Hello, Jason Fladlien here, and today we’re going to talk about e-mail marketing; how to create a responsive list.
I pulled a little over 100K out of my list in gross, not in profit technically, from a list of about 800 people in a year span – 13 month span. And I did it through all these techniques that I’m going to share with you; so I got a lot out of a little. So that meant my list was pretty responsive. That meant that the average person on my list was worth about $100 to me per person throughout the year. That’s pretty good. I’m pretty happy with those numbers. And I’ll share with you the techniques that I used.
First thing you got to understand is e-mail marketing is the best way to market to somebody. And you want to learn this stuff because you can really create these people that just defend you, that just check out what you’re doing at all times, and they just absolutely love to receive your communications. And since e-mail currently is pretty much free, it’s the best way to get instant traffic.
So with that said, there’s two approaches, and neither one of them are right or wrong. It just depends on the situation and on your personal philosophy with e-mail marketing. But there’s two approaches: There’s the turn and burn approach, and there’s a lot from the little approach. The turn and burn approach is what you see most often, and it’s what people try to emulate that I think they mess up on.
But the turn and burn approach is simply this. They have a system in place that generates tons and tons and tons of fresh leads every day, so their list is constantly getting new subscribers. And then they hit them hard with offer after offer after offer. And in this case the short hard-sell e-mails work best. It’s basically where you pull the biggest benefit of whatever you’re talking about or pitching them. Then you say, “You want to get your hands on this because of ______. Here’s the link. Check it out.” Or there’s a good part of the story, “Check out how this guy did this. Go here.” So it’s just a very short, hard sell. You’re selling the offer pretty much, nothing more. You’re not building up a relationship with them or trust with them or showing them you care or some of these other things I’m going to talk about. You’re just saying go here, buy this, go here, buy this, go here, buy this pretty much.
And there’s nothing wrong with that. The unsubscribe rates are high, but so is the lifetime value of the subscriber. Even though lifetime value is short, typically everybody who gets on your list is going to buy at least one thing because you’re hitting them over and over and over again with offers. The more offers you make, in general, the more sales you’re going to make in the short term. Now in the long term, you’ve got to keep replacing those leads. If you don’t have a system for replacing those leads, then you’re going to die and you’re going to shoot yourself in the foot, and in the long term you’re not going to be making any money because you’re going to have a high unsubscribe rate.
So for most people – especially for people getting started – this is not a good strategy. It’s very good, though, for certain niches when you can have that kind of deal flow, especially in CPA’s. That’s all it is. They get you on their list, and then they hit you with a thousand things right away on that list. The life span of a customer there is a week at most, and they try like hell for that week to get off your list. But there’s nothing wrong with the turn and burn approach. You’re a marketer; your job is to sell people stuff. There’s nothing wrong with this; it’s just you have to have a system for generating a ton of fresh leads. And in a sense you just want the cash flow right away, too, and you don’t want to take the time to build up a lot from a little. So there’s that approach.
I don’t recommend that approach for most people because it doesn’t work for them. Instead I recommend a lot from a little, and this is where you actually sell trust more than the product.
Here’s the secret. What are the e-mails that you open up all the time? Think about that. What are the types of e-mails that you find yourself always opening? And the answer is the stuff you get from your friends. So if my dad sends me an e-mail, I open it right away. Or if an old college buddy of mine sends me an e-mail, I open it right away. If Robert Plank sends me an e-mail, I open it right away because it means personal communication. Robert’s telling me something; I want to see what he’s up to, what’s he talking about, so I’m opening it. Notice that has nothing to do with information; it has nothing to do with selling them the benefits of something; it has everything to do with the relationship I have with that person. So you get that through trust.
And really, I trust that whatever my dad is going to send me is going to be important to me; something I’m going to know about; or it’s going to be something of interest or something I need to know about so when I talk to him next time. And so you want to be the same way. You want to sell trust more than the product. If you sell trust, then they’re going to open up every single one of your e-mails. Then within the e-mail itself you can make those offers, but if you don’t have trust first your open rates are going to go way, way down.
Sell trust more than the product
So sell trust more than the product. And really how you do that is – there’s four main things to it. The first thing is good information. You want to give them really good information; so every time that they open it up, they know they’re going to get something good from you. But in a lot of niches, especially information niches where they get information all the time, it’s not that potent. It’s good to have, and I do it all the time myself, but it’s not the most important thing with e-mail marketing. Looking out for their best interests is way more important. So if you’ve been on my list, you’ve seen me. “Do not buy this product because it sucks.” I’ve sent out a couple of those e-mails.
I do not promote anything that I have personally not used. And if I haven’t, I’ll tell them upfront. I’ll be like, “Look at this. Looks like a good idea; looks like a good deal, but I’ve got to be honest with you. I’ve never used this. So if this is something that interests you check it out, but I can’t tell you if it’s good or not.” Or I’ll be like, “OK guys, the front-end product is really good, but you’re going to be hit with five freaking upsells; so just ignore those. Click through them, but expect that. And if that’s too much for you, then don’t buy this product. Although I think this product’s really good, yes the upsells are annoying.”
So I’m looking out for their best interests. I’m even sacrificing profits to look out for their best interests, so they know that. And so if you look out for their best interests that’s way more important. You can deliver mediocre information, but if they know you’re looking out for their best interests they’re going to be opening your e-mails a lot more. They’re like, “This guy’s helping me out. I trust him to help me out making decisions, and I’m going to open up his e-mails.”
So we’ll get more into how to do this specifically here in a bit, but humanizing yourself is huge. And really it sells trust by making somebody say, “I can relate to you.” So for example, I talk a lot about how I like chess. And guess what? I have people e-mailing me saying, “Oh, I’m a big chess guy, too, Jason.” So they want to open my e-mails because they feel like they’re just like me, and that’s cool. I’m a musician so I tell people that. So then they e-mail me, and they let me know about that; that they’re musicians, too. I went into Hare Krishna for a while, and there’s actually people on my list who know a lot about Hare Krishna. So there’s all these little hooks, all these little bonds of commonalities that I’ve shared with myself that other people resonate with.
So therefore, they like to open it up to read about that stuff, to see what’s going on in my life now, and to see what I’m up to because we have that deeper relationship. We’re not just people who like marketing together, but we also share all these other common interests which makes us like each other more because we both are like, “Oh, cool. You like that? I like that, too.” Then they kind of like, “Yeah, we both like a lot of the same things. We must be pretty cool.”
But that’s pretty much how it is. People are opening it up, but at the same time humanizing yourself also means letting them know you’re human; letting them know you’re not perfect. That really helps to build trust. Because if you come out there acting like you’re perfect or never showing any flaws in your character, people have a scepticism radar that just pops up. They say, “Wait a minute. I don’t know anybody like that. Usually the people who act like that are con artists or usually the people who act like that are posers or fake.”
But if you come out and mess up sometimes and “Yeah, this is going on in my life right now, and it’s not perfect, and I’m totally having trouble with it,” or “There’s things that I can do in this niche that I’m really good at, but there’s a lot of stuff in this niche I don’t know anything about. And I’ll be honest with you; I’m completely a dunce at that.” So you’re humanizing yourself; you’re showing that you’re not perfect, which is perfect. That’s funny, by the way.
The other thing I like to do is I share a lot of personal stories because my brother’s going through a tough time right now with his health, and so I talk about that a lot. And I always try to twist it into something positive. Because at the end I’m showing them that I care, which is very important. I’m saying, “Look, if you’re ever in a situation like I am in and you’re dealing with it, this is the attitude that you can take. These are the things that you can contemplate. These are the strategies that I’ve learned through internet marketing that you can put in this situation.
And then showing them you care, too, is sometimes when you make a mistake, just coming right out and being honest with them and saying, “I made this mistake here. I’m sorry, and I want you to know that this is an accident, and this is what I’m going to do about it. This is how I’m going to make this up to you.” And then so forth. But just showing that you care – by going the extra mile. I answer almost all the e-mails personally, and that shows that I care. So if I send them an e-mail, and then they respond back, I’ll respond back to them. And it shows that I care; that I want to have that communication. And at the same time when I create a new product, I say “Let me get your feedback before I create it because I want to make sure that it’s good. It’s everything that you want it to be.” So that’s another way that I show that I care by asking for their interaction for me and their feedback so I can make whatever I’m offering better. So that’s the main approach.
If you want to write e-mails, there’s really no formula to it the way that I use it. I just try to incorporate these principles and then I write whatever the hell comes to mind when I sit down and write. I absolutely never plan out my e-mails hardly at all, but I just try to write from the heart. And I think that’s the biggest thing here. When I sit down and write, it’s straight from the heart. And I don’t think about it a lot, but I try to incorporate these rules here:
Always have a call to action.
Be exciting. Show you care and be different. And there’s some other things I do. Like I’m always optimistic for the most part. I’m optimistic because I always want to send out a good feeling because that’s who I am as an individual.
And there’s other things that I do, too, but these are the main four things I always try to hit in every e-mail. And the first one’s big:
Be different.
If it’s in a niche that isn’t used to e-mail marketing, the cookie-cutter approach is fine, although I still don’t recommend it. Once you get good at this, always strive for something better than the cookie-cutter approach. The cookie-cutter approach is, “Hey guys, I just got off the phone with blah blah blah, and he said…” The cookie-cutter approach is where you blast them all your affiliate offers and every day you’re trying to sell them something or whatever. You’re doing a lot of marketing ploys which people, if they’re not aware of them at first, they’re great. But then as soon as everybody becomes aware of them they lose their potency. So that personalization of the first name gets great at first, but after a while it loses its potency.
And then, “Don’t buy this product until you check out my bonus.” At first it grabs everybody’s attention, but then it’s an old hat after a while. But in a niche that isn’t used to e-mail marketing, well then the cookie-cutter approach will work really great at first and then eventually it will run out. But typically most niches that you’re in, if it’s in a competitive niche, you must change your approach.
And ideally, you want them to open up your e-mails because they’re always wondering what is he or she up to next. And that’s again like your friends. If you haven’t heard from a friend in a while and they shoot you an e-mail every month or so, maybe it’s an old college buddy that you haven’t seen in a long time or an old friend that moved away, you’re always going to be opening it up to see what they’re doing next; what are they up to next; what do they got to say now. And so that’s what you want to feel from them, and if you’re doing the cookie-cutter approach that everybody else is going, guess what? People know what you’re up to next. You’re selling them the same freaking e-mail promotion that everybody else is selling them, and you’re copying and pasting it. It’s the same exact damn thing.
So the way you want to do it is you want to absolutely be different. If you do nothing else with your e-mails, be different. You know how I’m different? I just write; I write whatever the hell I feel like from the heart; so I have no formula when I sit down and write e-mail marketing other than I have a specific call to action. That’s the only thing I do. Every e-mail has an intent to move our relationship forward with my list. Yes, that’s the only thing I shoot for.
But other than that I just sit down and write whatever the hell comes to my mind. So sometimes my e-mails are two or three paragraphs; sometimes they’re long as hell; sometimes they’re seven or eight pages long. I don’t care. I don’t have any rules. I just sit down and I try to write and communicate directly from my heart and be as authentic as possible and be as transparent as possible, and in the internet marketing niche that is so rare that you get that.
The other thing that I like to do that’s different is I like to tell them, “Hey, this is something new that I’m going to try out. What the hell is going to happen? Let’s see what happens over the next couple of days. I’ll be in communication with you, and we’ll see what comes out of this.” So now they’re opening it up saying, “Is Jason following through with this? Where’s the direction of this going now? Did he get the feedback that I sent him? Is he incorporating that?” So now they’re opening it up seeing what’s going on next because I turn everything into an event. If I’m launching something I send out three or four e-mails before I launch it because everybody’s like, “What’s he going to do with this launch now? What’s he going to add to it? What’s he taking away from it? What else is he going to reveal next?” So it’s always what is he or she up to next. That’s how you be different.
If you’re going to pitch affiliate products, pitch them uniquely. At the very least you should be shooting a video of you – if it’s a physical product, holding it up and talking about it; if it’s not, showing you demonstrating the product in action or even looking at the product; even if you do that one little thing it’ll make a big difference because you’re not pitching it with the cookie-cutter pasting the e-mail approach. So that’s one thing to consider.
So if you’re going to pitch it, just pitch it differently. Make it fun. If everybody else is just hard-selling the benefits, just make it fun. Make it like a theme, a story, or something. Just do something different. Share personal stories like I said before. People cannot copy your own personal stories. Those are all unique to you; so that’s information that is unique. And so that’s a great way to be different by sharing that unique personal stories.
And like I said, don’t use the same marketing tactics that everybody else is using. They’ll work at first until the consumer catches on, and the consumer will inevitably catch on. The “You might’ve already won a million dollars sweepstakes” just doesn’t have the hook that is used to have, does it? So instead of using tactics, use just personalization and try to resonate with them and show them that you care. And be exciting in your communication and just try to be more personal with them and involve them in your life so that they feel that they know you; like they’re friends instead of using marketing tactics.
Rule #2 is show you care.
Stick your neck out for them. If something sucks that they might be interested in, don’t be afraid to tell them even at the sake of sacrificing profits. And by sticking your neck out there for them, what you can even do is try stuff out that the marketplace is skeptical on and report your own results for it. Or you could take a stand on a controversial issue and let them know what your thoughts are and why you think that you’re going on that, and that yes you’re going to get crucified but you want to absolutely find out the real deal on this so you can report back to them.
So that’s one way to show you care. The other way to show you care obviously is always want their feedback, following up with them and making sure they’re happy. That’s a very good, important thing.
The other thing to consider is if you drop the ball, let them know. Everybody drops the ball once in a while, and it’s so much better if you just come right out and say it. I was watching a time management program, and I’m like, “I was trying to get this done on vacation, but I just didn’t guys. Sorry you didn’t hear from me for five days. I apologize for that. I went on vacation with my family, which you guys knew about. But when I get back we’re going to really make this happen.” I didn’t have to bribe them or say anything to them. I just say, “Hey, I dropped the ball. I’m sorry about that.” That happened a couple times where I’ve dropped the ball, and I just came right out and told them. “Hey, I’m sorry. I made a mistake here.”
And then there’s other times where I do stuff that I think is instructive for them where I make a mistake so I tell them about the mistake that I made. And I say, “Look, I did this. Maybe I didn’t handle this properly, but this is what I learned from it, and this is how you can make sure this doesn’t happen to you.” And so that shows that you care about them; that you’re willing to put yourself on the line. That’s basically what it is; that you’re willing to put yourself on the line to let them know that you’re in it with them.
Rule #3 here is to be exciting.
Turn offers into events. Nothing that I launch – well, there’s maybe one or two exceptions – but for the most part whatever I launch is an event. It happens on a very certain date. There’s a lot of build-up that surrounds it, and it’s something that people have taken a part of and have helped influence the outcome of; so that way they have a vested interest in it.
And so it’s turning offers into events meaning that people know that at a certain time on a certain date this thing is going to happen, and they’ve done that with continual communication leading up to that event. If it’s just an offer over and over again it’s so static, and it seems so generic. Like, “Oh, this thing will come up again next week in a different form. I’m not going to be missing anything if I don’t get involved in this today.” And so that’s why it’s not exciting. It’s boring.
Mix your modalities and content.
Don’t just send them e-mail all the time. Sometimes send them to a blog. That’s a different modality. Sometimes send them to a .pdf report. That’s a different modality; a video course; that’s a different modality; an audio course, worksheets, that kind of stuff; webinars, teleseminars. That way they are getting all different kinds of communications from them, so they can see your writing; so they know you as a writer; then they can know you in the video; then they can know you in the audio; then they can know you in a live question and answer setting and so on and so forth. So they feel more like you care because you’re taking the time to hit them – to help make sure everybody gets what they want in the way that they like to process the information. And again, that you care by your taking those extra steps and doing the things that nobody else is doing because you’re making sure that they get your communications and stuff from different mediums.
And content’s the same way. So sometimes the content is just of a personal nature. Sometimes the content is just in a “here, this will make you feel good” kind of way. Sometimes the content is where you’re pitching your stuff hard. Sometimes the content is where you’re asking for their feedback and stuff like that. So mix up your content. I like stick content, too, a lot. This is where when people buy your stuff, you say to them, “Hey, what is the results that you’ve gotten so far with this information?” And you want them to help consume it so you say, “If you do nothing else, at least open to page 33 and do this exercise now.”
Because that kind of content will show you care because you’re trying to get them after the sale. You’re still putting in work after the sale to make sure that they are using your stuff. And if they use it, you know they’re going to get good results if you have good stuff. That’s something to think about – mixing your modalities.
Try new things and let them know you’re trying new things. So one time I launched a webinar for time management. I was like, “Honestly guys, I don’t know if this is going to work or not. It’s going to be fun as hell, though, and I’m going to try to communicate with you the stuff that I do to really manage my time effectively. So if you want to get in on it, here it is.” And so I honestly let them know it was an experiment; I thought I was going to be very helpful, but I couldn’t guarantee the results; but that I wanted to involve them in it because I think it could’ve been beneficial for them. And so that’s kind of exciting because they don’t know what’s going to happen next. They don’t know what’s going to happen. They’d get on there, and it might be crazy. Who knows what’s going to happen? So that’s excitement, and that’s a good way to create responsiveness.
And always have a call to action. That’s the last thing here. This is the most important thing. So you want to always – your communication should do something to create a certain feeling. You should always have the intent of leaving your readers, your people on your list leave with a certain feeling; so a feeling of excitement to click a link or a feeling like they’re going to get something good if they click the link and so on and so forth.
So that feeling will set them in the mood to do whatever you want them to do, which is to click a link, post on a blog, share your thought on a forum, e-mail you back with a response, etc. So always have a call to action in your e-mails. And very rarely I don’t have a call to action. Sometimes the call to action is even, “Look for tomorrow’s e-mail where I give you more details on this.” So in that case the call to action is to look for your e-mail tomorrow, but you’re specifically giving them some sort of instructions in every single one of your e-mails.
So usually if you click a link it’s to a blog. If it’s to a blog tell them to actually post on the blog itself. Share your thoughts on a forum. If you sent something on the forum and said, “Check it out guys. This is the argument I got into with so-and-so. What do you think of this? Go ahead and go over there and post and chime in with your feedback.” E-mail you back a response. “Hey, I’m trying out this new program. I’m putting the finishing touches on it. I want to know what you think. I really want to make this program as good as it can be so please e-mail me back your response and I’ll consider it, and I might even reply to it. But I’ll definitely consider it, and if it’s a good idea I’m going to add it into the course because I want to make this the best course possible.”
So you always have a call to action in your e-mails. That’s important. You aim to come in with whatever you want them to do for the call to action. You’re like, “OK, how can I do this in a way where I come across as empathetic with them, by being personal with them, by sharing something personal about myself, or by giving them some little bit of information that they’re not getting anywhere else; putting myself on the line. How can I do this in a different way than everybody else is talking about this, if they are, or than just different than the normal ‘here’s what this is all about; go here.’ And how can I make it exciting so that they will click on the link, e-mail me back with a response, yada yada yada.”
With that said, let’s get into some list-building philosophies. I’ve really talked about the overall approach; because like I said, I have no system for e-mail marketing other than these things that I try to incorporate in all my e-mails. And then when I sit down I just write straight from the heart. That’s all I do. I just write whatever comes out; whatever comes off the top of my head I write. And it doesn’t have to be this long or this much or whatever, blah blah blah. But it always has a specific thing that I’m using to move the relationship forward to the next step. And that’s it. That’s what I do.
List building philosophy
So let’s talk about list-building philosophy here. You’ll eventually offend someone. There’s no doubt about that. If you’re mass communicating with a large number of people, you’ll eventually offend someone. So figure out who it will be in advance.
And what does that mean? That means that okay, so some people don’t like my long e-mails. Screw them, I don’t care then. I don’t mind offending somebody who can’t read long e-mails because they have a short attention span; not the kind of customer that I want, so I don’t care. So that way when I write my e-mails, that doesn’t ever affect my communications. So that allows me to write more freely because I don’t care about offending them; because I already know that if I offend them it’s not going to be any hair off my back.
Some of the other people that I offend are the people – that I have typos in some of my e-mails. I don’t try to do that intentionally, and I do proofread my e-mails, but it’s very hard when you write all day long like I do – I write so much information – to be able to catch all your typos. You’re just going to make them. And so if people get offended because I have typos, I don’t really care. They can go somewhere else, because I want the people that value the information more than anything else as my customers. So if I offend those other people, I don’t really care. It’s not a big deal to me.
So once you know who you can offend and it doesn’t bother you, then it really frees you up to write how you should write and write in a personal way. Because if you’re trying to write to please everybody, guess what? You’re not being different. You’re being like every other freaking marketer on the planet, and that means you’re not going to get the responsiveness that you can get.
Honestly, some people are offended that I share personal stories. You know what I say to them? I say screw you. I don’t care. I look at all my best customers; and all the customers that buy most of my stuff, they like my personal stories. So I’m writing them for those guys, not for the people who get all finicky and they buy one thing and then they figure out something to complain about. I don’t care if I offend those people.
Some people get offended because sometimes I e-mail 5/6 times a week. Well, guess what? If I have something good to say 5-6 times a week I’m going to freaking say it. I don’t want to hold out on something good from my list just because a couple people are going to get offended because I’m e-mailing them frequently. They can just leave my list. Once I know who I don’t care who I offend, then that allows me to free up my communication to write for those who are really, really in tune with my style of e-mail marketing. And those are the people that are going to be my best customers.
So this dictates everything else. The proper length of an e-mail – honestly, my opinion is it doesn’t really matter. I write long e-mails; I write short e-mails; I write mid-sized e-mails. I write my e-mail with this philosophy: Whatever I got to say, I’m going to sit down and write it out and say it. If I can say it in two paragraphs, awesome. If I can’t say it, and it takes me five pages to say everything I want to say in that e-mail, hey great; awesome. I don’t care.
So my philosophy again is I don’t care. I’m writing from a deeper level. This is deep level communication here. I use e-mail marketing for deep level communication. And so think about it. If you meet a friend that you haven’t seen in a while and you’ve got something really good to tell them, are you going to limit it to two paragraphs? Are you going to limit it to a certain amount of words? No, you’re going to everything you need to say to them and not a bit more, but not a bit less.
And so how often should you mail?
Again, what if every single day you found something great that you’re friend would be interested in? Let’s say your friend is studying culinary arts, and he’s trying to get into this college. So every single day you just happen to come across something that would help him do that, and there wasn’t a huge ulterior motive to where he felt you were working him and you had something else to gain by it, but you were really looking out for his best interests. Do you think he would be happy if you say, “Well, I called him yesterday. I guess I shouldn’t call him today.” No, he’d be pissed off.
And so if you have good stuff that comes your way and you’re not really pushing some slick ulterior motive, then you’re going to want to communicate with them as often as possible; as often as you have something good to say to them that you think will be a benefit to them. And so if that’s six times a week or even ten times a week sometimes. Well, do it. But if it’s two times a week because you absolutely don’t have nothing to give them that’s really going to help them out that week, well then you communicate with them two times that week. Not a big deal. There’s no set number; there’s no rules; there’s no proper length of an e-mail when you go for this deeper level communication stuff.
If you really want to create the most responsive list, you learn to write from the heart. You’ve got to show that you care when you write from the heart. So you aim with that in mind. When you sit down, say “I want to show them I care. I want to be different with my communications than everybody else. I want them to feel excited when they read this. I want them to feel like they’re a part of something. And then I’m going to have a specific way to move this relationship further to make it deeper.” And then you write, and that’s deep level communication. And so that’s something to think about.
But that’s e-mail marketing. That’s how you create a really responsive list exactly here. I know this is more philosophy and less action plan systematic than what you’re used to from me, but this is my system. This is the least systematic system that I have for e-mail marketing, but my e-mail marketing is super effective. The average person on my list is worth about $100 over the lifetime of the subscription to my list. And it’s growing too, by the way, because a lot of people stay on my list for a really long time, and I have really low unsubscribe rates. And this is the whole approach that I have to e-mail marketing; so use it, benefit from it, and let me know your results. Thank you.
Jason Fladlien
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