LY Podcast: Ep. 48: 3 Ways to Sell More to Your Email List

Melissa Anzman (00:00): This is the launch yourself podcast, episode number 48, all about three ways that you can sell more to your email list for more information and show notes, go to LaunchYourself.co/48. Welcome to the Launch Yourself podcast. My name is Melissa Anzman. I'm a best-selling author and the CEO of two businesses and employee experience company and launch yourself where I help entrepreneurs diversify and scale their business by launching digital products each week, you'll hear mindblowing interviews where we peek behind the curtain of other people's launches, as well as actual tips and strategies that you can implement in your daily work life to create launches that actually make you money. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let's get started

Melissa Anzman (00:51): So welcome. We are going to talk about three secrets to selling more of your digital products to your email list. Okay? So the benefits here is going to be all about why it's important to do so and why our email list is so important. Don't worry. I won't spend a ton of time there because you already know you should have an email list. We've already had that conversation, or you've heard it a time or two, but I'm going to really, really talk about three secrets that you can implement right now to sell more of your ebook, your membership, your course, your digital product, whatever that is for you. Here's the thing, your email list they're there. That means they already know like, and trust you. So we're going to leverage that to day. So we have all heard how important building an email list is, right?

Melissa Anzman (01:46): Like this is something that you learn early on build your email list, but just in case you haven't heard that before, here's like the 32nd version of why your email list is so important first is that you own it. So having a social media following is great. However, you don't own anything on that platform. It could go away in a minute, like maybe Periscope or my space. I totally dated myself with that. But my point here is, is building a following is great, but get them on your email list. So you have access to their name, their email, and their inbox in case anything to happen. The important thing here is that your email lists are really your fans, your followers, your buyers, your future customers. It's not a vanity metric. Like social media can be, you can't buy qualified email list. People you can try, but due to all the like spam laws and everything, and also not getting the right people in there, it's not a good idea.

Melissa Anzman (02:48): So the thing also is through email, you can make direct ask. You can sell on email. It's kind of hard to sell on social, through just people. Don't see the algorithm doesn't pick it up. It may not work for you, but in the email list, you totally can. And it's something you should really think about. So you're building your fan base up through your email list and it can be comprised of your current and future buyers. But how do you compare convert these people who are already on your email list into buyers? And I'm asked that all the time. Like I want to grow my social media. I want to grow my email list, but like now they're here. What do I do? So I wanted to share with you today, three secrets to selling more of your course or your digital products to your list.

Melissa Anzman (03:39): Number one is you have to make the ask. I know this sounds like common sense. I know you're like, yeah, Melissa, I know I need to ask for a sale if I want to make a sale, but I promise you you're not doing it. And you're definitely not doing it frequently enough if you're not meeting your sales numbers. Okay. And here's the thing. No one likes to hear that it's not super exciting to sell things online. It's not it muster super jazzed salesperson. You may feel a little awkward making the ask itself, but I want you to look at your stats and I want you to understand how many people are even opening your emails. And then the number of those who open, who actually clicked on something in your email is a lot lower, which means that most of your best audience or email list is missing that one email you threw in there to make the ask.

Melissa Anzman (04:41): Maybe you're sending it once a quarter or once when you have a big launch or what have you. But that is a very small percentage of a number of people who are available to you to actually see, read, take in and take action on that thing that you are selling. So you need to make the ask and you have to make it often and in different ways through your email game. So there are some different schools of thought here. So I'm going to just explain it to you. One is that you, during your nurture nurture onboarding sequence. So what that is is when you people opt in for email list, there's an automatic system. It's used to be called an autoresponder. That's why I'm like, what do I call it? An AR series, an autoresponder series, or a nurture series where you send a set of welcome emails of getting to know you, what your brand is, what you are expert in teaching all those things to have that person who just opted in to feel welcome.

Melissa Anzman (05:46): Now their nurture sequence, the here's, the old school. If that's come in, what is, Hey, during that nurture sequence, you should have something called a trip wire, which is a low cost thing that somebody can buy. Once they join your email list and get them used to actually spending money for the privilege of your knowledge, of being on your list. We're never that blatant about it. And if they don't buy, they stay on your list. But it's tripwire is all about helping people understand you are a business, you are going to sell things. So that's one school of thought the other is, you know what, don't do that during your onboarding sequence, have them in your email chain, nurture, nurture, nurture, serve, serve, serve. And then when you're ready to make the ask, they're ready for it. They're like very excited to do that.

Melissa Anzman (06:38): So either approach works. Just make sure you pick one that works for you, but at a minimum here is like your bare minimum bar here to make money through your email list. You should be making a pitch, whether it's a mini pitch or a full-blown sales email, at least once a month to your email list, how many gasps did I just get? Let me know if you had a little gas there, because the thing here is, is you have to make the ask in order for people to buy. I know it sounds a little like obvious, but we are not asking enough, such a small number of people actually see what we're doing and actually read or click to learn more about it. And so we absolutely need to ask more frequently, at least once a month, we are doing a direct sale of something we have.

Melissa Anzman (07:31): Okay. The secret number two is to use your email intentionally each and every email that you send out should have a specific reason, and it should be leading your buyer to the next logical step to work with you in your business. So email can be very effective, but only if you have your email credibility still intact. So how do you do that? Will you do that by continuously providing helpful and meaningful content to your audience? That's it? However, in reality, it's a little bit more difficult because what that looks like is every single email should build toward the sale. Something that's related to the sale, your content, your flow, your call to action. It should all be really clear where you are heading people to a cell. So for example, if you have a weekly email newsletter, maybe you blog, or maybe you podcast and you just send one email out, or it's a curated email of things in resources, I want you to really make sure before you send it out, that you answer the question what's in it for the reader, not just like an update or here's the weekly newsletter, but what can learn to up level or achieve their end result.

Melissa Anzman (08:59): We don't hit send on an email unless there's at least one very clear call to action and a point to it. So look back at your emails. Are you doing that? Are you making an ask in every email? Are you saying, Hey, here's the one call to action. I want you to do and go do it. So that could be, Hey, leave a review for the podcast or here, click here to schedule a call with me to learn more, a free consult, whatever that is for you. I want you to be sure you have a very clear call to action that leads to the sale in every single email that you send to your list. And the third secret is to send emails consistently and a lot more frequently. So I don't want you to be afraid of people unsubscribing because they will. And honestly, when they do that means you're not going to have to pay for extra dead weight, who aren't your buyers anyway.

Melissa Anzman (09:58): And we know that they're not going to convert. So what we do is we wish them well, that's totally fine. If we are not the right person for them to serve them, it's okay. Let people unsubscribe from your email list. I have no idea why we started taking that so personally, but you can't because let them go. We want people on our email list who are going to buy from us. We are a business. Our email list is a mode of sales. So if they're like, Hey, you know what? That person is not for me. That's okay. We're going to wish them well and let them go. I actually always sort of I have a little ritual and I get the list of unsubscribes from my list where I literally, I say, thank you and good luck. Like I blessed them out because I'm so grateful.

Melissa Anzman (10:51): They took their energy and time to be on my list for a reason they got what they needed and they're moving on and that's okay because they're not going to be a buyer for me in the long run. So stop taking that. So personally, please stop that. Now at a minimum, your email wants to hear from you at least once a week, you can. Absolutely. And when you are in sales mode, you should be emailing your people a lot, a lot, a lot more. And listen, you're saying no, what? I may get unsubscribes or people may not like me, or they may email me back. Like, why are you selling me something? That's the point. It's okay. I want you to just ignore it and get over that fear because people need to hear from you there's like that old adage of you have to hear something hundreds of times, I don't know the exact number, like hundreds or 20.

Melissa Anzman (11:45): I don't know something in between. Why advertising campaigns are successful is because you hear them over and over again. And it sort of known in your brain. Well, that's the same with email. We can't just say, Hey, I have this thing for sale. Buy it. First of all, once isn't enough. Second of all, no, one's seen that. Or hardly everyone is seeing that I should say. And then it's like, that's it. We have to reinforce the conversation. So the same is true for your emails. Particularly when you're selling more emails is better, but consistency here is key. If you're worried that you're emailing your list too much, I want to promise you. You are not. If you're S you're still likely under emailing them. If you're even asking that question, I promise. So don't trust me. Totally fine. We're new friends here. I want you to do your own research.

Melissa Anzman (12:36): I want you to sign up for some people who are like the big name gurus and see how frequently they email you. So I work. So here's like some people I did that with. So if you like Amy Porterfield or Frank Kern or grace lever, I want you to sign up for their email list because I will tell you, I am shocked in excitement about how frequently I get emailed, particularly by grace liver. Like I, she emails at least two or three times a day consistently every single day. And it's nonstop. And she's a big name, millions of dollars. I think probably an eight figure business at this point, maybe nine, who knows. But my point here is, is to make sales with your email list. You got to email them people. You have to ask for the ask. You have to send multiple emails.

Melissa Anzman (13:30): You are not wearing them out. Okay. And if you watched a previous live, I talked about how to make sales right now. One of the methods that I shared had a bunch of emails baked into it, of here's the actual email sequence to send. And it converts because the more they see it in their inbox, same with just your regular emails. The more likely they are to buy, which is what we want, or perhaps unsubscribe, which again, if we're not their jam peace and love my friend as they move onto the next thing. Now, you know, I'm not going to leave your thought a little bit of a bonus to those three secrets. So here's a few things I just want you to keep in mind. First is if you have a small list, I don't want you to worry. Everyone starts with a small list.

Melissa Anzman (14:22): And I always tell people that having the right people on their list is going to be a ton more important than having a huge number of people on your list. Okay? Because we want a little of the perfect people who are going to be buyers. Then a lot of the wrong people. And trust me, I've done it both ways. It is much better to have the right people on your list when you're tying to make some sales. And then finally, if you have a cold email list, if you haven't reached out to them, maybe your focus or business has changed, or maybe it got lazy or didn't even want to handle it. Here's something to think about. Now you have a few choices. Number one, you could keep Austra gene like a call it, putting your head in the sand and not thinking about that email list, which isn't going to bring me any sales or what you can do is you can start being consistent and right.

Melissa Anzman (15:13): Start that right now. So here's a little thing that I did. I had an email list, me. Okay. I'm sort of pulling back the curtain here. We're airing my dirty laundry, but I had an email list that I hadn't reached out to for over two years. I think it's probably closer to three years. If I'm being honest and seriously, everyone told me, you know what? Just like delete it and start over. And I'm like, you know, what do I have to lose? They haven't heard from, you know, almost three years. Like, let me just send a note out. So what I did is I sent an email out and I said, Hey, listen, you haven't heard from me in awhile. I'm super sorry about it. Here's what's, you know, what's going on. But here's what this list is going to be. If you are interested, click this button, if you're like, no, thank you.

Melissa Anzman (15:59): I've moved on. Who is this chick click here? So they were given an opportunity to opt in or to opt out. And let me tell you this a super cold list of almost three years, I had 90% of those people on the list, opt in to stay with me and reactivated it when I started again. So a cold list doesn't mean it's completely dead. You can totally start over if you want, but there's no harm in making that ask two or three times to get all those people moved over with you so you can start being consistent. Okay? So those are the three keys plus two bonus tips for you as well. Super great stuff. To help you sell more on your email list.

Melissa Anzman (16:42): To join the Launch Yourself workshop, where you'll learn why your digital products aren't selling nearly as much as you plan for and how to diversify and scale your income by launching the right way. Text: launchyourself, all one word to: 44222.