The Ultimate Blog Podcast - Writing Emails that Sell with Allison Hardy

Episode Date: October 22, 2024

In this episode, we get to talk with Allison Hardy, email marketing strategist. Allison shares why evergreen email funnels are a great strategy for bloggers, how to shift your mindset to get comfortab...le with selling, and how to sell to all types of buyers in your audience. She also gives us her thoughts on how long the ideal open cart should last, and if you should ever extend your open cart period. If you want to start selling or increase your sales through email marketing, you’ll love this episode!🔗Show notes for episode 149

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to the Ultimate Blog Podcast. This podcast is the podcast we wish we had when we started blogging. I'm Amy Reinicki. I'm Jennifer Draper. Our episodes dive deep into how to monetize your blog, sharing unique insights and practical tips. We bring you in-depth interviews with successful bloggers and experts who offer valuable, actionable advice.
Starting point is 00:00:23 Our mission is to educate, support, inspire, and empower you in your blogging business. Welcome to the Ultimate Blog Podcast. You know that email marketing is near and dear to our hearts here at the Ultimate Blog Podcast. And so who better to bring on to talk about that than Allison Hardy. So welcome to the Ultimate Blog Podcast. And so who better to bring on to talk about that than Allison Hardy. So welcome to the Ultimate Blog Podcast, Allison.
Starting point is 00:00:49 Hi, thank you for having me. Yes. We love talking about email marketing, especially in this day and age when things feel a little crazy and up in the air and we don't have a lot of control sometimes, but we do have control over our email. And so anytime that we have the opportunity to sit down with a guest and truly talk about this is important to us. And today specifically, what we want to talk about is really how you can sell in your email. But before we get started there, Allison, I would love for you to share with our listeners a little bit more about you
Starting point is 00:01:25 and what you do. Yeah. Hi. Well, thank you for having me. I'm so thrilled to be here. So I'm an email marketing strategist. I always say that I help my clients sell on autopilot through email marketing. A lot of my clients are just really freaking good at what they do and they want to do more
Starting point is 00:01:43 of that. So they're tired of the live launch roller coaster, they're tired of having to be on to make money and they just want to like create amazing content and help their people. And so I come in and I help them leverage that content, develop an evergreen system that sells for them. Sounds amazing. We want to work smarter, not harder. Yes, absolutely. And I always like, I'm a huge fan of having the evergreen funnel be like the thing that
Starting point is 00:02:13 makes you money consistently, independently. And then if you want to do live things, you know, like live launches, like that's a cool bonus. But like having that system and that structure running in the background and doing its work so that you can show up to do other things that spark your creativity or allow you to serve people in better ways. Yes. I think Jennifer and I can speak to the burnout of live launching.
Starting point is 00:02:36 For about two years time, we would launch our course, I don't know, like every month or every other month. It was very exhausting. And then a couple years ago, we finally were like, this is not working for us. Yeah, because it's it is exhausting, quite honestly, to just do it and not saying that you should never do a live launch. But yeah, it just wears on you to have to do it like that. And so figuring out those systems to make it work for you kind of in the background of
Starting point is 00:03:04 your business is where email comes in and where we want bloggers especially to be focused on. What are you offering? Like do you have a course? Do you have a product? Do you have something that you own, quite honestly, that you own, that you've created, that you are selling to your community. And if so, how can you sell more of that without investing a ton more time into your process essentially? So what do you share with bloggers, content creators, coaches as they're getting involved
Starting point is 00:03:38 in this and thinking about putting this on autopilot? What's a thing that you would say to them to get started in this and maybe get out of that live launch mentality? Yeah, a lot of people are really nervous about like the upfront work that you have to do. They're like, why would I do all this upfront work instead of just like doing it while I'm live? So like the webinar, for example, if you choose to do a webinar launch, like I would so much rather just like show up live, deliver, and then write the emails and send them out. So my philosophy around that is while I think webinars are great, I do webinar every two weeks.
Starting point is 00:04:13 I love them. I think they're wonderful. It like fills my cup and makes me happy. But for a lot of people, they don't feel that way. You're going to do that work anyways. Odds are if you've launched in any sort of capacity, you probably have like a lead magnet, you probably have some sort of nurture thing, you probably have some pitch sequence emails. So if we're talking about webinars, for example, instead of having to have somebody show up at a
Starting point is 00:04:37 certain time in a certain place that you decide because that's what works for you and for your schedule, no matter anyone else's schedule and time zones or any of that, what if they could just access that content at a time that works for them, that is aligned with their schedule, that is in their time zone, things like that. So like, it's just rewiring the way you think about it. And I always go to the, what if it works better mentality? What if, because you put the system in place,
Starting point is 00:05:04 you're actually able to help more people, you're actually able to help more people, you're actually able to sell more of your thing, you're actually able to get more money into your bank account. And so what would that do for you? And so coming at it from a perspective of the possibility of it, instead of like, oh, this is gonna be so hard,
Starting point is 00:05:17 I think is really important. Yeah, and I think Amy and I have talked lately about capturing people when they're still excited. They've come across you, they've listened to a podcast episode or they've read one of your blog posts or they've signed up for your freebie. So I think one of the things we were struggling with was, well, why are we making them wait? Why are we making them wait for another month to come to our event to be able to purchase what we have to offer. Why can't we make a way that they can join us now?
Starting point is 00:05:49 Because I think that's when people find something that is helpful to them, they want to take advantage of it. So I feel like this might also be a good way to capture them when they're in that excitement and in that moment. Yeah, absolutely. And even if you want to stick with that live launch model, you can still have things or live launch event.
Starting point is 00:06:06 You can still have things along the way in that nurture that you have in between when they opt in and when the event goes live that gives them wins, that offers like maybe you have some small digital products you could sell that make sense for that audience. So you can still, you know, if you want to stick with that live thing, that's cool, that's great. But exactly like you said, if they're excited about learning from you, like capture that excitement and offer something for them to buy like early on, I call that creating a culture of buying and selling.
Starting point is 00:06:33 That's something we talk a lot about and let them know, hey, I'm open for business. Like you can buy this thing from me now. Like, yeah, we're going to talk more about that on the masterclass on the webinar, but here's an offer for you right now. And I think that when you can do that, it really creates, again, we're going to talk more about that on the master class on the webinar, but here's an offer for you right now. And I think when you can do that, it really creates, again, they're meeting them where the excitement is, but also, again, creates that culture of buying and selling. And I think that's a really awesome thing
Starting point is 00:06:53 to create in your finals, in your audience. Yeah. OK, so let's talk about the person who might not have a full course yet. But they might just have a couple small digital products. Maybe they only have one digital product. So I'm speaking essentially about a beginner content creator, beginner blogger. What does that first step look like for them? Like, okay, we have probably been sending free content for a long time in your email list because you've been writing blog posts
Starting point is 00:07:21 and things like that. How do you make that shift? Like, okay, these people have obviously benefited from being on my email list for a certain amount of time, but now I'm going to sell them something. Is there a mindset shift that needs to happen? Or do people just need to jump right in? What do you see with that shift as people are making that shift from just giving them all that free content
Starting point is 00:07:43 and then asking them to purchase something. Yeah, I think it's a mindset shift because we buy things all the time, right? We buy things almost every single day. I went down the street this morning and got a cup of coffee and I was so happy about it. But those people aren't like, they weren't like, oh my gosh, will she buy from me today? They didn't have stress around like if I was going to buy from them today. I made the choice to buy yes or no. So I think like we often forget that our audience is empowered to make decisions for themselves. So you can offer up something for them to buy if they love it. They're like, cool, heck yes, sign me up. And if you've been giving free value for a long time, asking them to buy something from you
Starting point is 00:08:28 isn't unusual. You see brands doing this all the time. Old Navy isn't upset about selling you. I get an email from Old Navy every single day offering me to buy something. I think we need to get over the fact that people can make the decisions for themselves. People can do that. And so us offering up an opportunity for them to take the ideas that you've been talking about
Starting point is 00:08:50 for a while and get better results through the digital product or the offer, whatever it is, is a great way to serve them because selling is serving. So when we can say, hey, if you thought this blog post was super helpful, I have this thing that'll come alongside of this concept and I'll give you the next steps how to work through this idea that we
Starting point is 00:09:09 talked about today. Here it is for $47 or whatever it is. So people can make that decision and that's okay. And I think the minute that we get in that place of scarcity or I don't want to be salesy is like the minute you're going to be salesy. So think about how you like to be sold to. What do you like to know, understand, have in order to make an educated decision? And then speak to that way that you're, that you are motivated.
Starting point is 00:09:34 I think that's a really easy first step. So if somebody has been giving away free content for a really long time, do you think that they need to somehow warm up their audience to the idea that they're going to be selling something whether it's small or large coming up in the future? Yeah, that's a great idea. So you can let's say you create a new blog post every week or something and you email your list every week when that blog post goes live. So in the weeks leading up you can seed the offer, the program, the thing that you're gonna be selling. So you can say, hey in the weeks leading up, you can seed the offer, the program, the thing that you're going to be selling.
Starting point is 00:10:07 So you can say, hey, in two weeks, I want to be launching this brand new thing. And you can actually have them co-create it with you. So I'm a huge fan of this. And it's like a pre-selling offer. So you can seed like, hey, I'm going to create this thing. I would love to know your thoughts around this topic. You're going to have a survey where they fill out answers. Take the survey with a grain of salt because sometimes people are just,
Starting point is 00:10:28 they expect a lot for a $27 price point. So like obviously take it with a grain of salt, make sure it actually makes sense. But they can also give you some really great ideas. And when your people, they feel like they have like ownership of it or part of the creation process, the way more likely to buy. And they're like, oh, wow, she heard me. She actually listened and created this like part of this, which is my suggestion. Oh, heck yeah, I'm going to buy that. So it's a great way to just serve your audience in a really big way.
Starting point is 00:10:55 Yeah, they want to feel part of that process. But I think you said something really important there is that they want to be heard. And I think as content creators, no matter what kind of content you are creating, no matter what kind of content you are creating, no matter what your niche is, that's just an important thing now is to be listening to your audience. I think the days of just keyword research and SEO, they're gone. Like you're going to have to create that community. You're going to have to understand what your audience, who is actually engaged, what do they need, what problem are you solving and using that verbiage to whether you're giving them free content or whether
Starting point is 00:11:31 you're selling them a paid product, but like actually truly understanding what the pain point is and where you come in because then it does feel less like selling and it feels more like serving. I absolutely love that you said that, that selling is actually serving because I think we could go down a rabbit hole with money mindset and things that we tell ourselves. But I think that that's a lot of it is like we tell ourselves, well, I'm going to be bothersome or this feels icky, but does it just like you said, you are serving them. Starbucks doesn't feel bad about selling us a coffee. Old Navy doesn't feel bad about selling us pants or whatever.
Starting point is 00:12:05 And we don't always need the coffee and we don't always need the pants, you know, but that is our choice and what we decide to spend on. So as a content creator, I think going into that mindset that you just said, that selling is serving. I think that that alone could just be a great shift for people who are, who have maybe been giving free content for quite a while and are making that shift into a paid product of some sort. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:12:32 And it's also important to understand that you're doing something new. And so yeah, it is going to feel different. It may feel uncomfortable or a lot uncomfortable. That's okay. And trusting in the process and giving yourself lots and lots and lots of grace, I think is really key there too. Because the first time you do it, let's call it like it is, it's not going to be perfect. It's going to be as close to perfect as you're able to create right now. But in a year or two, that definition of perfect is going to be very different.
Starting point is 00:12:56 So just give yourself that grace. And the nice thing about emails is if you have a series going out to people, as they're opening them, as they're opening them, as they're reading them, as they're responding to them or not responding to them, you can make changes to them. I think that's the nice part. It's not live, so to speak. You're not like this is a one-time shot. You can adjust and modify and tweak and perfect it as you go along too. Yeah, absolutely. You can see open rates real time. You can see click rates real time.
Starting point is 00:13:26 You can see all of those things real time. And so it gives you amazing data to make decisions through. And I always say we make decisions based on the data. Our data drives our decisions. So really leaning into that will help you to see better results inside of your email marketing. Yeah. And a couple different ways we teach people when it comes to sending out emails, you know,
Starting point is 00:13:45 there's a welcome and nurture series and then you have the one-time emails. So when you're talking about selling in your emails, which emails are we talking about here? Like, do we put this in our welcome series? Are we sending like a one, doing like a one-time sale? Can you just talk a little bit about what that What that looks like for somebody who hasn't hasn't tried this before? Yeah, so I guess it depends on what the entry point is. But if we're talking like about a like traditional lead magnet funnel, so they have some sort of download, they get
Starting point is 00:14:16 a welcome email, they get a nurture sequence, and then we put them into a pitch sequence. So the the function of the nurture sequence is to get them ready for that pitch sequence, to give them the tools, the understanding, the knowledge, the know how the implementation to get them to the point where they're ready to say yes to that offer. So once you've done that, you put them into a pitch sequence and those emails are the ones that sell. And again, that's in the like traditional lead magnet sort of funnel. Hey, I hope you are enjoying this episode with Alice and Hardy learning more about writing emails that sell. This episode has so many great ideas to use your email list to earn more revenue. So no
Starting point is 00:14:58 matter what you are sharing with your audience, whether it be a blog post, a promotion, launching a product or maybe a new course, we highly recommend using Kit for all of your email marketing needs. Building those connected relationships with your readers has never been easier, and the platform is easy to use with customizable templates and automation tools
Starting point is 00:15:20 that save you a lot of time and allows you to grow your blogging business in a simple and effective way. Allison is giving so much great advice today for utilizing your email list and we just wanted to be sure you knew that our recommendation is Kit. You can learn more about Kit by visiting partners.kit.com slash ultimate blog podcast to make your emails effective and almost effortless.
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Starting point is 00:16:56 interact today. So do you have any recommendations on like how many emails need to be in that? How long should somebody be on your list before you come in? I hate to say come in for the kill because that's not really that what I want to say it. But before you share your offer, because honestly, we've all been on email lists that you literally get on the email list and they are immediately selling and you're like, ah, I don't even know you. Like, I thought we'd become friends first. It feels like a raunchy first date or something. So like how I'm just, I'm just full of fun stuff this morning. Wow, these podcasts are gonna be great today. But like,
Starting point is 00:17:38 how do you how do you know when that feels right? Is it depending on the price point of your product or is it your audience? What's a gauge there that a creator can put into play as they're making these decisions? Yeah, and it's a little bit of a like a it depends answer. So it does depend on your audience and depends on your offer and it depends on their buying habits. So like I work with other business owners, my people generally tend to move pretty quickly. So how my funnel works out is they download a lead magnet, they get the welcome email, and then they get three emails that have videos that are about 10 minutes long in each. So those get delivered every day. And then from there, they're put into a pitch sequence.
Starting point is 00:18:26 And my offer is in that funnel, I make them a 50% offer. So the price point is nine, nine, seven for the year or $97 a month, something like that, somewhere around those price points. So like that works for me, but I know that because I've done that work. I've tested my audience, I've tested frequency of emails. I've tested how long things should be.
Starting point is 00:18:48 And I know that works for my people. Now other people, like I have a client who's an interior designer. And she helps, her whole thing is that she helps moms of toddlers create minimalist playrooms because she believes and has the data to back it up, that that is better for everybody's mental health
Starting point is 00:19:08 is a minimalist approach to play. And so that requires a lot of nurturing because our society is the opposite of that. Kids need all the toys all the time, they need the ones that make the noise and the bright colors and blah, blah, blah, right? All that. So for her, her nurture sequence is a lot longer. It's a lot about like mindset. There are like some
Starting point is 00:19:30 action items in there. So her nurture sequence is I think three weeks long, if I'm remembering correctly. There's videos in there. They're super short because she works with moms and they're delivered like every three days. So it's a much longer spread out nurture sequence. And then her pitch sequence is seven days long, minus three, hers is seven. So that is again, based on the audience, what she does, how they buy, and the price point of her offer.
Starting point is 00:19:59 So different audiences perform differently. And like the only way, not the only way, you can definitely use like some guides, but the way to nail it for yourself is to again, lean into the data, which is everybody's like least favorite answer. It might be their least favorite answer, but I think when you finally dive into it and understand it, it's really empowering. And it makes it so much easier. Like you're like, oh, this works, this doesn't. Cool. Let's fix it. So they, okay, I have a digital product that I want to sell and
Starting point is 00:20:28 I'm going to sell it for $19. Like the first time you do it, no, you are not going to know exactly what's going to work. That is normal. I don't think there is anybody who can tell you do x y and that is going to equal z every time. If somebody is giving you that much of a guarantee, I'd be a little hesitant because I don't think that that's possible. It's just too variable. So if you have that $19 product and you don't know what it's going to do the first time, but after the first time, then you gain data, let's do it again. You're going to get more data and pay
Starting point is 00:21:05 attention to that. And I know that that is not like the fun thing to do. I am speaking from experience. Jennifer can attest. Okay? Like truly, just lean into it. It's going to help you to where then you can get to a point and it might take several months. It might take a couple of years to be like, okay, I need to make X amount of dollars. I know that I need to do this, I need to do this, I need to do this, put that formulation into play. I know how my audience buys
Starting point is 00:21:34 and this is going to work for me. You can get there, it's just not going to happen the first time you launch something. So that's where my business is right now. And so we're in like scaling mode. It's also like pretty boring. Like, when you get to this point, because you're not really creating anything new anymore.
Starting point is 00:21:49 You're really like digging into the data. And I was talking to my coach of the day and I was like, I just kind of want to like create something new today and launch a new thing. And she was like, no, no, you're gonna, you have like bright, shiny object syndrome. And you're feeling that way because you've never been in this place before.
Starting point is 00:22:07 So let's dig into the mindset. We did a whole thing. But it becomes a little boring and that's a beautiful problem to have. And it's because you're just doing the thing that gets you the results. So you're digging more into the data and you're looking really at how can I serve these people better? What can I do better? What do they need to know? What do they need to say? What do they need to understand in order to make this offer them and make them a heck yes instead of a no. Yeah. I think if you can stick it out and you can take that time to get to know your
Starting point is 00:22:39 audience, to do all the testing and to understand upfront that it's going to take some time, you're going to have some wins along the way. You're going to have some frustrating moments along the way, but it's all part of that process to get to that point where you are, where you can have a little downtime, a little boring time just to start to scale your business. I think that as you're going through this, there's some obvious data that you're going to be able to say, this works, this doesn't work. But when you're getting to know your audience, can you talk a little bit, you had mentioned to us before that there's some different types of people that will buy
Starting point is 00:23:13 from you. Can you talk a little bit about what those people look like so that as you're testing things out, as you're starting to get people to buy from you, you're getting a better idea of who they are and what motivates them to buy so that you can make decisions based on that. Yeah, so we all have seven different buyers in our audience. And so what I encourage my clients to do is as I go through these buyers,
Starting point is 00:23:39 if you know someone that's like this, or you have a client who buys in this way, or maybe you buy in this way, or maybe you buy in this way. Imagine you are writing your emails to these people. So the seven different types of buyers are the no-frills person. So this is me, this is how I buy. I don't need to know how many calls I get.
Starting point is 00:23:57 I don't need to know if the community is on Facebook or in Circle. I don't need that information. I need to know what the promise of the program is, who it's for and what's the offer. So that's all I need to buy. So that's the first type of buyer. The second different type of buyer is the person with all the questions. We all have these people, right? And so for me, they, I do not think this way. So for me, this type of buyer is the hardest to make content for because like, it's just not how I'm wired. I'm so not interested in like details. But this person is so we need to speak to that person. So what
Starting point is 00:24:31 are the commonly asked questions you get? What's going on in these folks who asked these questions lives to make them ask these questions. So like, if someone asks like, how many hours should I spend a week on your program? If you get that question a lot, address it, answer it, of course. But then like, what's going on in their life that would cause them to ask that question? Do they have a bunch of little kids at home? Does their spouse work crazy hours? Are they in a nine to five? Are
Starting point is 00:24:56 they caring for elderly parents? There's something that makes their time short, obviously it's a concern. So like address that. So that's the details person. The third person is the skeptic. We all have these people. These are the ones that are like, yeah, I understand what you're saying, but and then it's like an obscure thing that will like will never happen or like will rarely happen. Right. But we have to speak to these people. So sharing client stories, talking granular details within those client stories can be a great way to speak to those people. The fourth person is the relational person.
Starting point is 00:25:30 So these are the people that want to know about you. They want to know like, do you have kids? How do you drink your coffee? Do you like coffee? Do you like summer or fall? Beach or mountains? Like they're those people. And that's just how they are wired.
Starting point is 00:25:41 They're very interested in you as a person and they need to know more about you so that they can buy from you. The fifth person is the person who I call them like the engagement person. So this person needs just like a little bit of time with you. So how I get past this without getting on like calls all the time is having an email that goes out that's like super simple. It's like three sentences, it says, Hey, name of person. By now, you know that the doors to name a program are open, but I see you haven't enrolled yet. That must mean you have some questions, hit reply and ask away. And while you could have like, they could have hit reply to any of your
Starting point is 00:26:22 emails, right? They just need that invitation, they need to be like, Hey, do you have questions? They need that direct question asked. And so they need to have that engagement with you. And usually the question is so miniscule. But for them, for whatever reason, it's like a big deal. So from, from my audience, I one time had this woman, she emailed me and she was like, hey, do I need to have a specific webcam for your program? And I was like, whoa, this is like real granular. But it was like the thing that was in the way of her investing.
Starting point is 00:26:56 She was just super hung up on that detail. And I was like, no, you don't need that. You can do it on your phone. You can do it on your computer camera or you could buy a webcam like that. Either and any all work. And she was like, camera, or you could buy a webcam like that. Either and any all work and she was like, Oh, great. And then she like immediately enrolled. So a very like, easy answer for you is like a big amount for other people. So that's the fifth buyer, the sixth buyer is the
Starting point is 00:27:16 person who's in pain. And I don't mean like physical pain, but they, they have a pain point, they are like, holy guacamole, I want to solve this thing. So making content, making an email maybe around solving that thing and calling out the thing is really important for this person. Because if you don't call out the thing, the pain point that they're experiencing, how do they know that you can help them solve that pain point? And I find this is the one that most entrepreneurs don't like writing. This is the type of email people don't like to write because nobody likes
Starting point is 00:27:47 talk about pain points. It's not fun. But for a certain part of your audience, it's really, really important for them. And then the last buyer is the cheerleader. They are like the procrastinators. They are your fans. They're the Enneagram sevens. They are the people who are like, oh, my gosh, this is so amazing. They like the cheerleaders, right? They will the people who are like, oh my gosh, this is so amazing. Like the cheerleaders, right?
Starting point is 00:28:07 They will dig into your content. They will do the work. They will share you to their friends and they'll be your amazing testimonials. But they are like major procrastinators. So they will wait until the very last minute until they have to do anything. So just knowing those buying habits can really help you to create emails or content centered around their motivators and how they buy. So there's seven buyers, but there's not seven emails always that are going to go out.
Starting point is 00:28:33 So how do you learn who your audience is? How do you learn? Is that just once again, just something that you're going to like play around with and see what comes back? Like what's going to get the most clicks or what's going to get the most responses and then making note of that. Okay, this email is what I need to make sure I have in each funnel next time. Yeah, so you can it's data.
Starting point is 00:28:56 It's leaning into that. It's doing it, sending it out and seeing what happens. But you can also look and see, okay, this email got a really good open rate, but a not so great click rate. So what can I do to get a better click rate and then making adjustments to get a better You can also look and see, okay, this email got a really good open rate, but a not so great click rate. So what can I do to get a better click rate? And then making adjustments to get a better click rate because when they click, they go over to the sales page and that's how they buy, right?
Starting point is 00:29:14 So like doing that, but then also like, do you have clients that came off of one email? And so let's say it was like the client story email. And then maybe you were like your story email, like the relational people, that email, maybe nobody really opened it and really cared. So maybe you replace that email with a client story email, another client story email. So maybe like your people just need lots of client story emails. And that's cool. That's great. But you don't know that until you get that data back. Sorry, I'm trying to think about what I want to ask next. And I'm also by your number seven, by the way. Are you?
Starting point is 00:29:50 You're the last. I was waiting to like feel like, hmm, which one am I? Yeah, I think it's funny how we can identify ourselves. As you're explaining that, I'm like, oh yeah, I'm probably the skeptic here. It's interesting because there's nothing like right or wrong about any of the people that we've talked about. It's just getting to know them and being able to address their needs and concerns and in a specific way
Starting point is 00:30:14 that speaks to them. And that makes so much sense. Yeah, I have a ton of the skeptics in my audience. That is like a ton of my audience. I think it's just because of what I do. I think they've probably tried email marketing in the past and it didn't work. So they're skeptical of the actual thing, right? So like for me, my pitch sequence has a lot of client stories in it. And even if it's not like a specific client story focused email, I still weave client stories in throughout every single email. Yeah. Yeah. I think client stories, I think case studies are really powerful.
Starting point is 00:30:47 We recently did one with, we did a podcast episode with Brittany Herzberg about case studies and using case studies. And I think it is really important that we are sharing those things. People want to know, is this going to work for me? Is this a good investment? I mean, not all people, but most people like six out of the seven buyers, you generally want to know for sure, is this going to work? Like how successful is this? Or are you just scamming me kind of?
Starting point is 00:31:17 And I know that because there's a lot of people selling a lot of things. And so how do you differentiate yourself? How do you stand out? How do you do that? I think once again, data, and I think it's just really getting to know your audience. Another question I kind of want to ask surrounding this of sending out different emails is you're obviously going to have this pitch sequence,
Starting point is 00:31:38 but then let's say you're selling a course or a product that has like an open cart time period. What does that look like? Is there like a magic number of days that a cart should be open or is there a too short? Is there too long? I want to start there and then my next question is going to be extending the cart and should you do that? Yeah, I think that most people have cart opens that are too long. And the reason why I say
Starting point is 00:32:07 that is because it keeps your people in decision fatigue. You want the point of the pitch sequence, one of the points of the pitch sequence is to get them to make a decision, right? Either yes or no. And that's what we want. We want them feeling very decisive about our brand. That's good. But if you keep a really long open cart period, odds are they're gonna be like, oh, I don't know, like, oh, and it's just, it's too much. So like my open cart is two and a half days long. And that works again for me.
Starting point is 00:32:37 But I used to do a six day open cart period. And I just found people like just stopped paying attention after a while. The open rates tanked, the click rates tanked. And I was like, okay, I don't think these are bad emails. What's going on? So I was like, let's just get crazy and like super short. And as soon as I did that, everything kind of like leveled out. So I think a lot of times they're too long, but I do again think it depends on your audience. I work with business owners. We generally tend to make decisions about our businesses faster than like business to customer. So like the hormone coach I work with, I took longer to make decisions over because I was
Starting point is 00:33:16 like, I don't know, you know, and I went back and forth a little bit. So like that open cart period I noticed because I noticed these things was a bit longer. It was like five days and I was like, okay, that makes sense for me because I'm, this is a different relationship right now. So I do think it matters. And I think it's important that you said that depending on who you're talking to and likely what the niche is, you're going to have a different parameter that you need to go off of and different data. So keep that in mind because you might, somebody might be listening to this right now, who let's say that use the example of the hormone coach, for instance, and they're like,
Starting point is 00:33:50 oh, well, it took me like six days to make that decision. And so my cart should be six days. But it might not if you're selling a Pinterest course or something like that. It might look very different. And I think it goes back to this idea of instant gratification. And we want something to work yesterday. So if you have that type of whether it's a product, a course or something, keep that in mind. Is this a pain point that needs solved like yesterday for somebody? And if so, you're warming them up with those other sequences. You're getting to know them with the other sequences, but be willing to sell in those pitch emails and remind yourself that you're serving as you are selling.
Starting point is 00:34:32 And I think out of this whole episode, that's one of the key takeaways that I hope that people heard from you, Allison, is we are serving and email is like someone clicked subscribe to join your email list. If they don't want to be there, they don't have to be there. And so it's okay for you to run your business accordingly because they can leave it at any moment. But you still have a job to do. You still have people to serve, and you don't need to make excuses or anything for yourself or feel bad that you are literally doing your job
Starting point is 00:35:12 because we all need money to make the world go round. And I think that having that mindset shift is a really important piece of this, like you've mentioned. But knowing we're all being sold to like all day every day. All day. True. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:35:29 So it's okay if you're selling, somebody gets to make that decision on their own. I love that you said that when we started this podcast. Yeah. I think that a lot of times we often forget how much we are sold to. And so wrapping our head around, oh, I got eight sales emails before 8 a.m before the AM today. And like, if they can do that, you can send out a sales email. I also have a philosophy that like, if you know that you can help someone you owe them to them, you owe it to them to tell them about it. I'll never forget I
Starting point is 00:35:55 was sitting I might send plays travel baseball and I was sitting on a baseball field one day. And one of the new players on the team's moms sat down beside me. and I am freckly and very fair and I burn like crazy. But like most sunscreen makes me break out in hives. And so I was like talking to her and she was like, I don't know if this is like appropriate, but like I actually like work at a dermatology office because she had amazing skin. And I was like, bang girl.
Starting point is 00:36:24 And she was like, I actually know of a sunscreen. She's like, you take it or leave it, but it might be a good suggestion. I was like, oh my gosh, sell me on the sunscreen. Tell me the sunscreen. So if we can take that idea and put it into practice, I think that it just puts the idea of selling, it just lowers the scary factor because it doesn't have to be scary. It can be very relational. Yeah. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:36:49 And now I buy every month that gosh darn sunscreen from her. And I love it and it'll break out in hives. So win-win for everybody involved. Yeah. I think I just love the idea when you said that. You're serving through your selling. I'm going to take that like with me from this episode. I think sometimes we all just need that permission to do that and to show up in that space. And
Starting point is 00:37:09 so I hope that anybody listening today who needed that encouragement that it hit home with you too and to go out there and start using your email to sell your product or your service. And if you would like to learn more about this, then I'm going to let Allison tell you guys where you can connect with her. Yeah. Come find me over on Instagram, allison underscore hardy underscore. And I also have a podcast. It's called the Six Figure Secrets podcast.
Starting point is 00:37:35 And we pull back the curtain. We talk about the things that are helping us to see and experience results in our businesses. And y'all are going to be guests here in the near future. So I'm excited for that. Yes, we are too. Well, thank you for coming on today and sharing all that you know about selling an email. We appreciate you. Thank you for having me. Thanks for listening to the Ultimate Blog Podcast. If you'd like to learn more about
Starting point is 00:37:57 building your blog, visit theultimateblogpodcast.com backslash newsletter to get signed up for our email newsletter. If you enjoyed this episode, we'd love for you to share it with a friend, subscribe and leave a rating and review on Apple podcasts. Thanks for tuning in today and we'll see you next time.

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