Episode 60

Our Best Kept Email Marketing Secret

This is it! Early on we discovered we can't do this marketing thing alone. It's TOGETHER that we have Writing Momentum! In this episode of the Writing Momentum podcast, Chris and Gena share their best kept secret when it comes to email marketing...and tell you how you can have it, too.

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Transcript
Gena:

Hi, and welcome to the Writing Momentum Podcast.

Gena:

I'm Gena Maselli, and I'm here with my husband Christopher Maselli.

Christopher:

Hey!

Gena:

How you doing?

Christopher:

Doing well.

Christopher:

How are you doing?

Gena:

What's been going on with you?

Christopher:

Hey, you know what?

Christopher:

I'm excited today because we have received an email from someone about this podcast,

Christopher:

and it always warms my heart when people are excited about it, this is from J

Christopher:

Ryan Fenzel and he's a fellow author and he says, Hello Chris and Gena, I

Christopher:

just listened to your podcast Writing Momentum, and I wanted to tell you, I

Christopher:

really like your focus and presentation.

Christopher:

You are both engaging, easy to listen to hosts.

Christopher:

And a mix of your discussion topics provides a wide variety of episodes.

Christopher:

Not many shows range from covering Black Friday deals from writers to

Christopher:

tips for social media success to nuts and bolts writing mechanics.

Christopher:

Nicely done anyway, I thought let you know.

Christopher:

I think your podcast is one of the best.

Christopher:

Hope you have continued success.

Christopher:

J Ryan Fenzel, and that was so nice of him to say

Christopher:

. Gena: That was so nice.

Christopher:

I, we don't take it for granted.

Christopher:

We know that people are really busy and so when we get a review of the

Christopher:

podcast and someone actually sits down, is kind enough to write out

Christopher:

what they think of the podcast.

Christopher:

We're very thankful.

Gena:

We're very thankful we don't take that for granted.

Gena:

So thank you J Ryan Fenzel.

Gena:

We really appreciate that.

Christopher:

And we went to his website and discovered, hey, he's

Christopher:

also got a brand new podcast that he's starting with his daughter, Keira F.

Christopher:

Jacobs, who's also a writer.

Christopher:

So this is the first father- daughter writing podcast that we know of.

Christopher:

And it's called the Write Note and it comes out the first Wednesday,

Christopher:

I believe, of every month.

Christopher:

And so there should be an episode or two out there.

Christopher:

It just started.

Christopher:

So be sure to check that out too.

Christopher:

It's called the Write Note.

Christopher:

We are definitely gonna be looking at it.

Christopher:

And looking forward to sending a nice note back to them too.

Gena:

And I gotta say, being, doing a podcast like that, being an author and

Gena:

doing a podcast like that with your child.

Gena:

With your daughter or son would be really rewarding because you know that he had a

Gena:

huge influence, I'm sure, on her wanting to become an author and the fact that

Gena:

she has followed through with that.

Gena:

I can, I'm a mom, you guys know I'm a mom, so that would be amazing.

Gena:

Said many times we have three children and I think we're gonna get at

Gena:

least one writer out of the batch.

Christopher:

We hope so.

Christopher:

We'll see.

Gena:

And we might get one.

Gena:

I actually think we have one child who has said, I'll never

Gena:

be a book writer or a novelist.

Gena:

But I don't think that's true . I think that that child is going to surprise, be

Gena:

a surprise forherself, so there you go.

Christopher:

Speaking of surprises, today we are going to talk about one

Christopher:

of our best kept secrets as authors.

Christopher:

This is something we've never talked about before on the podcast, I don't think.

Gena:

I don't think so.

Christopher:

I'm make sure we haven't.

Christopher:

We haven't talked about about it to in our emails, our groups, anything like that.

Christopher:

And it's our best kept secret when it comes to email marketing.

Christopher:

Now, if you've been following us for a while, you know that first

Christopher:

of all, we've been talking about emails all this last month, right?

Christopher:

Because we know how important emails are for authors to build that list,

Christopher:

to start building relationships with your audience and start that

Christopher:

interaction, getting to know each other.

Christopher:

Because those are the people who've raised their hand and said, yes, I'm

Christopher:

interested in what you are talking about.

Christopher:

And yet what we found out is when we tried to start doing that on our own,

Christopher:

we just had nothing left in the tank.

Christopher:

Like we could help others build their email list and we helped a lot of big

Christopher:

organizations that had email lists of a hundred thousand people on it, build

Christopher:

their email list very successfully.

Christopher:

But when it came to building our own, it was tough just cuz we

Christopher:

had nothing left in the tank.

Gena:

Yeah.

Gena:

Sometimes it is so much easier to look at someone else.

Gena:

It's kind of if I've sat down with girlfriends, over a cup of tea or a cup

Gena:

of coffee and we've started talking about strengths and you know that friend that

Gena:

says, I don't know what I'm good at.

Gena:

If you've got that friend who said, and you're like, What are you talking about?

Gena:

What you're good at, and you can start listing off

Gena:

everything that they're great at.

Gena:

It's that kind of same thing when you're writing for yourself.

Gena:

When you're doing an email for yourself, it's real easy sometimes to write for

Gena:

another person or another organization cuz it's we could talk about this and

Gena:

this is the strategy we need to use, and you come up with a whole laundry

Gena:

list of things that you can do.

Gena:

But when you're writing for yourself, sometimes it's harder.

Gena:

Sometimes it's just I don't know what to talk about.

Gena:

Who's gonna care about what I think about this or that?

Gena:

Or what am I gonna say about this?

Gena:

Or what kind of strategy do I need to include?

Gena:

And it can feel like you're wandering around blind.

Gena:

Or in a dark room, unable to see where you're going.

Gena:

And so that is where our best kept secret came from.

Christopher:

Yeah.

Christopher:

Because we learned really over the past few years how important

Christopher:

accountability was, right?

Christopher:

Working with others and it hit us when we were trying to lose weight.

Christopher:

We'd taken, we had some pictures taken of us family.

Christopher:

And we got it back, and I'm like, oh my goodness.

Christopher:

I had gained so much weight and I, and yet I knew I needed to lose it, but I was

Christopher:

like, okay, I don't know how to do this on my own because I'd started many weight

Christopher:

loss programs and, never had lost any.

Christopher:

I ended up joining a program where you were accountable to one another and

Christopher:

where you had meetings once a week.

Christopher:

Online and that accountability helped me lose 40 pounds in four months.

Christopher:

, that's crazy.

Christopher:

Okay.

Christopher:

Did really well.

Christopher:

Helped me change my complete diet, and it's because I had the accountability.

Christopher:

That's the reason we started Writing Moments, which you can find

Christopher:

out about at WritingMoments.com.

Christopher:

That's where we get together with other writers every Wednesday

Christopher:

and we just write together.

Christopher:

It's like a, what do I wanna say?

Christopher:

They're co-working together and it's really been successful and we've had some

Christopher:

big successes come out of that group.

Christopher:

The same thing is true for email marketing.

Christopher:

We found it so hard to get those emails written, to get our email strategy

Christopher:

done, and we realized, you know what?

Christopher:

We've said it before.

Christopher:

It's together that we have writing momentum.

Christopher:

So we need to get together with someone who can help us get these things done.

Christopher:

And that became our best kept secret, didn't it?

Gena:

Our best kept secret.

Gena:

So drum roll.

Gena:

What is our best kept secret?

Christopher:

Our best kept secret is actually a person her name is

Christopher:

Liz Wilcox, and Liz is a email guru.

Christopher:

She lives this stuff.

Christopher:

She loves it and lives it.

Christopher:

She constantly studying, right?

Christopher:

And learning about what the latest trends are in email marketing, how

Christopher:

email marketing works, what's the open rates and the clickthroughs,

Christopher:

all those things you have to know.

Christopher:

She does all of that, which is great cuz to me that's a lot of the heavy

Christopher:

lifting and we've been able to count on her to learn those things for us

Christopher:

and then just teach us what we need to know, and she has a great way of

Christopher:

breaking it down for other people.

Christopher:

But more than that, she also helps individuals create their

Christopher:

email marketing strategy and create then a weekly template.

Christopher:

Like an outline of here this is the strategy we're gonna focus on.

Christopher:

Here's a basic outline you can use to write your email this week.

Christopher:

Now fill it in for your audience.

Christopher:

Write to them personally, the way you would, and then look for

Christopher:

that interaction coming back.

Christopher:

And I know you're probably thinking, wow, this must be expensive, right?

Christopher:

You must have hired this because she's really an email, she's

Christopher:

like a consultant, right?

Christopher:

She's someone who just helps us get these things done and she's able to

Christopher:

look at the way we were doing things and give us, real insights and so yeah,

Christopher:

you'd think it'd be really expensive, but actually it's not but before we

Christopher:

get into all of that, like what kind of things would you say that we learned

Christopher:

from Liz over this past couple of years?

Gena:

One, I think Liz has really, even though as we've said, and it's

Gena:

a little embarrassing to me to admit that we were, when it came to writing

Gena:

email for ourselves, that we were at such a loss , because we have written

Gena:

for large, international organizations.

Gena:

Large, international.

Gena:

And Chris said a hundred thousand.

Gena:

We're not talking a hundred thousand.

Gena:

We're actually talking like half a million on their list kind of thing.

Gena:

So we have written for these really large organizations and help them

Gena:

come up with strategies, but turning.

Christopher:

They were successful and they worked.

Gena:

But turning them on ourselves and going, okay, what are we gonna

Gena:

talk about to our small group?

Gena:

What are we gonna say?

Gena:

And that's where I think talking to Liz, I think Liz does a few things.

Gena:

One, she's so much fun.

Gena:

She's you when you, she's so down to earth.

Gena:

She is not.

Gena:

I have sat in trainings before with marketing email gurus, and

Gena:

it was stiff and it was dry.

Gena:

Like you were, you could have been sitting in a boardroom at a Fortune

Gena:

500 company and oh dear Lord, don't make a move, kind of thing.

Gena:

Liz is not like that.

Gena:

Liz is really down to earth.

Gena:

And she loves it.

Gena:

She loves email marketing . I think that's the thing that Liz has done for us is she

Gena:

is very accessible and she has made email marketing accessible and she has taught

Gena:

us and really reminded us of the power of email marketing for the entrepreneur.

Gena:

For the solopreneur.

Gena:

And that's what Chris and I have said many times as writers, that's what we are

Gena:

a business as writers as much as we are authors and we're, wordsmiths and we're

Gena:

craftsmans w ith words and all of this.

Gena:

Yes, we're all of this.

Gena:

There's definitely artistry in it.

Gena:

We don't take anything away from that.

Gena:

But as independent authors, and as traditionally published authors,

Gena:

there is something to be said in developing the business side of things.

Gena:

And so that's where sometimes I think as authors, we need help and hearing

Gena:

from Liz really has helped us in that.

Christopher:

Yeah.

Christopher:

Our email list has gone from, so this is real proof here.

Christopher:

We used to have email opens when we'd send out our emails, maybe 13 to 16%.

Christopher:

. Okay.

Christopher:

If that's where yours are, we're right there with you.

Christopher:

We understand where you're at.

Christopher:

Now, there have been times we've had emails as up to a 66% open rate.

Christopher:

Okay?

Christopher:

And it's, I don't think we've even hardly been below 50% since we've started

Christopher:

working with Liz, using her strategies and her templates and she has once a

Christopher:

week she'll meet, or I'm sorry, once a month, she'll meet with a group of

Christopher:

anyone who wants to be a part of it where you can ask her any questions you want.

Christopher:

While I usually like to go to those, cuz I'm always hearing

Christopher:

really interesting things.

Christopher:

It's always interesting to hear what others are going through.

Christopher:

There's quite a few authors that are part of that program.

Christopher:

And so she's able to cater things to us as authors real well.

Christopher:

Plus she has all kinds of programs that she'll put out on a regular

Christopher:

basis saying, Hey, I just talked to, this person and we're gonna show you

Christopher:

how to do a welcome email series, or I'm gonna talk to this person we'll

Christopher:

show you how to create landing pages.

Christopher:

And so she's got other things like that going on, but to me, the real

Christopher:

meat and potatoes of everything she does is this email template

Christopher:

kind of club that she has, right?

Christopher:

Where she helps you create your strategy, and then she gives you the templates,

Christopher:

which are just like a kickstart to when you're writing each week, and what do

Christopher:

you think that she charges for this?

Christopher:

Is this too expensive for anyone in our audience to afford, do you think?

Gena:

No.

Gena:

This is very affordable.

Christopher:

Yeah.

Christopher:

Believe it or not, all she charges for this is $9 a month,

Christopher:

which blew me away, right?

Christopher:

She charges $9 a month as $2.25 roughly per week in order to get your

Christopher:

email strategy and email template, and this is a proven strategy.

Christopher:

Good strong template.

Christopher:

She's actually, she gives a few different versions because we all

Christopher:

have different audiences, right?

Christopher:

And so she'll write one version that's more towards a services

Christopher:

audience, one that's more towards products, that sort of thing.

Christopher:

She'll give you some different ideas that you can run with.

Christopher:

But when you when you have that thing to kickstart off with, man it just

Christopher:

gets you excited and gets you going.

Christopher:

And so she calls it her email marketing membership and we just,

Christopher:

we thought we gotta share this.

Christopher:

We're talking about email marketing.

Christopher:

We have got to share about Liz Wilcox's email marketing membership because

Christopher:

it's made such a difference for us.

Christopher:

So if you want to find out more about that, just go to writing dot fyi slash

Christopher:

L I Z, or you can look in the show notes and you'll be able to get into

Christopher:

this program, it's only $9 a month.

Christopher:

There's no commitment.

Christopher:

You can go ahead and cancel any time you want.

Christopher:

But we have found, once we joined, we're like, I don't think we'll ever cancel

Christopher:

this thing, cuz it has helped us so much.

Gena:

And one thing that she also does is with each week's template

Gena:

that she releases, she also produces a short video to explain.

Gena:

She explains the video, she explains the strategy behind it, and then she'll

Gena:

even tell you, She'll even do things like say, okay, look, this is, we're

Gena:

doing this in here because we want to get this result, but realize that you

Gena:

might get several unsubscribes for this, which I've really appreciated because if

Gena:

you've ever sent out emails regularly, you'll get to one that all of a sudden

Gena:

you get a higher than normal unsubscribe.

Gena:

And so that can be a really, it can be a little shocking, right?

Gena:

You know what in the world's going on, what did I do wrong?

Gena:

And Liz has also, the other thing that I've really learned from her

Gena:

is that unsubscribes are okay.

Gena:

Unsubscribes are not that you've done anything wrong, it's that

Gena:

the person who is unsubscribed is not connecting with your message.

Gena:

They're not your target market.

Gena:

, which is really good.

Gena:

So for us as authors, if we are promoting our books and we get

Gena:

somebody who unsubscribes, that's okay.

Gena:

That person might not be our reader and that's okay because the higher, and go

Gena:

back and listen to an earlier podcast.

Gena:

A couple podcasts ago, Chris and I talked about this, but when it talks

Gena:

about unsubscribes or you're talking about open rates, you want open rates

Gena:

to be high so that the email services understand that your email is not spam.

Gena:

. And it will make sure that it gets into people's inbox.

Gena:

So that's where that comes from, but when you're looking at numbers and you

Gena:

want your numbers to grow, and all of a sudden you hit an email that has some

Gena:

unsubscribes, it might throw you a little bit, but Liz will walk you through that

Gena:

and let you know that's an okay thing, which I think has been really nice for us.

Gena:

And it's nice to know that when I put an email out there, we put one out there

Gena:

if it is going to get some unsubscribes.

Gena:

It's nice to be warned about that a little bit beforehand.

Gena:

Yeah.

Gena:

To kinda go, okay, that's what this one does, and that's ok.

Christopher:

But the reason you might still want to go ahead and do

Christopher:

those, even though they might have unsubscribes, is because it also

Christopher:

endears the people who are subscribed, who don't want to unsubscribe to you.

Christopher:

So that it's worth doing to having that counterbalance.

Gena:

And I also wanna point out that I think anybody listening to this

Gena:

might say, oh my gosh, why would I want a template so that when my email

Gena:

goes out, it sounds like everybody else's email, that you start thinking

Gena:

they're gonna all sound cookie cutter and it doesn't because you are unique.

Gena:

So your voice is unique, what you're going to say.

Gena:

Liz guides you down the road, but how you go and the car you drive,

Gena:

that's completely different.

Gena:

So your email is going to be really different from other people from

Gena:

another author's email, even.

Christopher:

Dramatically different.

Christopher:

In fact, you know what it is, we use the word template, but it really

Christopher:

feels more like it's a guided outline, okay, here's the direction I want

Christopher:

to go as far as strategy goes, and here's the points I want to hit.

Christopher:

But it's still gonna be completely unique to who you are as an author

Christopher:

and for you and your audience.

Christopher:

So that, that's all we wanted to share this week was about our best kept email

Christopher:

marketing secret, which is a person and is because we can't do it alone.

Christopher:

And that is Liz Wilcox.

Christopher:

And so find out about her email marketing membership at Writing dot fyi slash L I Z.

Christopher:

The link is in your show notes.

Christopher:

And we just really think it, it is something that'll bless you too.

Christopher:

It's certainly helped us.

Gena:

Yeah, it definitely has because we no longer go through those dry

Gena:

moments where we think, okay, what are we gonna put in the email this week?

Gena:

Or what are we gonna do this week?

Gena:

She really has helped even that out and has kept us moving and helped us

Gena:

to be more consistent and so we hope that it is much of an encouragement and

Gena:

a tool for you as it has been for us.

Christopher:

Absolutely.

Christopher:

We hope you enjoyed this episode of the Writing Momentum Podcast.

Christopher:

If you did enjoy, please rate, review, subscribe, and share.

Christopher:

If you do want to go ahead and leave a review like they did at the beginning

Christopher:

of this podcast, we'd love to hear it because that always encourages us and

Christopher:

we'll even give you a shout out too.

Christopher:

Until next time, this is Chris and Gena reminding you that together

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About the Podcast

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About your host

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Christopher Maselli

Christopher P.N. Maselli is a Certified Digital Marketing Professional, an award-winning children’s author of more than 50 books, a direct mail writer, and a ghostwriter for many prominent, international speakers.

“I love sharing what I’ve learned over the past 25 years,” says Chris. “We’re all in this together and hopefully what I’ve learned can benefit beginners and veterans alike.”

Chris regularly speaks at writer’s conferences nationwide and on the training portion of WritingMomentum.com, he helps put other writers on the fast track to success. He holds a Masters of Fine Arts in Writing.