While you can try to analyze the methods of online gurus and mimic what they do, you might not necessarily see the same traction. Don’t beat yourself about it. Luckily, many of these people offer courses to teach the specifics. If you like learning their detailed step-by-step processes, many of these online entrepreneurs offer courses that can help you achieve great results through email marketing.
How to Email like the A-listers of the Interwebs
If you’re just starting out or you’re not getting similar results, it can be very discouraging to hear that people earn so much more than you each month. It can still be extremely helpful to learn about their processes and strategies so you skip some of the trial and error that might come with figuring things out on your own. You might even start seeing success quicker if you go with courses where people tend to get good results from their training.
1. Being deliberate pays.
It’s common to hear about the importance of building an email list. People always tell you to have an email list. While this seems to be true, knowing what to do with the list is a whole other obstacle to attack. Steve Chou of MyWifeQuitHerJob.com, teaches people how to create an online store and explains his process for nurturing your list.
He knows that having a lead magnet is essential. It entices the reader to sign up for your list. It can also provides them with instant value and answers to their burning questions. Chou says, “When it comes to creating a lead magnet for your sales funnel, you have 3 main goals. One, you want to provide a good incentive for someone to sign up for your list. Two, you want to give them something of value that they will actually consume. And three, you want to get them used to opening and looking forward to your emails.”
He went on to say that it’s best to break down your lead magnet into multiple emails. You can slowly release the information in bite size steps that keep the readers coming back. Chou’s own email sequence consists of 30 emails. The first 9 emails are crafted to show the readers how to do something.
They consist of in-depth video, audio and text-based tutorials. The 21 that follow contain case studies, stories and other content meant for the reader to get to know him better as a person. Here’s his presentation on how he made 300K over 2 years with an email autoresponder.
2. Be a fly on the wall.
While some people online seem are like anomalies making 5-6 figures within months of starting their online businesses, it still can’t hurt to try and follow their tips and tricks even if you don’t reach the same level of success in the same amount of time.
When I started writing the personal finance book that I’m working on, I knew I needed to understand my target market better. After listening to Amy Porterfield’s podcast, I realized that in order to do this, I needed to create a survey that they could fill out. I often heard that from other website owners as well. I just didn’t know how to go about it or what to ask.
Luckily, episode 55 of her podcast entitled How to Create a Survey to Find Your Target Market explained how to do that in detail. She gave sample questions and explained why you should use them. This episode helped me get to know my target better, how to locate them and the language I should use when interacting with them.
Prior to doing this, I would often ask people currently on my email list questions, but they would rarely respond. After following Amy’s advice from the episode, I got a ton of responses. This saved me a lot of time and energy trying to figure it out on my own. I got to skip a ring or two up the trial and error ladder because of this.
This information was given out for free on her podcast which I think of as mini-courses, but she offers a paid course called Grow Your Email List and Sell Products for people who are preparing to launch or learn the process in advance. It could hurt to listen to her show and try out her content for free and see what happens before purchasing a course.
3. Become a mind reader.
Another person that’s excellent at explaining the importance of email lists is Ramit Sethi. He highly emphasizes knowing your market deeply and explains how to learn more about them. Watch his video on YouTube entitled How to Charge What You are Worth. Though the title might seem off topic, the information regarding understanding your market is relevant.
You might not need to watch the whole video. Consider time stamping important points to reference for this video and for the other people mentioned in this article. You can reference the information quicker this way. I went ahead and took a few notes for you so you can sample some of his ideas.
Here are some areas that you mind find helpful from the video.
[4:54] Three simple strategies he learned to help grow his business
[5:07] The importance of knowing your audience’s language
[8:02] Gives examples of how people talk and why it’s extremely important
[8:17] How to give people what they need and want by collecting data points
The Bottom Line
Whether or not you currently have products or services to offer, it can’t hurt to get people on an email list now so they get to know you better. You could get them to engage by offering freebies, update them regarding new content on your site or potentially pitch your product or services to them down the road.
Also, remember that following a sequence, nurturing the email list and deeply understanding your audience is a common thread with all three of the people mentioned above. Try out a tip or two and see what happens. It can possibly pave the way to greater returns.
