Own Your Audience; Week 3: Building loyalty and trust with your email list

All right, here we go. Hit and go live. Woo woo, we're live! Welcome, welcome. We're just gonna let people trickle in. Let it go. Thanks for joining us today. We are gonna be continuing our series about owning your audience. This livestream, we're going to focus on building loyalty and fostering loyalty with your email list and building trust. If you have been following along or if you haven't, last week we kind of talked about how to make the content within your newsletter engaging and keep the engagement going. The week before we kind of talked about how to start your email list from ground zero and build it up from there. And then how to create engaging content on your social media that lead people to to your email list. So thanks for following along. If you haven't seen any of the previous ones, we really encourage you to go ahead and go back and watch those livestreams. There's so much good information in there that you do not wanna miss. We will be having our last livestream next week, I think, for this series. So join us for that too. Okay, let me get in here now that people have kind of trickled on. Make sure that everything is good. Yep, we're good. Okay. All right. So again, welcome to our series. Last week we focused on building a strong email list. This week we're going to be talking about how to kind of foster that loyalty. So now that you've got some subscribers on board, whether that's your mom, your firstborn child, or your dog, we're going to be talking about how can you build loyalty and trust with them. So Amanda, beyond the initial signup, what can creators or digital thought leaders do to create and foster loyalty with their email subscribers?

Yeah, and that's such an important point to bring up. So I'm glad we're kind of like coming straight out of the gate with that because, you know, building— the idea of having an email list is obviously so that you can own your audience and own your leads, but it's like a second channel where you have opportunity to— you've been given permission to contact someone and take up a slice of really valuable real estate in their inbox, which is a very exclusive place, whereas social media, not so much, right? So the first thing you wanna do to start kind of engendering additional loyalty and further the affinity that that email subscriber already has for you and your business brand or personal brand, those may be one in the same, and that's totally cool if they are. You wanna kick off with a welcome sequence. And so as you know, if you have an email list or if you attended either of our other lives this month, there's 2 ways onto an email list. So one is directly signing up for a newsletter. You can sign up for our newsletter anytime at the footer of our website and also at newsletter.welevelupcreators.com, right? So you can just go straight into there. And the other way is by picking up a lead magnet, right? So that's a free, usually like just a simple digital download, a guide, a top 10 list, a cheat sheet, a list of hooks or something like that that you've compiled and you're giving away free of charge, but it is in exchange for someone's very valuable email address. And so 2 ways in. So if someone comes in by way of a lead magnet, you always want to have a nurture sequence that is triggered by that action, that request to download or get whatever your lead magnet is. And that should be very much like a welcome into your ecosystem and let people know what to expect. You want to add value, add value, add value, and then it's okay to make an ask. And so typically a lead magnet, the way that we Uh, do it with creators we work with and solopreneurs and thought leaders is a digital, like, lead magnet is meant to guide someone to purchase something specific. And so the lead magnet serves as like almost the appetizer, right? It's a little bit of a taste of what's to come in the paid product, right? So, um, again, follow-up nurture sequence automatically should be triggered when someone gets your email download and, um, value-add, value-add, value-add, ask, right? And the ask has to be very relevant and make sense. If they come in through just signing up straight away for your email newsletter, you want to have what's called a welcome sequence that gets triggered when someone drops their first name, hopefully an email address, into your signup form field, right? And so you don't want to just send people newsletters like that. That's okay if that's kind of where you start. That's okay. But sort of the next level up from there is to, um, a more official welcome sequence, even if it's just 3 emails or something like that. Right. And this is meant to be a very significant value-add personal introduction. Maybe you give a little bit more of yourself than you show on social media, for instance, and let people know what to expect with your newsletter. How often is it coming out? What day of the week or the month does it come out? Um, what kind of things can they expect to see in the newsletter? It's just kind of like welcoming someone at your, like walks in your front door for a dinner party, right? So you want to kind of emulate that in real life experience online as much as possible. So fortunately with email service provider capabilities, you can do all manner of like segmentation. So people get the exact right message that's right for them. And that's, that's probably several, several like steps advanced from where we are right now. It's okay if at the beginning at least everybody gets the same welcome sequence, but let them know again what to expect, how frequently they're going to get the newsletter, remind them what it's about, probably provide some social proof on other people who have really enjoyed the newsletter. You could provide links to your most popular, like, past editions. So a little bit like an archive section so people can dive in and get some past content if they want. And let them know if you have other lead magnets and free resources available to them, like those are That's a great stack for the first couple of emails. And again, once you get to that like 3rd or 4th email in a sequence, it's okay to like make an ask for something. But if someone came in by way of your, like straight to the newsletter, as opposed to a lead magnet, I typically don't like to go into like selling in that welcome sequence. It's okay if you let people know what you have available, but like not a hard pitch because they didn't go straight for the lead magnet and grabbing a lead magnet shows like a higher Potential purchase intent if you want to get into specific business language and lingo and psychology and stuff like that. So newsletter's a little bit more chill. Welcome them at the door and make sure that they know that they're in the right place.

Yeah, that's awesome. I love that you're talking about welcome sequences because in my mind you're the queen of welcome sequences. And yeah, so I just love it. It's so fitting. Okay. So beyond just creating content that's like super engaging, like yes, that always that, what are some types of content that they can put inside their newsletter that helps build trust? And then what are like your favorite tactics and strategies for that?

Yeah. So I feel like table stakes for building trust in life and online is like most basic thing ever is Do what you say you're going to do, right? So you made a promise with your hook or your newsletter value proposition on your landing page where they signed up. You undoubtedly told them again how often, what day, and what it's about, like the value that they're going to get. And so you will automatically earn trust points by just doing that basic thing, right? But otherwise you can build trust through social proof. So it creates kind of like So testimonials, data points like, you know, my newsletter gets opened at a 56% rate or something like that. It's a huge social proof point that the vast majority of people, not the vast majority, the majority of people who have signed up are enjoying it and opening it on a regular basis. So yeah, providing, doing what you say you're going to do, providing social proof, and then continue to show up and level up your game of what you are offering each and every week, making sure that you are looking at feedback and replies and you are to your newsletter and that you're looking at, again, the numbers, open rate, and you're looking not just for like one, you know, specific point in time, but more like if you're trending up or you're trending down. Another interesting way to kind of build trust and add a human element to your newsletter is ask questions and try and get people to reply and then create new content based on those replies, whether they are, I'm having trouble with this, or could you write about that, or do you have any advice for XYZ or anything like that? So if people are asking for specific things, next week write your newsletter in sort of a reply format and say, hey, you know, Erin H wrote in last week and said this, this, and this. And so not only is that gonna make Erin H feel really, really special that you're replying specifically to her question, but it's also gonna bring a human element for everyone else, everyone else receives your newsletter and opens it is gonna see, oh my gosh, I can actually ask this creator a question and they might write a whole article about an answer. Like, I mean, that's, that's huge. And that's kind of another like social proof point, but that's something that not many people do or do well, but that can really elevate the perception of, of trust and, and the human element in an online relationship.

Yeah, that's awesome. I love that. Yeah, I love the, I always love it when creators or like email lists that I follow, like create something where it feels like I get input or get to like add something to what they're already doing. It makes me feel like connected to them. And I, I love that. So that is, yeah, I noticed that strategy now that you point that out. But before I would have just been like, oh, they're connecting with me. This is so cool. But it's a strategy to it. Right?

Yeah.

Okay. So we're going to open up for Q&A. So chat, if you have any questions, feel free to drop them in. We actually have some questions from our creator community that we're gonna share with you too. So one of the questions that we got was, what are some specific ways I can personalize my emails beyond just using a subscriber's name?

Hmm. Yeah, this is where email segmentation really comes into play. But if you're not, we can come back to segmentation. It's very important in all of your marketing, and make no mistake, your email newsletter is a big part of your marketing, and it's people who are showing increasing intent to potentially purchase. So it becomes even more important than your social media content, sort of like the next stage in your funnel if you're familiar with that sales funnel image. And so just as in your marketing, you want to be talking to one person. That you can visualize in your mind and think about and like know like the back of your hand, sort of like you know your best friend. You're always speaking to and writing for that one individual person who is representative of the people in your community. But if you have this one person in mind, instead of trying to please everyone and write for everyone, know common elements amongst the group of people who follow you and who like you and who trust you and who want content from you. And I mean, this is part of like an ICP, ideal customer persona, or customer persona, or ideal customer profile. Like there's a bunch of different names, but it's basically this concept of you are creating content for this one person who you know as well as you know your best friend. And so you know their likes, dislikes, preferences, values, where you can come in and add value, the kind of advice that you need to provide, the tone, the, the type of verbiage and language and the specific words that you use, whether it's more formal or casual, it all comes down to speaking to this one individual person. So that's the best. I mean, this is what the best marketers in the world do. They're all speaking to one person. Um, like, believe me, those Apple commercials, Nike commercials, they have a customer persona. And big brands like that have different customer personas. And you will eventually also have more than one if you don't already. But But they're meant to connect with one specific really type of individual, and that is accomplished because they're really speaking to one person that they know really, really well. Now, the second level of personalization would be through segmentation. And so a pretty pro move in like an email welcome sequence or even in a lead magnet situation where there's a follow-up nurture sequence. One, if someone picks up a very specific type of lead magnet, they're giving you kind of a lot of information about themselves. Like we have half a dozen lead magnets here at Level Up and which one someone downloads tells us a lot about that person and allows us to segment and tells us what additional content we should show that individual based on what they showed us that they are interested in. Right. So the way that you could do that via a welcome sequence and someone just signs up straight up for your newsletter. Is to offer them a quick quiz or a choice. And so you can say, you know, which one is most relevant to you? Click. And then boom, when you click this link about this content, it tells you XYZ about this email subscriber. And therefore they are going to receive these follow-up emails rather than these follow-up emails, right? The email follow-ups are happening over here. Those are for the people who click the third link kind of a thing. And so tools like ConvertKit and ActiveCampaign make that super, super, super simple. And again, the goal with our marketing is to effectively demonstrate what we are providing through our products and services behind the paywall, like that people actually pay real cash money for. And we are able to most effectively do that when we are giving the right offer to the right person at the right time in the right way. And so the more sophisticated your segmentation capabilities become, again, that's something you evolve over time. Like if you're just getting into this whole email marketing thing, file this away in your brain for like 18 to 24 months down the road. Okay. And like, or if you want to accelerate the timeline, come talk to us. But there's so many interesting and sophisticated ways to do this in a one-to-many fashion that software and technology allows us to do at this point. And your email subscriber, they're always in the driver's seat, right? They are telling you by what they— they're telling you what they want by what they do or do not do. So the data will tell you, you know, kind of the story. It's very important for you to pay attention to click-through rates and open rates and things like that. And trends, again, trends, not a snapshot in a timeline, but trends.

Yeah. Yeah, that's really good. Okay. Another question we got is, I keep hearing find your audience's fear and desires and play on their emotions, but I'm not quite sure what that means. Can you help me better understand this?

Yes, that's a big complex question. So in marketing, there's kind of like, think about an onion. And if you're trying to really reach someone on a deep and human level, you have some layers of the onion. So on the surface of the onion, you've got, um, really value outcomes and transformation. What is this thing that you want me to buy going to do for me? What do I get? Not how do I get there? Not the nuts and bolts, not the features, but benefits, outcome, value, and transformation. What is it going to do for me? That's the outer layer of the onion, and most people miss that. They go straight into talking about the features. But think about if you're at the doctor and like you're really sick and you need medicine. All you care about is that the freaking medicine works. You don't care if it's a pill or an IV or liquid, nasty, nasty liquid you have to drink, or a shot, like you do not care what the delivery mechanism is. And that's typically like the features and nuts and bolts of a product or service. You just want to be well, right? And so you don't want to focus too much on your marketing on the features, but more value outcome and transformation. And that's again, like table stakes. That's the baseline. The next layer under that is going to be— maybe these are kind of like intertwined, but let's start talking about foundational desires. These are what people actually really, really want. So if I am sick, I'm in a very undesirable state. I'm feeling fear. I am feeling, um, just unwell in general. Um, I'm scared, like just feeling rotten and awful. And so it's a very undesirable state. And so I want the transformation to a state of comfort, clarity on a diagnosis and a treatment plan. I want to feel well. I want my family to stop worrying about me kind of thing. So these are like actually our deep, deep desires. This is what people actually really, really want. So yes, you have to hit value outcome and transformations, right? And you have to understand, or your potential customer has to understand before they buy from you how the medicine, if you will, is going to be delivered, right? Is it a course? Is it group coaching or whatever? But deep, deep, deep down, you want to take people from this Undesirable state in this pain that they're feeling to a desirable state, right? And these are called foundational desires. Again, luxury, control, confidence, clarity, knowledge, power, respect. There's like a list of twenty that we typically use when we help our clients. But you're trying to take someone from an undesirable state to a desired state where you're helping them recognize deep, deep foundational desires. And yes, you do have to explain. The nuts and bolts of the delivery mechanism of your product or service. And you absolutely have to talk a lot about value outcomes and transformation because that is how you sort of preempt objections before they come. And you really have to do that well in marketing in a one-to-many space. If you're not doing like a high-touch, like a one-to-one sales call kind of situation, your marketing copy had better take care of objections or people are going to leave and you're not going to know why. I'm going to go along on a long rabbit trail about objections, so I'll stop there. But I hope that's helpful in terms of like not playing to people's emotions, but it's more like understanding some basic psychological principles and sales. Successful selling is all about just helping people get what they want and need. And in order to communicate effectively to them how you're going to help them get what they want and need, you have to understand value, outcomes, transformation. the nuts and bolts and foundational desires all packaged up in basically a landing page and your other marketing.

Yeah, I love that. That's a really great analogy of explaining your audience is sick, you're the doctor. What are you providing them and leading them through that whole— I love that. That was a great analogy. That helped me understand even more.

I'm going to make an onion picture and I've got it in my head now.

You need to trademark this. That was good. Okay, last question. I'm worried about creating a welcome email series that is too long and boring. How can I make it the right balance of information without being too, too long?

Getting outside feedback is really, really important here, right? And I typically go through things that I write and I will cut out anything like 3 rounds. And so anything that is confusing or doesn't make my point or doesn't work sort of like linearly, because you're always taking somebody on a journey, whether it's on a 12-second reel or a 2,000-word article, right? You're going— you're taking someone from here to there. There's always got to be a payoff. So, um, understanding how communication sort of like works is, is really important. And then being able to be objective in what am I trying to accomplish here? Is what I have written accomplishing that? And how could I still accomplish what I'm trying to by reducing this by 40%, basically? And then just like ruthlessly go in and delete stuff. And then have someone, an outside party, hopefully, or someone like even your partner or sister or brother or whatever, review what you've written so you get an outside opinion. But remember, you're always speaking to that one person, that one customer persona. And you are going for value outcomes and transformation and helping people recognize foundational desires. So that's always what you're trying to do. And you can overlay that framework onto literally anything you are marketing or selling. Um, so that's one. But honestly, we're always making a first guess when we write something for the first time, right? Like, you can only make the best decision you can with the information that you have at the time. That's the only thing like you can ever expect from yourself and that others should expect from you. So it's your responsibility to do the research and understand as much about your audience as you can and, and kind of bring that together into a customer persona and speaking directly to that person. But once you have that out into the world, you look at the data and you see, are people actually opening this? Are they clicking any of the links? How much— oh, be really cool. Some platforms can tell you how much time someone spent on an email. That's typically like enterprise, like big company level kind of data. But that's always very, very interesting. But are people opening it? Are they clicking through? Are they responding? Are they looking at like links and calls to action toward the bottom of the email. I would definitely strategic— strategically do some bolding and highlighting. That is always very, very helpful for people who want to go through and skim. But getting an outside opinion, putting your best foot forward with the information you have, and then looking at the data and feedback you're getting over time. And you just adjust. You're never going to get anything right the first time. Nobody does. And if they tell you they did, they're probably lying, honestly. Like, there's no overnight success story. That's not real. And so, just put your best foot forward and, and sort of like cooking, taste and adjust, taste and adjust, taste and adjust, right?

Yeah. Yeah. That's another great one. Trademark it. Trademark it. Make it a cool graphic. Well, awesome. That is a— yeah, seriously. Well, guys, that's a wrap for week 3. Remember that building a loyal Building a subscriber email list takes time and consistent effort. But with these strategies that we're giving you, you're on the right track. Next week we're going to dive deeper into recurring revenue and the steps to take to start monetizing your email list. So stay tuned and join us next week. As always, thank you, Amanda, for your amazing insight. And thanks for joining us today. We will see you next week. Bye, guys.

Thanks, everybody. Have a great day.

Oh, we did it.