17: Top Three Tips to Get your Next Email Read

Foreign hi there.

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Welcome to the Course Creators MBA Podcast. I'm your host, Destiny Kopp. And in this podcast we're covering actionable tips to grow your online course business. And I have a special guest here with me today. I have Marisa Corcoran. And Marisa is a copywriter and messaging strategist that helps coaches and creatives craft compelling copy that attracts clients, makes money and creates a massive movement online. She's also the creator of the wildly popular Copy Chat masterclass series bringing together 20 plus experts in copywriting, business coaching and online marketing. When not click clacking on her laptop, you'll find Marisa analyzing a Real Housewives episode like its government policy and consuming inappropriate amounts of Nutrageous bars. Marisa, thanks so much for joining with joining me today. I'm so happy that you're here and look forward to our conversation.

Oh, well, thank you so much for having me. Destiny. What an introduction. You know, a lot of times when people read my bio, they don't read the last part. And I really applaud you for reading it because it's my, I think it's my favorite part. I think it's where you get a hint of my personality which is all like what copy and messaging is about. And I find that people will like sometimes skip it and so I'm so glad that you read it.

Well, I actually read it because one of the, well, one of the reasons why I wanted to bring it up is I have to ask you a question about housewives. Oh yes, I know. We're both from the Atlanta area. Is that the one you watch or do you watch them all? Right.

I watch them. All my favorites are Real Housewives in New York is my favorite because that's where I lived for so long. And then Real Housewives of New Jersey because I'm Italian, so it felt like very much. Some often, sometimes similar to some things that I grew up with. But I like. I dabble in all of them, but mostly, like, I'm an expert on New York, New Jersey, and Beverly Hills.

So I like the OC One because that was kind of the first one out there, and I've been following them for, you know, so many years. I actually don't really watch Real Housewives that much anymore, but the OC1 I definitely watch, and then the Atlanta one I've kind of been watching here and there. But mostly, you know, some of the stuff they show. Right. I'm familiar with it. One of the clubs that one of the. You know, she's not on it anymore, but she used to be on it. She was. You know, they live in our. The club that we at that we're members of, I should say, in the neighborhood. All of that's kind of like. It's kind of neat seeing some of that stuff on the tv, so.

Oh, yeah, definitely. In New York, you know, whenever they show stuff on Real Housewives of New York, I'm like, oh, my gosh, I've been there. Or, you know, did I. You know, And I've seen some of them in person. Like, I went to Bethenny Frankel's talk show when she had a talk show.

Oh.

And that day, Luann was a guest on her talk show. So it was like the ultimate Real Housewives experience. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. That would be an amazing experience.

Yeah, it was.

All right, so today we are talking all about email, and you're going to give us some top tips to get your next email read. And I will say that from my own personal perspective, I love email marketing. I absolutely love, love email marketing. But I struggle writing those weekly emails. So I'm very excited about our conversation today, also from a personal perspective, but I know a lot of the course creators out there listening this. They also struggle with writing those weekly emails and maybe even the sales emails in their sales funnels. So why don't we, before we get started, actually, I forgot, so shame on me. I do want you to tell us a little bit more about your journey and how you got to where you are today and why you. You know, why you're so passionate about email and also copywriting and messaging.

Oh, that's a great question. Yeah. So I was an actor for a very long time in my life, and I got my MFA in acting from Harvard University. And when I came back from Harvard, I, you know, I had an agent now, and I didn't want to go back to waiting tables and kind of babysitting. So I fell into writing. To make a very long story super short, I fell into writing because a friend of mine recommended me for a project, and I had a writing background, and, you know, acting gives you a lot of that creativity. And so I kind of dove into it, and my first client that she gave to me asked me if I could write a JV packet for her. And I remember having no clue what that was. And I said, you know, sure, would you just send me some examples of ones that you like? And that's how I learned how to write a JV packet, which is a joint venture packet, which is essentially like an affiliate packet. And that's how I learned how to do it, was just looking at other examples and swipe copy and templates. And so I realized I really liked writing more than I liked acting. So I kind of dove into being a copywriter. And what I've really found is that all the things I learned as an actor make me an excellent copywriter to help people. Because it's all about storytelling. It's all about being vulnerable. It's all about, you know, on stage, you always want to make your partner look really good. And it's always like, what are you trying to get from the other actor on stage? What's your intention? And that translates into, you know, your call to action. So it really helps me explain to my students and my clients. I always use acting references in my programs and working with my clients to help them understand for copy. So, yeah, I went from being an actor to running my own business.

Well, that is very impressive. And I really like what you said about. And this really resonated with me when you said, when you're an actor, it's all about making your partner look good. And I think that's what copywriters do, right? They're making their clients look good. So that really resonated with me. So tell us a little bit about why do you think email is still the queen of online marketing? We hear so many stories that email is dead. Email is going away, messenger, boss, or where it's at. Can you tell us a little bit about why do you think email is still the queen of what we need to focus on from an online perspective?

Yeah, I think, you know, overall, I think that there is a way to pick the things that you are passionate about and go full throttle with them, you know, So I think a lot of times people are like, oh, email is queen. Or you know, Instagram is where it's at. And I think for everybody listening, like, you have to decide where you want to invest your energy and go full out with it. So for me, it's my email list, number one, my Facebook group, huge for me, and Instagram, because I love Instagram. Those are kinds of where I put my focus. And like, if you went to my Facebook business page, you wouldn't see like that much there. It's just not where I'm focused. But if you're in my group, there's tons of stuff going on in the group. So I think it's important for people overall to realize that they have to go for what they feel passionate about. And here's why. Email should definitely be on that list or you should consider it because it's still the number one. As you see as we kind of reference way to convert clients. So this is a. I don't know where this is from, but I was reading about this because I was teaching in a class of mine in a report last year that for every dollar you spend in email marketing, you get an ROI of $44. So that's like 4400% return on investment. So you just can't beat what can happen when you send out an email. And in terms of like, deliverability, more people are seeing your email. If you do it right, they're excited to see you in your inbox. And it's really where you can take people from reader to client. And I always say, like, if all my stuff went away, if I had my email list, I would still be okay. Like, I could still come out of the rubble and figure it out. And I think where people go wrong is that they get overwhelmed by all the things that you have to do to write a good email. And so then they just don't. They're kind of wish. They're kind of wishy washy or they're being so general and then they're not getting those responses, so they turn around and say, okay, well, email is dead, if that makes sense.

Yeah.

So definitely you can't beat that ROI.

I mean, 4400%. I mean, that's, that's so great.

No, you can't. Yeah, you can't beat it. And you know, for email, a lot of times, like, you know, up until I can't remember the exact number, but 2,000 subscribers or more or something like that. Uncertain of the email. Things like convertkit mail him. Like, it's free to use those platforms, so you can't deny, as opposed to what it would cost you to go do Facebook ads, you know, so if you're using email correctly, it can really have, you know, a return on investment. I just did an entire launch for my group program completely using my email and my Facebook group, and I had a $40,000 launch.

Well, you're gonna have to tell us about that. So I'm definitely not gonna let you get away without commenting on that. So.

Okay.

Only used your email group, Swear to God.

I didn't. And I didn't even do webinars or anything. I just did, like, I did, like, what a webinar would be, but I did it inside my Facebook group. So I did a series of Facebook lives. Well, I'm always in my Facebook group every week doing lives, Mondays and Wednesdays. So I'm always giving. Coming from that place of generosity, so it's easy to kind of slip into that place of like, hey, I'm going to be talking about my. Whatever topic I'm talking about tonight, and I'm also going to mention a really cool opportunity. So I planned that out and started to do those Facebook lives for about two weeks or so that were devoted to the course. And then I sent out emails to accompany it. I did calls with people. So when you went to the sales page, it was to book a call with me. And, yeah, that's how I did it.

So how big is your Facebook group?

So my Facebook group has just under 900 people.

Okay. So it's relatively small for those.

No, it's not that big. But what I'm doing that I think is important for people to hear is I'm showing up in that group. Like, I'm really giving. And I think that's what happens when we spread ourselves so thin, where we go, oh, we need to post on our Facebook, we need to post here, we need to post on Twitter, we need to post here. We need to do this. You're not able to, like, give of yourself. So for me, my energy, like I said, it goes into my email, it goes into my Facebook group and Instagram because I love doing it. Like, I do my Instagram myself. I love doing it. But my Facebook group, like, I'm giving my all in there. I'm in there Mondays and Wednesdays, doing lives. I'm in there every day writing a post to get engagement. I do these Things where I say, hey, ask me. I kind of learned this from a mentor and friend of mine named Sarah Dan, who would do this thing where she'd say in her Facebook group, ask me anything for 20 minutes or whatever. So I started doing my own little twist on it of like, pick my brain for 10 minutes. I acknowledge new members every week. I do a wins at the end of the week. I know people's names, I call them out on the lives, I speak to them. Like, if you were on the live, I'd be like, hey, Destiny, how are you? So I'm really creating like one of my people in the group described it as like, they feel like they're in my living room with me, which I think is really cool.

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Well, thank you for sharing that. No, that wasn't necessarily something you came to talk to us about. But I know a lot of course creators here, when they go out to do a launch, you know, they think, oh, I got to do this big old launch, I got to do a webinar challenge or whatever. I got to spend all this Facebook ads. But you just did this launch. You made, I think you said $40,000 on it. You just did it using your email list and your Facebook groups. So thank you so much for sharing that with us.

Yeah, you're welcome.

So what are some of the mistakes that you see business owners making with their email?

Oh, well, you know, kind of goes back to what we were saying is that people are. So here's the number one thing I see is that a lot of business owners are very general in their email. Very general. So they're sending out an email that isn't specific in terms of using story and being like really Vulnerable with their list. Now, this doesn't mean that you need to, you know, tell your always say, like, in the beginning of Elizabeth Gilbert's, like, Eat, Pray, Love, where she was, like, crying on the bathroom floor. Like, it doesn't need to be that. But there's. There's slices. As an actor, we used to talk about slices of life. Like, in the scene, what slice of life were you seeing? You were seeing a scene open up, and somebody was in their kitchen, like, making dinner, or somebody was on a walk, or somebody was at work. So it's like, those are the stories that really resonate with people. So when you can open up an email and you see, like, a story from somebody, that's way more interesting than just starting off with, like, very general, where it can feel sometimes, like, almost preachy, or it can feel like, hey, got a question for you. You know, it can feel a little bit. It starts to feel salesy, even if you don't mean it that way. So that's the number one thing that I see a lot, and I think the way to change that is to dive into storytelling as much as you can, to use story to connect with your readers.

So this is something that I would say that I struggle with. So I'm gonna dig into this a little bit. Let's do it. Storytelling. And I get the concept right, but I don't feel like anything in my life is very interesting.

It is destiny.

It is.

It's the thing. Okay, so this is where. And I get this because people have made it feel like we have to have some sort of, like, you know, rags to riches or whatever. The crazy story is to be interesting, not true. The things that people relate to the most are your everyday things. So, for example, I sent out an email a few weeks ago. I wanted to start segmenting just parts of my list because I've had an influx of a lot of people, and I wanted to make sure that people were getting the right emails that really pertained to them. So to get people to kind of just click this button to segment themselves, instead of just saying, hey, I want you to segment yourself. Told this story, the email opens up about how every day I get email for this woman named Natalie Cruz who used to live in my house before me. And how every day, even though we've told the postman she doesn't live here anymore, we get email from her, and we get mail from her over and over again. I spent every Saturday morning separating Natalie Cruz's mail. And then, if it's important, figuring out how to send it to her. My husband and I have been doing this for a year, and I said, like, you know, and now I switch it to the. To the readers, I say, do you ever feel like this with your email box? You're constantly going through your inbox to figure out what's worth your time to read, or what's one big old pile of Natalie Cruz that you just need to, like, delete or save for later or something. And I said, you know, I don't ever want to be that in your email inbox. So all you have to do is click one of these boxes below, and it'll put you into the correct, you know, segment. And then from that point on, you know, we just decluttered your email in one quick step, you know, because I don't want to be your next Natalie Cruz. So instead of just asking them to, you know, click on a box, I told a story that people could connect with. And I got tons of responses of people that were like, oh, my gosh, the same thing happens to me. Or, you know, thank you for saying that, or, you know, this was so easy for me to do. You made me laugh. And it creates connection, as opposed to just saying, hey, I'm segmenting my list. Can you click one of these boxes?

So I love that. And I guess the story that I have to go along with that is I'm getting mail from four different people who lived at four different times.