Welcome to Week 6 of our Marketing Journey to making $3,000 per month. Today we are going to focus on creating our first welcome email.

What is a Welcome Email?

A welcome email is the first email your subscriber receives welcoming them to your “world” and it sets the tone of your relationship with each of your subscribers or readers.

That’s important because it introduces readers to your way of doing things and it gives them a good reason to read and engage with your content.

I have seen this done many ways but the best welcome emails meet all of the following criteria.

• Sent immediately
• Have a subject line that is clear and engaging
• Welcoming
• An Introduction (tell them a bit about yourself preferably via a short story)
• Tell your followers what they can expect from you
• They ask your followers to do something (preferably only 1-2 things/day)

Now keep in mind that when you’re writing these emails you want it to seem like you are writing directly to ONE person (your avatar) so act like you’re writing an email to your best friend. This will help your followers feel more connected to you and will hopefully decrease any anxiety you might have about sending your first email.

I’m going to put a Welcome Email Template in the resource library but if you’re someone like me who likes to deep dive into everything before really getting started check out this post by Neil Patel. I wish this post had been around when I wrote my first welcome email.

You can also check out the book Dot Com Secrets by Russell Brunson. He discusses the importance of story telling in email marketing and walks you step by step through honing in on who you are ,developing your relationship with your readers, diving into your own story and how to create emails that keep your readers coming back for more. Just a heads up- his book is one I will reference often.

Homework

For today we’re going to focus on just writing your first email. When you come back next week we’ll focus on how to compose the rest of your welcome email sequence.

Take care and remember that success is incremental- not binary.

<<Read Week 5 of the Marketing Journey

Welcome to Week 5 of our Marketing Journey to making $3,000 per month. Today we are going to focus on choosing your email marketing service.

What is an ESP and How Do You Choose One?

As you can see ESP stands for email marketing service and having a good one is crucial to succeeding at email marketing.

ESPs are essential to email marketing because it is illegal to bulk email your readers from a private email account. Even if you did do this your emails would end up in the spam folder and your email account shut down so don’t do this.

A good ESP allows you to bulk email your readers but a great ESP will also do the following:

• Allow you to create emails with a drag and drop editor
• Segment your audience into groups
• Manage your contact list
• Track the performance of your email campaigns
• Let you quickly and easily set up automations
• And, most importantly, prevent your emails from landing in a spam box

Different Email Service Providers

Throughout the last five years I’ve tried several different ESPs including Mailchimp, ConvertKit, Constant Contact, and Drip. All of them were pretty good but my favorite and the one I currently use is GetResponse.

GetResponse does all of the above, has great (but not overly aggressive- I’m talking to you Constant Contact) customer service who will walk you through anything you can’t figure out, a 30 day FREE trial, and is only $15/month for your first 1,000 email subscribers.

Once you start sending out emails GetResponse allows you to track different analytics which you can read about here. This allows you to do what’s called A/B testing to start honing in on the things that your audience responds to so in the end it can help you increase your sales too.

Homework

Today’s homework is to sign up for an email marketing service. Next week we are going to start the real part of our journey and put together our first welcome email sequence.

If you haven’t yet check out my resource library and come back tomorrow for Week 6 of our Marketing Journey to making $3,000 per month!

Take care and remember that success is incremental- not binary.

Welcome to Week 4 of our Marketing Journey to making $3,000 per month. Today we are going to focus on creating your opt-in freebie.

What is an Opt-In?

An opt-in freebie is a free resource you give to someone in exchange for them joining your email list.

I’m sure you’ve given your email address for freebie offers plenty of times. Any time you click on a website and see a coupon, quiz, download, etc, you are seeing an opt-in offer.

You probably ignore the majority of offers that you see. But, I’m sure you’ve chosen to hand over your email address in exchange for that freebie if it was something helpful. This is because when you find something that could be useful or improve your life you want that thing.

Brainstorming Your Opt-In Offer

When it comes to coming up with your first opt-in the best thing to remember is to keep it simple. Your offer doesn’t have to be complicated for your audience to want it. It can be a checklist, a short video, or even a list of ideas. For example, I guarantee that a parent who struggles with getting their child to sleep would love a list of ideas to try.

To make a great opt-in you want to think about what small problem you can solve for your avatar.

• Are they tired of cooking the same recipes every day?
• Do they need help learning how to play the guitar and you know the best way to learn scales?
• Can you help them teach their dog to sit?

Whatever small problem you can think of- solve it or give them the first couple of steps.

For example- my freebie for this post is going to be a list of opt-in ideas to help you get started. All you have to do is head over to my resource library to download it.

Creating Your Opt-In Offer

Creating an opt-in can seem intimidating but I promise it’s nothing to stress over. If you’re nervous go to Google Docs or WordPress and create a list. It can really be that simple. You can also record a short video on something your audience would find useful.

If you want bells and whistles for your opt-in then try using Canva. Canva is a website that you can use for free and they have tons of premade templates you can use to create amazing looking opt-ins. I’ll even include a video on how to get started in my resource library but they have great tutorials on the website itself too.

Homework

Today’s homework is to brainstorm an opt-in offer. Create something that will help your audience and then create it.

Come back next week for Week 5 of our Marketing Journey to making $3,000 per month!

Take care and remember that success is incremental- not binary.

Welcome to Week 3 of our Marketing Journey to making $3,000 per month. Today we are going to focus on identifying your avatar.

What is an Avatar?

Let’s start off with what an avatar is in the business sense. The best definition of an avatar that I’ve read is by Amy Porterfield and is this:

Your ICA [Ideal Customer Avatar] represents your ONE single PERFECT customer.

She goes on to say “This ONE single person is the potential customer who wants and needs YOUR content, YOUR product, or YOUR services. This is also a person that you LOVE to work with. Win-win!”

With email marketing the people who sign up for your email list are your customers because they are who will buy the products you promote.

Get to Know Your Avatar

When honing in on your avatar you don’t want to think about them in terms of their demographics. You don’t want to think “My avatar is a married, white female named Dina who lives in Ohio with her two kids.”

You want to really get to know your avatar which means doing a deep dive into who he, she, or they are and how you can help them.

Some great questions to ask yourself to help you get to know your avatar include subjects focusing around their fears, hopes, aspirations, and struggles. Struggles are the most important out of all of these things because once you know your avatars struggles you can help provide helpful solutions to them.

You may find that your avatar is very similar to you because they’re on a journey similar to yours. People are attracted to those who are like them. This is great because it helps us step into our avatar’s shoes and better serve them.

I created a worksheet to help you nail down your avatar and to help you get to know them. You can access it in my resource library.

Take your time in doing this because it is going to be key to your success. You can be successful with almost any niche but if you’re not talking to the right people then you’re going to feel like you’re spinning your wheels.

Today’s Homework

For today, all you have to do is complete the avatar worksheet. Then, come back next week for Week 4 of our Marketing Journey to making $3,000 per month.

If you haven’t already done so don’t forget to sign up for my email list!

Take care and remember that success is incremental- not binary. 

Welcome to Week 2 of our Marketing Journey to making $3,000 per month. Today we are going to focus on picking or defining your niche.

What is a Niche?

Business News Daily defines a niche as a ‘specialized or focused area of a broader market that businesses can serve to differentiate themselves from the competition.’

Now I know it may be odd to think of yourself as starting a business but that’s exactly what you’re doing when you start email marketing so you want to focus on a certain area.

In today’s day and age, the best way to get noticed is to niche down. If you are looking for something for your dog are you more likely to go to Walmart or Pet Smart? If you’re a single woman are you likely to follow a parenting blog?

You want to be clear about who you are and what you plan to talk about. If you are talking about everything then, as far as your audience (or lack thereof) is concerned you aren’t talking about anything.

You want to be known for one or two things- three MAX.

How to Choose a Niche

The best way to choose a niche is to think about what you’re passionate about, good at, or can talk about for a long time. You want to make sure your email marketing business is something that you will want to continue working on.

Is there something you love to do in your free time?

What about a special skill that you have or something that you’re specialized in?

Do people regularly tell you you’re good at something?

What’s your training or education in?

Are there special skills or knowledge that you’ve developed through your work?

Finding an area that you’re both knowledgable about and that you love is the sweet spot for identifying your niche.

Think Outside the Box

Everyone is an expert at something and I have seen people succeed writing about everything under the sun including:

• Cleaning
• Ear Cleaning
• Snake handling
• Beekeeping
• Crocheting

What’s great is that every one of those subjects can be monetized by thinking outside the box so don’t count yourself out because there is an obscure topic that you’re passionate about. I guarantee you that there is a tribe of people that would want to hear from you.

Start brainstorming ideas and then come back next week for Day 3 of our Marketing Journey to making $3,000 per month.

Don’t forget to grab your password for my resource library and start browsing through some of my free resources including my Affiliate Marketing Planner to help you get started on your own Email Marketing Journey.

Take care and remember that success is incremental- not binary.