Episode 25 : Nurture Through Email

Welcome to the Unstoppable Profit Podcast. This podcast will give you all the tools to grow your business and live life on your terms. Millionaire agents and entrepreneurs think and act differently than others. This podcast will give you a simple, proven three step blueprint to grow your business. Over the past 31 years of research in your industry, Mike Stromso has created a unique philosophy called the three people Process and production Motion. This outside the box thinking and guidance provides agency entrepreneurs just like you the knowledge and tools you can quickly implement to explode your agency business. He has been there, done that, and he's still doing it. Wherever you are today, if you're starting with nothing or are well on your way to the success you desire, with the right people, processes and promotions in place, you will be unstoppable. And now I'd like to introduce your host, Mike Stromso.

Hey friends, it's Mike Stromso coming to you live from the Living Agency Laboratory. And I want to officially welcome you to episode 25 of the Unstoppable Profit Podcast. Today we're going to be talking about and encouraging you and giving you more knowledge on and telling you everything that we know about nurturing, nurturing electronically and digitally via that old, commonly used realm called email. Now, before you go negative on me because your inbox is swimming with people hitting you.

Let me encourage you that it's hardly no cost to send out an email. As you know and I know that a lot of people just delete, delete, delete. So let me ask you a question. When somebody deletes your email, whose responsibility is that?

All right, so let me ask another question. Do you have a mirror of truth? Because if you do, and you know what I'm talking about, if you look in the mirror of truth, you will see that it is your responsibility. It's your fault they didn't open your email. Why? Because you sent it to them without a compelling enough reason.

Not a good enough subject line to get them to open it. No disrespect to you here, but that's the reason, okay? So we must continue to get better, because if we want to have more, we have to become more. And to become more in this realm, we have to learn more how to create great subject lines. And we have a list of over 400 of them. And if you will just ask us, we will give it to you absolutely free. Just send an email to infounstoppableprofitproducer.com and in the subject line. Give me email, subject line list. And we'll return it to you. Okay. Now, what does this all mean for you? Well, it's all contained in the realm of the three Ps, that proven philosophy of over 31 years in our industry, people, processes and promotion which will help you grow your business, create financial wealth and have more freedom to live life on your own terms. What does that mean for you? You'll have more freedom to live life on your own terms. Now, as we encourage you to do all the time, make sure you have something to write with and write on. And if you don't have it yet, I'm going to pause right now and I'll be here, right here waiting for you when you get back. All right, good. I'm glad you got something right with and write on because going to share with you today only all of the benefits of having an email platform. We're going to share with you how you can use email to stay in front of your list.

And we're going to share with you how you can invest in an email marketing campaign starting today, not tomorrow, today. In fact, about an hour from now or less if you choose to take action. Alright, so let's talk about nurturing via email. What are the benefits of utilizing an email platform? The benefits for them, it's not about you, it's all about them. And ultimately it will come back to you because you get what you give in this world. One, it's a very inexpensive platform. In fact, it's free. The only thing is a time investment. It seems inexpensive to send out emails to thousands of people. All right, now, if you choose to invest in a platform so you can easily distribute 5 to 10,000 emails, there's a cost to that, but it's still very minimal. Say $300 a month versus a $2,500 direct snail mail campaign. So think about that for a minute. Next, you can reach thousands of people instantly. This is why it's critically important to continue to build and update your list. Build and update your list all of the time. Something we have going on that's part of our Wheel of Fortune efforts within our office is for people to constantly update the emails. It's been proven over time historically that about 10% or more of people change their email address once a year. Change their email address once a year. We just had a situation in the living agency laboratory this morning. There was an issue because an email wasn't updated and the client didn't get something done. They wanted to get done because the person wasn't paying attention to the file and didn't update the email. It happens. People update their emails. You need to be focused on that. So we incentivize people to make sure they do that through our Wheel of Fortune programs, our JAR programs, and more. Okay, but you can reach them instantly. I mean, think of a time where you might need to reach people instantly. What if your phones go down? We've had that happen. We immediately send out an email to the thousands of people on our list letting them know our phones are down. We don't get any people complaining that they couldn't reach you by phone because they got the email.

Got it. I hope you got it. And probably one of the biggest benefits of using an email platform consistently is toma. And the definition of thoma is top of mind awareness. Email is just one more tool in your arsenal to consistently touch, influence, impact.

And emotionally create feelings of connectedness with your clients, your prospects and your communities all of the time. And I believe, and I always will to the day I die, I can say this with a hundred percent.

Infatuation, if that's the right word. You must use 100% of the ways to reach the marketplace. If you want to reach 100% of the marketplace, you've got to use 100% of the ways. And email is just one of them. Okay, but on this podcast today, we're talking about nurturing via email. So email, snail mail, text, video, social media, and on and on and on. But you've got to use all of them. And if you don't, if you don't have the wherewithal to use all of them, that's okay. Use at least three of them. The power of three is powerful. Okay, so those are just a few of the benefits. Quick recap for you. It's very inexpensive to send emails. You can reach thousands of people instantly and it creates top of mind awareness. Okay, number two, how can you use email to stay in front of your clients or your list?

Well, here's some ideas for you. You may want to write these down. Don't think it, ink it. Monthly emails. We send out monthly emails and have for years. Okay, what do we say in the monthly emails? And sometimes it's more often than monthly, it's themed for holidays. People in our UPP coaching programs have PX3 books and the creators of the PX3 books were kind enough to put marketing ideas for every month inside the PX3 books. By the way, if you're wondering, I'll answer that question for you today only. What does PX3 mean? P times three people processes, promotion. Got it. Okay, so the emails are themed for holidays like Valentine's Day. February is the month of love. St Patty's Day is March. It's your lucky month. Flag day. We celebrate the American flag the entire month of June for a flag exchange event and so on and so on and so on. Share the experience. Share. Share the goodness of what you have going on because that's what people want to know about. Monthly awarenesses like October is breast cancer month. You see, every month has an opportunity to share a story. Facts tell and stories sell. Make up something. April showers. Promote umbrella insurance. Use a picture, make it personal. Yes, you can send all that, all that via email. A recent podcast that we did, if you remember, or if you haven't seen it yet, stay tuned. It's upcoming videos are smoking hot. You can transport. Transport those via email to your marketplace. Safety messages. Safe driving, vacation tips, child safety while in swimming pools during the warmer months, etc. Etc. There is absolutely no limits on anything that you can do via email. New laws for business clients. As of this particular podcast report recording, in our state on the west coast, we have a massive decision that has been come down in the commercial lines arena. The Dynamax case. It will change forever the way we do business in our area. Okay, so those are opportunities to share information. Anything. Hr, risk management. I mean, friends, the sky is the limit. And look for those opportunities in your world and just tell the story from your point of view. And once you send that email out, make sure you put it on your blog. Make sure you convert it to a vlog, make sure you convert it to a video and put it on your YouTube channel. I'm going off track. I know. SOS. I see you. I got it. I'm getting back on track. Okay, SOS is the squirrel sitting on my desk, by the way, that says don't scroll. Okay? I mean, with email, the sky's the limit, all right? You can create pictures of agency happenings and put them on email and send them out to your list. Have fun. Is it better to laugh or to cry? Have fun. People want to have fun. Even though they seem grumpy, they really do want to have fun. Mothers and Father's Day feature your team and their children or their, their parents or whatever, whatever, whatever can come into your creative mind. Educate people on coverages via email. Most importantly, do your best to never sell via email. Just nurture, nurture, nurture. Build relationship. Build relationship. Build relationship. Build relationship. Build relationship. Nurture, nurture, nurture. That's what you want to mostly do with email. Let me add something on real quick before we move to the next topics. I have you on the email nurturing subject. When should you send out the emails? Well, that's a great question. And every marketplace is different. You know, people on the east coast might trace certain days and it might work better back there. People in the Midwest might work better on a certain day. People on the west coast might work better on a certain day. You just don't know. What's the answer? It's very simple. Please write this down because it applies to every realm. Marketers, we test. As marketers, we test. And whether you're talking about your people, whether you're talking about your processes, if you're talking about your promotion, as marketers, we test. Keep testing, keep testing, keep testing. And do your math. Numbers don't lie. You will have the answer. Okay, What I do know is for the most part, we never ever send out an email to our general marketplace on Monday morning. Why? Everybody else does and you're swimming. And who wants to read an email on Monday morning from somebody else? Not too many people. You know, currently in a lot of markets that we play in, Saturday has been a great day. Gotten a lot of positive response. We check our analytics. People are opening more during Saturday. Why? Because they have free time on Saturday. They're not under the gun of all of the phone calls and all the other pressures of work. And it's Saturday, it's not yet Sunday, and they're kind of free and all, all that kind of stuff. So topical. I mean, if you look at the restaurant niche as another example for you to cause you to think a little bit differently, you know, Monday afternoons are sometimes a good time in the restaurant niche. Why? Because people in the restaurant niches, especially decision makers, which is really who you want to reach. You know, they're going through all their bills and their receipts for the weekend on Monday, counting all their money from the weekend, which is their busy time, getting everything organized, going through their mail and all that kind of stuff. And then, you know, like early Monday afternoon, they might have some time. Now, I can tell you the restaurant association in our state, they distribute on Thursday.

You know, I haven't asked them recently why they do that, but they do okay. So pay attention to your marketplace. That's the key. Right? If there's something you can piggyback on as far as the delivery time and date, of course, by all means, do it. But ultimately, the 10,000 foot level advice that we want to give you is as marketers, we test. You've got to be constantly testing to find out the right answers. And things change. And if we want things to change, we have to change. So we got to change as things change. Okay? So we're talking about, most importantly, never sell. Just nurture, build relationships. Nurture, build relationships. Also, as we've previously touched on, use video. Use video when you distribute via email as well. It will enhance people paying attention. Okay? And if you include a video in your email, make sure you put video in the subject line. Because people like video. Boom. They might listen to it or watch it. Excuse me. Yeah, they'll be listening and watching. Okay. Now you can also distribute your newsletter via electronic newsletter. I remember a time a few years ago when, because we've distributed a snail mail newsletter in our agency for years, almost two decades.

And a few years ago we were talking about electronic newsletter delivery. And I went back and talked to our marketing director and she's so savvy, she said, well, actually I've already got a list of people who are asking for our newsletter electronically. And I said, you do? How many people are on the list? And I'll never forget it. She said, 543. I said, Holy blank.

Wow. So nowadays we have our newsletters we distribute via snail mail, but we automatically deliver it to our entire list electronically as well. See, you never know where people are going to be when they receive your correspondence. They could be sitting in the car waiting for somebody at an airport cell phone lot and they have nothing better to do. Boom, it comes in electronically. Or they could be at their home and they're responsible for the mail. And your newsletter is sitting on top of the mail stack and they're going down the hall to spend some time on the white throne for about 10 minutes and they need something to read. And there's your newsletter. You never know. So that's why you want to invest in multiple ways.

Number three.

Investing in an email marketing campaign. Okay, so we talked about the benefits, we talked about how to use email to stay in front of your list. And now where should you invest in an email marketing campaign? Well, if you don't know where to start and you don't have a lot of resources, AKA money to invest in, you can start with something inexpensive like mailchimp or eye contact and that thing called GTS or Google. Just go Google them and you can do free trial versions. Now let me give you a word of advice from my own experience or lessons. Okay? Before you invest in the free trial, have your list ready in an Excel format. First name, last name, name of business, email, etc. Okay. Have it ready before you invest in it. You can do a free trial and get used to it, but it's really inexpensive. Okay. If you want to step up to something bigger, you know, there's. There's three big, you know, big gorillas out there, if you will. There's. Ontraport through agency command is customized to our industry. Infusionsoft.

And ActiveCampaign are three of them. So there's just. You can go check those out. Everybody's different. There's a lot of people using all of what I just said. So you just got to find the one that works for you, okay? And ask lots of great pointed questions and shut up and listen for the answer. Okay? But most importantly, you've got to do your research and find the best option for your specific needs. Because my big question for you is, whose business is it? It's yours.

So you've got to choose what's best for your business in collaboration with your agency management system. If you're in the insurance agency business or whatever client management system you use for your business, if they can talk to each other and they've got an open API and you can back and forth the information, even better, right? But remember, with email delivery, the key to success, 67% of all success, is the subject line. It's got to stop them in their tracks.

And read the rest of the email. It's back to the copywriting classes that I took years and years ago.

The first line causes people to read the next line, and the next line causes people to read the next line, and so on and so forth. And if your copy and what they're reading is not compelling enough, they're not going to keep reading. They're going to delete. So you've got to make it big enough and a good enough reason for them to continue.

What does all of this mean for you, friends? It's simple. You are going to create unbreakable emotional bonds with everybody on your list. And they will continue to give you money as long as you continue to give to them. It is really that simple. I'll finish this up with the formula that I believe is at the heart and core of every piece of communication. You've got to create an experience that creates a feeling. When you create the experience that creates a feeling, you will be connected to somebody. When you're connected to somebody, you can begin to build a relationship. When you begin to build a relationship, you build trust. Money follows trust. It's that simple. What does that mean for you? You're going to be able to grow your business. People are going to be giving you more money. When they're giving you more money, what does that mean for you? You're going to build financial security. And what does that mean for you? You're going to have more freedom to live life on your own terms. My friends, whose business is it? It's your business. Whose decisions are they? They're your decisions. We strongly encourage you to make the decision to do something about it. My response is my responsibility. My friends, this is Mike Somsoe coming to you live from the Living Agency Laboratory. We hope you have another wagon full of gold nuggets today about nurturing via email. Just one of the ways to reach 100% of the marketplace. I will talk to you very soon. Thank you for investing time with us today on the Unstoppable Profit podcast. If you're liking what you're hearing, please, please share unstoppable profitpodcast.com with anybody and everybody that you know and encourage them to become more through listening to the Unstoppable Profit podcast. We love what we do. All we want is your success. Go take action today. We'll talk to you soon. Thank you for listening. If you would like to listen to more episodes or share this podcast with someone you care about, Please, please visit www.unstoppableprofitpodcast.com now go out and make a difference. Be unstoppable and leave no regrets.