You see, the best-written email is not going to make everyone buy. But it does something far more important…

The best-written email makes your community want to read your next email!

And…

The emails that kill your business are emails that make the reader say, this is a waste of my time, I’m not going to read the next email.

It’s as simple as that!

So ask yourself, is email killing or growing your business?

The real copywriting secret of email marketing is to make your community and your reader want to read your next email.

It’s not to make a sale! It’s not to get the click or the webinar registration!

Those are short-term goals. Yes, they are important, and the most important goal is to make your community want to read your next email. It’s to make your community say every time I receive their email I know that there is solid gold in my inbox. If they believe that, then you will build a community of raving fans.

If you write an email that makes 100 sales and 500 unsubscribes have you won? (Just so you know that's never happened to me. Never 100 sales from an email and never 500 unsubscribes.)

But…

What would you think?

Would you be delighted that you made 100 sales? Of course! Would you be disappointed that you got 500 unsubscribes? Absolutely!

Is there a way to make sales and build a stronger relationship with your community?

Absolutely!

What’s the secret?

Storytelling!

How To Make Email Marketing Grow Your Business!

As I’ve already said, the biggest secret in email marketing is to make the reader excited to read your next email.

The offer might not be right for them right now, and that’s okay. If they think, I want to work with you in future, then you’ve won. You’re using email marketing to nurture your Golden Goose.

You can measure the value of storytelling emails in sales, in open rates and in the "engaged" part of your list. The engaged portion of your list is a feature within Infusionsoft.

But…

Is there more to storytelling emails than this? Is there a part of content marketing that you can’t prove?

Absolutely!

When you’re making sales, especially high ticket items that are £10,000 or more, and you don’t know why, chances are it’s the result of telling stories that inspire your community to improve the quality of their life.

How will you know that it’s your emails or blogs that pulled them across the decision-making wasteland and onto the promised land? They will tell you.

A mentorship client asked me to quantify the value of blogging and giving value without asking for anything in return… and then told me that the reason why she’s working with me is because of the quality of my blogs!

I would never have known that if she hadn’t been so honest. Without her honesty, the only way I measured the value of content marketing was email list growth. That is one key metric for your business growth, but it is not the only metric.

Content marketing creates trust. But, how can you measure trust? You listen, and your community will tell you. You watch their actions for better open rates and higher sales.

So what's the secret formula for writing emails that make sales AND builds a stronger relationship with your community?

Story – Bridge – Offer

That’s the magic formula!

That’s how you can build a relationship with your list and make sales.

So what stories are you going to tell?

You are going to tell your own stories. You’ll tell your epic story, and you’ll tell your everyday stories. Bottom line, you’re going to tell stories of struggle and success.

But!

Your story must relate to your offer. You can’t just choose any story and any offer and expect this formula to work its magic.

How do you know if your story is going to relate to your offer?

Just ask yourself what is the point of your story? What’s the moral of the story? Is it that education pays? Is it that hard work never lies? Is it sometimes you’ve just got to take a leap of faith?

So think about the moral of your story. If the action you want your reader to take is closely related to the moral of your story, then the Story – Bridge – Offer formula will work like magic.

Let's say that the moral of your story is that education saves you costly mistakes. What's the next logical step? Some training to help your reader avoid costly mistakes, right? This would be a powerful way to persuade your reader to register for a webinar because your offer relates so closely to the moral of your story.

Not All Stories Have To Be Yours!

What’s the moral of the story of the hair and the tortoise? Consistent work overtime wins over short inconsistent burst of activity. (Don’t worry, that’s not the moral of the story that’s written in the book so if your memory is different to mine, that’s the reason why).

So…

What’s a hair and the tortoise story that you could tell?

One example is James Dyson’s story. His autobiography says it all in the title: Against The Odds.

His story is the perfect entrepreneurs' tale of winners never quit, and quitters never win.

What is it that surprises me most about James Dyson? He’s someone that designs, manufactures, markets and sells his own products.

The wonderful thing is that his first product the, Barrowball, made money when it was sold direct via newspaper ads. The sales success via newspapers attracted the big retailers. Unfortunately, the margins that they were forced to give retailers made their business uneconomical. They lost money on every product sold so selling more was never going to make them rich.

Is your business fundamentally profitable? Is there enough profit in your model to allow you to scale? Can you replace yourself, develop your next product and still enjoy a luxury lifestyle?

If not then your business is fundamentally broken. How do you know if your business is profitable enough to scale?

Would that question make you attend a webinar?

That’s how you use someone else’s story in the Story – Bridge – Offer formula.

Are You Sending Too Many Emails?

Isn’t this the question that every entrepreneur is asking themselves?

Is there a right and wrong answer?

Yes, absolutely!

And the answer is different for every list.

The answer is also dependent on what you are sending. Let me ask you a question.

If I put a £10 note on your desk every day, at what point would you ask me to stop?

Never, right?

Do people put £10 in my inbox every day? Yes!

Does that mean I read every email as soon as it arrives? No! Does that mean I read all their emails every day? No!

Does that mean that I’m excited every time they send me an email? Yes!

Does that make me want to stay on their list? Absolutely!

So before you start planning to send your list a daily email, you've got to prepare the content that you are going to give them. If you've got the content to send them £10 every day then do it. But… if you’ve only got enough content (can only spare the time to write the content) to send £10 a week, then that’s how often you should mail your list.

Do not be tempted to spin the content over 7 emails. Why?

Because…

Content can be the new spam!

Great content is always going to get you noticed and build trust with your audience.

But…

Thin or non-existent content is going to make you irrelevant. At best you’ll be seen as a me-too player with swagger and personality. At worst you’ll be seen as a spammer.

Why waste your time and your communities time with content like that?

Here’s another test for your email before you press send.

Imagine it's midnight and someone is banging on your front door. What do you think? You'll ignore it and they'll go away, right? Imagine that the banging continues. It goes on and on until you get out of bed and answer the door. What mood are you in?

The guy at the door immediately screams, your hedge is on fire!

With those 5 words, they have gone from pest to gest. So is your message so important that you would force your reader to get out of bed to read?

If not then it needs a rewrite.

Are You Sending Too Few Emails?

If you are sending less than one email a week, then you are sending too few emails! It's that simple.

If you don’t have anything worth saying to your community on a weekly basis then you’ve got to ask yourself, why not.

I’m willing to believe that you do have something worth saying and you aren’t saying it because of fear, procrastination, or perfectionism. These are most of the reasons behind I don’t have enough time.

Everyone falls victim to this villain. The I don’t have time monster has prevented me from achieving my goals. And you know what. Once I've fallen off the wagon I'm always prepared to get back up again.

So, if you are falling short of your own high standards. No problem. Get back up and start living your vision.

Don’t Listen To What People Say… Watch What They Do!

When it comes to email marketing its natural to worry that you are sending too many emails because someone leaves a comment on Facebook saying you send too many emails.

That may be the case. And if you follow the £10 rule or the Waking your reader rule, then I'm going to bet that you aren't sending too many emails.

So, don’t listen to what people say!

Watch what they do!

If you send too many emails your community will do one of two things:

1. Unsubscribe
2. Stop reading your emails

If you are getting a mass exodus every time you send an email, then you've got to look at the quality of the email and the content you are sharing as well as the frequency of your emails.

If your open rate continues to drop over time, then you’ve got to examine the stories that you are sharing.

But…

Don't be too hard on yourself! You are not going to get 100% opens for your emails. You're not going to get 50% opens for your emails. If you're getting 20% or above, then do a little dance around your office because you’ve built a strong relationship with your community.

If your open rate increases over time then keep doing what you are doing. If you are using Infusionsoft, then they have a report showing your "engaged audience”. If this is going up over time then again you have proof that you are writing to your community in a meaningful way.

When Can You Hit Your List Hard?

Is there ever a time when you can message your list multiple times in a day?

Yes, absolutely!

But…

It must pass the waking your reader in the middle of the night test. You see, if you have a timely offer that you don’t want your community to miss, then why wouldn’t you message them multiple times in a day.

You see, I don't read all the emails I receive on a daily basis, and I'm assuming you’re the same. So, what emails catch my attention? The ones that say Ending In 4 Hours!

Why?

Because of the fear of missing out.

There are 2 things to consider. The first, and most important, is the email sender. If your community knows that you always send them great information, then the urgency message will be acted on immediately.

That’s why the NUMBER ONE thing each message must do is make the reader want to read your next email.

If you have a reputation for giving great information (possibly that others would charge for), then they will not feel burned when you message them multiple times a day.

But…

If you start sending 10 emails a day, every day, all with a variation on your hair is on fire then you won’t have a community of raving fans for long!

Your business is your list and your relationship with them so don't burn the relationship for short-term gain. When you do that, you win the battle and lose the war!

If you're like me, then you want to be in business for the next 50 or 60 years (I plan to live to a grand old age), and that's only possible if I give great value to wonderful readers like you.

Now It’s Your Turn

Please use the email rules in this blog to make a giant leap in your profits tomorrow… and more importantly to develop a stronger relationship with your community.

If this blog makes a difference in your business then please leave a comment below to let me know.

If this can help someone you know, then please share it with them.

Until next time…

Carpe diem

Roland Eva

P.S.if you'd like a proven system to build a business and turn your ideas into income fast, then please click the link below to download your FREE copy of my book How To Turn Expertise Into Cash.