gathering a ton of attention. It's a lot of work all at once and then

they totally veg out.

I think that's actually why a lot of those guys feature so much vegging out on the

beach kind of imagery, because they work like dogs for maybe six weeks and then

they take six months off.

I don't personally like that model. If you do that's cool. But even if you do, I think

you should have an autoresponder. Because why shouldn't you grow your list while

you're taking that six months off? Why shouldn't you keep that list warm and

happy and comfortable while you're taking that six months off? It's very flake-

friendly. Which is important if you're me.

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: Six months off sounds really good to me right now.



Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: Doesn't it? Yeah, I know. For example, when I'm eyeball-deep in a launch

and I can't necessarily take care of all the new people, some of whom are going to

be interested in what I'm about to launch, and some who aren’t the right fit. Or

whenever I’m busy with family or vacation, or when you and I are working hard on

delivering a course, a new person opting into my list still gets really well taken care

of. A couple times a week they hear from me and it's all good stuff. It creates lots of

love and connection and relationship and kumbaya. I don't do any extra work to

achieve that.

It's beyond me how anyone can not love this method.

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: A lot of the big guys have copywriters on staff and you don't realize it's not

really them. There's that, too.

I love the approach and I agree. I love the flake-friendly part of it. Even if you

decide to flake out, your business won’t die. It's wonderful technology that sends

out messages for you and keeps things going while you go veg a little bit. I think

that's important.

“Oh hai”“Oh hai”“Oh hai”“Oh hai”

The last thing on autoresponders I want to ask is something you said about Jeff

Walker. You know, 2005 is when I bought PLF and first got on his list, but I never

really noticed this. You call it the 'Oh, hai' method and I love it, but I never really

noticed. You totally tuned into this. Please, tell us what that's about.



Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: Funny thing is that I have PLF, but I actually think I didn't notice this. PLF

is a big course, and I missed it. But I heard an interview with him where he

mentioned this technique and he's like, Yeah, that's my technique. I teach it in PLF.

The technique it is to put a very personal text-only message at message two or

message three. It feels like it's coming from me individually going to you

individually. It says like, Hey, I'm really glad you joined. It's really glad to see you.

I use it to get folks to white list me.

So for anybody who's been on the Internet Marketing for Smart People

(http://www.copyblogger.com/imfsp/) list, this comes in at message three. You get

two lessons and then you get this message that says, “Oh, hi!”

It's extremely conversational. It’s like my friend signed up and I said, Hey, what's

up? Good to see you. Could you do me a favor and white list me, because stupid

spam filters, you don't know what they're going to catch. I don't want you to miss

out.

I personally don't like to actually pretend that it's personal. So I don't put anything

in there like, “It was good seeing you on Twitter last week” or something stupid like

that.

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: Oh, that is so dumb.



Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: That is just a bad idea. The other side of that is that's an automated message.

It goes out to everybody. If somebody emails me back I try extremely hard to send

them a short email and just say, Hey, thanks for letting me know. So it does kind of

commit you to making a personal connection.

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: People respond to autoresponders all the time if you write well, if you write

conversationally like a human being. Smart copywriting is conversational. There's

no real distinction there. But you have to be prepared for that.

I think I mentioned in The Third Tribe forum that Kim, the head of our support

department, used to lecture me and say, Would you quit making them think you're

writing them individually because they are all writing me back. The emails would

go to her and not me. So I was like, Kim, that's what you're supposed to do. It's so

funny when you get lectured by support for being good at what you're doing.

Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: It's the eternal conflict between operations and marketing. Stop doing your

damn job!

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: (laughing) Exactly. You just nailed that one.

Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: That does actually touch on an important point.

If you have an information-only email like we do with Third Tribe, where we just

let you know about the calls or what time the next Q&A session is, it's fine to have a

do not reply.



If you have a marketing list, you've got to have somebody on the other side of the

list. Because if you're any good people are going to answer back. So it's either got to

be you or it's got to be somebody in your organization who's super good at just

being warm and nice and genuine. You don't have to write paragraphs and

paragraphs.

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: Yes, take the Seth Godin reply approach, which is as few words as he can get

away with, because the guy answers probably 300 emails a day.

Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: Right, which is beyond me.

Let’s move on to the moneyLet’s move on to the moneyLet’s move on to the moneyLet’s move on to the money

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: Yeah, beyond me too. Let's move on to the money. We are doing this to

make money.

Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: That's right.

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: We have to keep that in mind. As I said before, the content should naturally

steer them towards relevant products and services, because if they are interested in

this topic and there's commerce around it, and I would hope there would be since

that would be the premise of the subject matter. (Both laugh.)

We laugh, but sometimes people get hung up there. We'll be talking about that in

future topics as well, but the last thing you want to do is run them off with a bunch

of promotional stuff.



Again, some people do that, not caring about the long term. Maybe they're just

trying to make the mortgage or they're just short term thinkers. We don't advocate

short term thinking because you can make so much more money. I mean, really,

it’s like trading dollars for pennies. That's how I like to say it.

When you take the long view you have to be more patient up front, but you make

so much more in the long term. When is it right to get people to try to buy

something?

Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: I think that as long as you're cool about it, you can do it every message. Like

something I did with the Remarkable Communication list is that I have the body all

set up as cookie content, it's all a lesson. Then at the end, there's a section with my

picture and a super low key offer.

That list was originally designed to sell copywriting. I had something like, “You

know, if you'd like some help with any of the things I talked about today, go ahead

and email me and we can talk about working on your project. I work on sales

letters, web pages and autoresponders.”

Very low key. It's not like buy, buy, buy. It's more like, If this is a good time for you

to hire someone, well this is how you get a hold of me. It's informational.

Like I said about the gym, information is always better than a hard push. With

information, you’re just letting people know. If you're going to do that, do it in

every message because you don't know when that reader is going to have a need.



They could go for three months and have no need. Then three and a half months

comes up and all of a sudden they need a copywriter. You've been in front of them

the whole time. They don’t have to go searching through everything you've ever

sent to try and figure out how to hire you.

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: Back when I had my real estate brokerage business, it was entirely virtual. It

was powered by this type of drip email marketing kind of thing.

So just to get some context, if someone is going to relocate, I mean, there are

different types of buyers. So if someone is going to relocate somewhere in the

country to where you're at, they start looking up to a year ahead of time. So it's

important to know who you're talking to. Information like that is valuable because

that gives you context in which to plan.

So I created a series especially for people relocating and it just kept going out over

time. You don't know if they are in a rush to move in a month because of a job

change or they're just starting to look and don't know yet. So that point is poignant.

You have to know or have to decide if you don't know what your carry time is. Is

that a good way to put it?


Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: You're basically feeding them information until at some point you either

give up or they do business with you. There's always that final, not overbearing, but



it was still a call to action that says if you're ready to go you can search for houses

here and I can help you with them. Or just call me or whatever.

Now you've moved to a product model from a copywriting service model. So do

you shift that message over to your content marketing blueprint course?

Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: These days I don't do it with every message, but I certainly could.

I let people know in the most relevant messages that: “There is a course coming. It's

off the market right now, but we're going to re-launch it. Sign up to be on the Early

Bird notification list.” Same thing.

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: I love that. It's segmenting a list to those so you don't have to hammer the

people who aren't interested, but you can be very focused with people who are. It's

not about just one email list. You may end up with several sub-lists, because that's a

great way to talk to the people who want to hear about something without

alienating and running off the rest.

Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: I used to underestimate how many times you have to let people know that

your thing is open. Particularly if there is a short window. People get genuinely

mad at you if you've got a six day launch and they miss it. And they will.

If you only send one email message they won't see it. Or it'll come in when they're

out of town. We did one Labor Day weekend message, which was really brilliant of

us.



Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: (laughing) Hey, it was our biggest launch ever, but we still had people mad

at us.

Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: Yeah because they went away Labor Day weekend and God bless them, they

didn't check their email, which I think is incredibly admirable.

So the Early Bird list lets you basically lightly touch your main list maybe twice and

say Okay, there's a launch. I want to make sure you know it's here. Here's where

you go to find out more.

The people who expressed more interest you remind more often. You make 100%

sure they don't miss it.

I also like to let them in early. It's so funny how people talk about 'The First Tribe'

the traditional internet marketing guys like they're evil. I don't think they're evil. I

just think they're kind of cheesy.

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: They're also marketing to a certain type of person that responds to that. So,

yeah, they're not evil.

Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: Some of them are evil. (Brian laughs.) But most of them aren't evil.

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: For the most part they've just chosen a type of customer. We, you and I,

have chosen a different type of customer. The fundamentals of persuasion and

copy are the same. It’s the application that’s different because our people won't

respond well to that stuff. It's all the same under the hood, just a different paint job.



Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: In any event, that is very much 'The First Tribe' technique of letting your

early bird list in a couple hours early.

BriBriBriBrian:an:an:an: We do that too, don't we?

Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: Damn straight we do.

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: (laughing) Obviously that must be a Third Tribe method or an adapted

Third Tribe method.

Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: It's a good thing to do. Smart.

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: What's your approach to stand alone messages? I mean, they're highly

effective because they're different and focused. Too many of them could be a bad

thing, but you shouldn’t be afraid to do a stand alone message.

I know I had this conversation with Chris Brogan. He's never done one ever to his

email list, and I was like Chris, you kind of have to. I mean, come on. You just

wrote a book that ended up being a New York Times best seller. It's a good book.

Don't be shy. If anyone is offended by that then they’ve got to go.

Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: That's the thing I would warn people about a bit. Because when you create a

cookie content-focused email marketing program, people will love you. You get

kind of addicted to everybody saying you're so awesome. You're so great.



Then you send out a promotional message. It's weird because it doesn't grow with

the number of the list. I don't know why this is. But like, one person will be mean

to you. Mean enough to really hurt your feelings.

You just have to know it's coming. One person is going to be so offended that you

would be such an evil scumbag as to try to make them an offer for something that

is valuable and that they may get some value out of it.

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: These people exist and we do tend to take it personally. I shielded myself

from that stuff a couple of years ago. First it was with Kim and then lucky you.

Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: I'm digging it. Thanks.

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: (laughing) I'm sure someday you'll be down shifting it too, but it still hurts

my feelings. It still makes me feel bad.

I know that sounds wimpy, but I work hard to try to do good things, valuable

things. You know, give a lot before taking anything. I don't even consider it taking.

I mean, if it's not a solid product or service then I shouldn't be offering it in the first

place.

On the other hand, I'm so over that. It doesn't stop me from doing anything

because 99.5% of the people are either going to take a look at it, a lot of them are

going to buy it, and a lot of people are just going to ignore it. It's really way more

positive than negative as long as it's balanced properly and it's valuable rather than

junk.



Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: One thing is, if we've got a promotional sequence coming up, I always try

and make sure that whatever list I'm writing to, I have added to that list recently

with something that is purely content. Good, yummy stuff.

I don't want people to ever think they are in a pitch fest or that they are in some

kind of weird, squeezy pressure situation. If I know I have a promotion coming up,

first thing I do is get some good cookie content on my calendar and get it queued

up.

We did this with Teaching Sells. The list was cold. We hadn't emailed them in eight

or nine months maybe. So what we did was we wrote five high-value pieces of

content that also made the case for the product, helping to educate people about

why they might want that particular product. They had a lot of value in and of

themselves and you could actually go and do stuff with them. We started that way

before we started making offers.

I also like the word offer better than I like the term asking for the sale. To me,

asking for the sale is trying to take something. Whereas offering is making

something available for the people who are going to find it useful. For me that

helps me get my head in the right place.



Part 2Part 2Part 2Part 2

Email marketing and the Email marketing and the Email marketing and the Email marketing and the launch modellaunch modellaunch modellaunch model

BrianBrianBrianBrian:::: Sonia, let's touch briefly on something I know everyone is really interested

in. Launch strategies are far beyond the scope of this call, but also integrated.

Launches are driven by content that acts as the sideways sales letter that eventually

leads to the offer, but they're also driven by email delivery, right?

SoniaSoniaSoniaSonia:::: Yeah, absolutely. Email is probably the most traditional launch tool.

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: It's so short-term that you need that immediacy of the inbox. Nothing is as

immediate and draws more attention than the inbox. Not RSS. You can offer an

RSS option, but that's only to catch a few more people.

We are going to be doing a dedicated seminar for Third Tribers on launch

strategies soon. So we're not going to talk about this too much.

Tell me the three keys in anticipation for that upcoming seminar that you would

need to consider from an email perspective.

Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: The first, and I touched on it a little earlier, is that you want to create a

compressed series; a sequence that warms the list, makes them feel good and starts

educating them about why they want what you've got.

Again, it's a sideways sales letter. You're showing benefits of the thing that you're

planning to sell. They might not have any idea that you have anything for sale, but

you start to talk about it.



Let's say we were going to launch an email marketing product, then we would start

to talk about all the benefits of email marketing. We would do a sequence on the

great ROI, the great relationship-building, etc.

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: Like case studies, benefits of what you're aiming to do. It's that kind of thing,

more of the why than the how, right?

Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: Exactly. A high level of “this is something you should do.” Again, you're not

getting into the nitty gritty of how. If you have a blog, then it's smart to support this

with content on the blog as well.

You create a compressed series that starts to prepare the ground so the people are

receptive to the message, and they know why you're talking about this.

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: So it's almost like designing an autoresponder series, but it's not an

autoresponder because it's real time.


Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: You don't put a launch on autopilot. That's really the power of launches.

That brings us to the second fundamental of how you use email during launches. It

acts like a series that's on autopilot, but you're in control the entire time because of

what happens during launches.

Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: This is probably the coolest thing. Maybe the coolest thing Jeff had after the

sideways newsletter. Which is when you're in launch mode you are listenwhen you're in launch mode you are listenwhen you're in launch mode you are listenwhen you're in launch mode you are listening for ing for ing for ing for



objectionsobjectionsobjectionsobjections. You're listening for those people who aren't getting it or need more

information on something you thought was perfectly clear. So you're tweaking the

entire time based on your observation.

That's what makes a launch different from a simple sales sequence that goes in an

autoresponder. It's the back and forth and you're doing real time adjustment of

your selling, like a face to face sales person does.

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: Absolutely. People are like, objections? How can they object when they

don't know what I'm offering yet?

Questions are objections. Any time someone is not clear, then it's a barrier, right?

So people will show you what the possible objections are. People are wondering

how much it’s going to cost. That one is pretty common and predictable. You don't

necessarily want to reveal that until the end because you haven't built your case to

the final point yet to justify whatever your price is yet.

People will tell you what the sticking points are. So you should always try to

anticipate what the sticking points are and address them proactively. But we're not

mind readers. They're smarter than you are when it comes to opening their wallet.

Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: There you go.

Actually, you can adjust your marketing message, your sales message, but you can

also, if your product is information, adjust the product itselfadjust the product itselfadjust the product itselfadjust the product itself. You can find out

during the launch that there's something, it actually might be quite simple for you



to address, that's really giving people fits. You can then build that into your

product.

That two-way conversation is really, really an important part of a launch versus

something that's on autopilot. Again, we talked about objections. Launches are

great for overcoming objections and addressing objections and removing the

barriers that people have. I mean, you can just come out and say what's kept you

from creating an email marketing campaign of your own in the past. People will let

you know what their objections are to actually doing the thing you want to teach

them about.

Then the other thing about a launch sequence that makes a great launch is urgency.

You have to act today, not next week. It won’t be available next week.

Two pieces of that are social proof. You can legitimately talk about how many

people have been interested and how many people have already signed up. I've only

got 100 spots and there are 2,000 people on this list.

Jeff Walker is such a master at this. In his sweet, folksy way he'll say, “I'm not trying

to scare you into doing anything. I'm just saying I've got 100,000 people and 200

spots.”

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: (laughing) I did the same thing. I learned that from Jeff. I try to tone it down

as much as possible because you don't want to sound like a jerk.



On that last Teaching Sells launch, I thought 1,000 people would sign up for the

early bird list. We had 500 spots. They're really interested so I thought maybe that

would be enough to sell out the 500 spots.

Then like 4,000 people signed up for the early bird list. I was, like Um, that's good,

but now I have to find away to sound that doesn't make me sound like a jerk.

That's a great thing about the early bird list, by the way, too. The number of people

on the Teaching Sells list will be like 25,000 people. You can always throw that

number around. It's just not as persuasive as saying these are the people who

opted-in twice because they really are excited. When that happened we sold out in

less than a day.

Social proof is important, but another way to do that, by making it public. In

Teaching Sells, there is a blog on the back end where you can post content and

people can leave comments. Number one, that's how you allow people to ask

questions. Sometimes you want them to email you questions. Sometimes you want

it more out there in public because you want to see what the objections are in order

to tweak.

That also shows excitement and that there are a lot of people involved and that

you're not just making it up. Proof is important. You're allowed to tell the truth and

say how many people are interested, but nothing is more persuasive than people

seeing it for themselves. Real people with real sites, not sock puppet people that you

make up.



Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: And you know, you don't have Jeff Walker's number of people on your

email list. Maybe you're just getting started and you still have small numbers. There

are still going to be people who show up who are so excited about it. They'll talk

you up.

You don't get as many. You don't get as many people as you do when you have a

bigger list. But you do have people that are going to show up, do the selling for you

by saying “This is so cool. I can't wait. Please let me know the minute it's open.”

That's much cooler than anything you can put out there.

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: Filling your emails with a bunch of hype is nowhere near as effective as

someone else being genuinely excited. Hype is a way to substitute for excitement,

but genuine excitement is the best thing in the world. If other people demonstrate

it, it's wonderful.

Sonia, you also mentioned scarcity. I'm not going to talk about this too long

because that's a course in itself. A launch is an event as Sonia said earlier. It's not

just another day at the office. That's the whole idea. Some of the Internet marketers

will tell you that they're creating a spectacle. Spectacle goes back to the days of PT

Barnum and even some darker sides of human history about how persuasive and

how it gets people involved, sucked in and paying attention.

An event implies that there's an end, and end implies scarcity. So there's either got

to be a limitation, and that's true such as we have an interactive program in

Teaching Sells. If we let in 4,000 people we would be doing you a disservice because



we could not keep up with you. So that's a legitimate use of scarcity. Another way

to use scarcity is to offer a valuable bonus only to X amount of people and not the

rest of the people. It's ironic isn't it Sonia, that when you do that you end up with

about that many people?

Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: Yeah. It is useful to have a good ability to kind of estimate how many people

are going to be interested.

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: People often ask, Why would you cut off the amount of people that are

going to buy? Ironically if you don't, you'll probably sell less than that.

It's crazy. We're all crazy. Human beings are crazy. I love in “Switch” by the Heath

brothers, how they talk about the subconscious and your emotional side being the

elephant and your logical brain being the rider. Then how frustrating it is for that

rider to try to steer the elephant? If the elephant wants to go somewhere it's going.

That's how human beings are primarily motivated. We just fool ourselves into

thinking we're rational.

We're going to talk a lot more about launches coming up. So we'll leave it at that as

a nice overview. We'll be doing announcements soon about when that launch

seminar will be coming out.

Avoid lame scarcityAvoid lame scarcityAvoid lame scarcityAvoid lame scarcity

Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: One thing I'll point you guys to is a really great topic about fake lame cheesy

scarcity on the forums. I would suggest you guys have a look at that. I'll put a link



on the lesson page so you can find it quickly. There are people who keep re-

opening their limited time offer like once a week. “Good news, we found 20 more

spots!”

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: That's ridiculous. It just kills your credibility. The only time we ever re-

opened Teaching Sells to more people was last time because we sold out in one day.

We launched on Labor Day weekend like idiots. Obviously, how did we not factor

that in ahead of time?

Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: (laughing) I think we had intended to launch about six weeks before that.

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: That's right. We always intend to launch earlier than we do and then the

reality intervenes.

Then people were like, I can't believe you won't let me in. So I went and talked to

Jon Morrow, who’s our Associate Editor for Copyblogger. I'm like, Dude, I'll pay

you this much if you help us in the forums because more people want in and I don't

want to provide a sub-standard experience for more money.

I was perfectly happy, trust me, with the amount of people who bought that first

day. So we opened up for a small amount of people. That sold out again. Then Jon

came in and helped us out.

If it's real and it sounds genuine then you can do it. So much of it, to me and to

most people who are very suspicious of marketing in the first place, if it sounds

incredulous then it's just not going to be received as well. Although I will say that



every time the person not to be named, (cough, Kern) re-opened, I'm sure he sold

more. So it still works. I'm just saying think about your reputation long term. You

want to be able to make that money next year, too, not just that time.

Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: You don’t want to train people to say, Oh, he's going to get me a second

chance and a third chance and a forth chance.

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: Yeah, you have to really mean it. That's why we've always been very strict

about always giving a good introductory offer. We always say it's going to end and

it always does. The first time people think that you don't really mean it you're done

for.

The lightning roundThe lightning roundThe lightning roundThe lightning round

Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: Right. So as usually we've gone quite a distance here.

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: Let me give you the lightning round and then we'll shut up.

Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: Let's do that.

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: I always talk too much, but I hope people get value out of it. I saw this come

in the forum when I was talking about how we always tend to go too long. They're

like, “Keep it up!”

Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: Yeah, that was nice.

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: Here's the lightening round. Let's talk about tools. Nuts and bolts stuff like

who's the best email provider.



Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: For quite a long time there was one answer. The answer was Aweber. We

were done. There is a new tool that has captured Brian's attention. I'm almost there.

I'm almost convinced. Brian is really impressed with MailChimp. He's been

working with it and he really thinks they’ve got game.

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: Remember a year ago we did an email marketing post on Copyblogger and

everyone is coming in raving about MailChimp and I'm like what is this monkey

thing? I've never heard of it and everyone was just saying this is the way to go.

I ignored it because I had been with Aweber forever. But with the Scribe launch

(http://scribeseo.com/), Aweber annoyed me. They were strict for no good reason.

Anyway, long story, but they're very strict. They don't let you do things. They don't

have an open API. They're very non-Web 2.0. But they have a great reputation and

usually get good deliverability. With Scribe they just wouldn't work for us.

So we went to MailChimp. We were able to have the technical solution we wanted.

I saw their client list with people like HP and huge corporations and I'm like they

have to be trusted by the major email providers or they couldn't have those clients.

I'm loving it. Eventually we'll move everything over. I don't have an affiliate

arrangement with MailChimp or anything like that. It's totally up to you. That's

where I'm heading with all our lists.



SSSSonia:onia:onia:onia: New player. I've heard good things about some other players. Again, I don't

ever recommend Constant Contact because of their email autoresponder limitation.

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: Brogan uses Blue, what is it?

Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: Blue Sky?

[Note: it’s Blue Sky Factory, http://www.blueskyfactory.com/]

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: Yeah. I hear they're really solid. Chris really loves them. So I would take a

look at them as well. Maybe even ask Chris his thoughts on that. But MailChimp

and its ability to segment to different portions of the list is just really great. The

user interface is top of the line. Aweber has one of the worst user interfaces, but

again, you always just kind of put up with it because you want your email delivered.

Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: Right. They were so much better than even the very good players for a long

time.

One thing I would suggest is talk to people who are using the service before you

sign up. Just get a sense of real world. Because I will tell you, every email provider

will tell you they get 98.4% deliverability. That's theoretical. You start really talking

about whether or not people from AOL are getting your email that it starts to look

very different.

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: Okay, HTML or text emails?

Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: HTML or text? Good question. Here's why I like HTML.



BriBriBriBrian:an:an:an: Remember this is the lightening round.

Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: (sighs) I know.

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: (laughing) You can't give a short answer.

Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: I suck at short answers.

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: Neither can I.

Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: OK. Here's what I like about HTML: It's visually branded. So the person

knows at a glance who they're getting the email from and it lets you create a

connection.

Here's what I don't like about HTML: It doesn't get through as well. It doesn't get

through as well as text. Text gets through more spam filters consistently. That's

why that 'Oh, hai' message I talked about is always in text, because it's more likely

to go through.

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: You want them to white list you so that even HTML gets through. See? Very

smart. Very nice. Also solidifies the relationship a little further I would imagine.

The 'Oh, hai' message is probably one of the most valuable tips in this entire call. I

love it.

Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: So, thanks Jeff [Walker].

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: Yeah, thanks Jeff. Next question: What if you hate to write?



Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: Lots of people hate to write. They think they can't do email marketing.

There are three tools. I'll talk about two and Brian will talk about one because I

don't have a lot of experience with the second one.

First is voice recognition. I will give you a link to Jon Morrow's incredibly great

post on ProBlogger about how to actually use voice recognition software and have

the stupid thing know what you're saying. It works. It works really well. Jon does

everything that he does on voice recognition. It just takes a little bit a tweaking in

your hardware. It's not expensive. It's not hard.

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: Real quick, Mark McGuinness on Lateral Action did one of those posts as

well. You might want to link to it. Mark had some kind of repetitive stress injury.

Jon has a disability that requires that he use voice recognition. Mark did for a short

time and he kept with it. It may be worth it even if you like to write.

Mark's a poet and he's still using voice recognition.

Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: A lot of the biggest marketing guys do use voice recognition because it gives

you more of a conversational flavor and because it's so much faster. It's so much

faster than writing.

Okay, lightening round next tool. Why don't you talk about audio postcards?

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: Okay, this was a technology that came out and it was kind of developed

from the IM side by Rick Raditz who does Instant Teleseminar (we actually use



that product). It was originally developed by him and marketed by Armand Morin

at some point, but it was called like Audio Generator or something like that.

What it did was allow you to make a quick recording. It's like an email service

where the messages are delivered in audio via what they called audio postcards. So

you get an email and it's got a link that says Click here to listen.

You have to realize that so many people don't like to read. So at one point in the

past I was going to develop this entire marketing system for realtors because I had

been in that business.

I like to write. So I always did everything in text. But I thought that was so good for

real estate people and other type of service professionals, instead of some canned

monthly newsletter, that they could send maybe a weekly or monthly audio

message that contained a relevant short tip. Like if you're a realtor, you could leave

a message about how they can improve the curb appeal of their home or whatever,

something personable. The voice connects in a way that we try to replicate with the

written word, but you know it's a lot easier if you just talk.

Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: That's true.

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: So that technology is still around, but in these days of podcasting and easy

audio development it's so easy to create a WordPress page with a free plug-in that

allows you to play on the page your podcast recording or just your audio recording.

You don't have to pay for anything.



If you have a WordPress blog, create a page, host an audio message with a short

brief text description and then send your email and say Hey, I've got a quick audio

tip for you. Click here.

That is really good because what you're trying to do is build a relationship and

provide great content.

You don't have to be Hemingway. Just understand the information you want to

give and deliver it in a personal way with your own voice. I really like that for a lot

of niches.

For Copyblogger we're dealing with a lot of writers. They like to read to a certain

degree. But we got a great response to the fact that we're doing so much audio here

in Third Tribe. We provide the transcripts for the readers, but audio is very

powerful. Think about it. Is your audience going to be more receptive and more

warmed to you by hearing your voice either primarily or every once in a while?

Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: I saw a big difference in my business and my connection to customers when

I started doing more audio. It does create a rapport.

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: That's because you have that sexy voice.

Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: I've got that sexy voice. What can I say?

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: She's got the radio voice. When I can't sleep I just call Sonia and ask her to

talk to me.



Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: I had one person tell me they can't listen to me while driving.

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: (laughing) Yeah, I love that one. I saw you say that in the forum and I

cracked up.

Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: We should put a caution on these.

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: Okay, give us one more option and then we have to sign off.

Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: We talk about this a lot. If you hate to write, content is a cornerstone of

Third Tribe marketing. If you really hate to write and don’t want to do it, then

partner with somebody who loves it. There are plenty of broke talented writers.

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: Forget Third Tribe marketing. Even the IM guys use free content. Frank

Kern pays a fortune to develop those spiffy videos and he's very talented and well

rehearsed when he does them.

So content is content. One way or another you're going to have to make it. The web

is still driven by text. Search engines and email are still primarily text. Let's face it at

some point, you're still going to have to write a script for a video or write a script

for a teleseminar that sells something or a sales page.

If you hate to write you've got to have a writer in your life somehow. Our

philosophy is that's so fundamental that that's an equity position rather than a

freelance position.



Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: Yeah. There are plenty of good talented writers who don't maybe have your

business ability. They're not joining sites like Third Tribe marketing to learn more

about how to run a business. But they're really talented.

So hook up with that person. You're the business person. They're the word person.

This guy once came into my office and said, “You are a really good word put

togetherer.” I said that's why I'm the writer and you're the sales person.

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: Wait, isn't sales about using words that come out of your mouth? This guy

worries me.

Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: I'll tell you what, this guy sold about $600,000 to $700,000 worth of products

a month.

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: Okay, I'll shut up.

Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: He knew his part and I knew mine.

So, no excuse, get it going. Do it. It really works. Email marketing is not dead. Use

these strategies. They're effective and they work in every niche and every topic.

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: Absolutely. Like I mentioned earlier, we're going to drill down deeper on

some of the stuff we discussed today. Basically, there's a lot to cover from a broad

standpoint. I hope you got some useful tips.



We’ve got the launch seminar coming very soon and the next email marketing

topic that Sonia and I tackle will be copywriting for email marketing. So we all look

forward to that. We hope you do, too. We’ll see you next time.

Sonia:Sonia:Sonia:Sonia: Fantastic. Brian, thank you so much.

Brian:Brian:Brian:Brian: Thank you.

What Now?

Make sure you download the Next Action worksheets

for this seminar! The worksheets are where you’re going to

translate the ideas and concepts from the seminars into

actions that will get your business moving.

Feeling stuck or confused? Jump over to the forum and

we’ll get you rolling again.

Documents

Email Marketing Strategies That Work - Content marketing software