MBA2201 How to Revive Your Newsletter

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If your open rates are low, if people are not replying to your emails, we're not clicking on your links. This means people are just not engaged with what you're sending. To put it plainly, it's boring. People are not looking forward to your emails particularly. They might be even reading them or just kind of skimming through them. And that's because probably it's not a remarkable newsletter. It's not an email they actually enjoy reading. That's why we're going to give your newsletter a new boost. We're going to revive it so people actually look forward to your emails. Read every single word, even maybe more than once. Click your links, take action. You can your know like and trust levels are gonna go through the roof. And this in return will create an incredible brand for you and your business. So that when you are asking for the sale, when you do have a promotion, when you are launching a new thing, they can't wait to buy. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business. USAA knows dynamic duos can save the day like superheroes and sidekicks or auto and home insurance. With usaa, you can bundle your auto and home and save up to 10%. Tap the banner to learn more and get a quote@usaa. Restrictions apply. Full transparency. I'm teaching this lesson because my newsletter needed some reviving. We slowly slipped into some bad habits. We were kind of going through the motions, just sending out an update, so to speak. Here's our latest blog post or latest episode on the podcast. Here's why you should listen. Not exactly John Grisham level material, right? I decided I want my email newsletter to have incredible open rates, 60, 70% rates. And in order for me to do that, I had to change my mindset when it came to the newsletter. If you want people to read your newsletter, if you want people to open it up and look forward to the next one, and the next one, and the next one, you got to treat it like it's a product in itself. Like people are paying money for this email and I learned this strategy along with some other strategies I'm going to be teaching you today from my buddy Matthew Kimberly. He's a master salesman and copywriter and he has a course that I highly recommend you check out called Delightful Emails. And it's all about how to create a brand, a Persona, a person of significance that people can't wait to get an email from. Very similar to the feeling that you get when you get a notification on your phone that you got a message from someone you really like, somebody you really look up to or maybe even love. You can't wait to unlock that phone and look at that message. This is what you want to do with your newsletters. This is what you want your readers to feel to treat your emails like that kind of message. When they see a new email in their inbox from you, they can't wait to open it up and read it because it's so good. This means the content actually has to be entertaining. It actually has to be fun. It actually has to be worth reading and not just tactical and valuable. Now, I know you might be saying, omar, I'm not a great writer. I got straight Cs in English or whatever it might be. But don't worry, I got your back. There's a great resource that I highly recommend. It's called Storytelling Tactics is a deck of cards that teaches you how to do exactly that. Tell stories, write emails, create presentations, whatever it might be. They're not sponsoring the show. We're not affiliates. I'm a customer. I absolutely love this product because it simplifies the writing process. It basically outlines how to tell any kind of story and how you can link these stories, AKA link these emails in a sequence. This is why I highly recommend that you create a shadow newsletter. What does that mean? Well, it means when somebody subscribes to your newsletter, they get an automated email that's pre written and they get a series of automated emails weekly. If your newsletter is weekly, automatically as well. Now this has a huge advantage, but it has one slight disadvantage. Let me go through the advantages. Having a shadow newsletter allows you to craft really well written emails that link to each other, that build trust, that tell your story and tell their story, their hero's journey, and how you can help them along that journey. You can actually create the emotions you want your readers to have. This reminds me of a story about Alfred Hitchcock. When he would write a script for his films, he would write the actual script, what's going to be said on camera. But then he had something called the blue script, which was a script all about how he wanted the audience to feel. And this helped him rewrite the other script because he said, well, if I want them to feel this, then I have to say different things. I have to actually convey different stories and different anecdotes, create certain tensions. And by having a shadow newsletter, you can manufacture all this pre written, taking your time and having one email built against the other. And you can of course, add to these email sequences as you grow, but you can start out with the first few emails as you revive and reboot your newsletter. The other huge advantage is that some of your best content that you might be linking to in these emails, our blogs or podcast episodes, or whatever content that you have on your website that a new subscriber should have awareness about. Right? Some of us, we just say kind of the newest episode, the newest blog post, and then if I subscribe to your newsletter for the first time a week later, I kind of am not aware of those blog posts, those new episodes. So I can take my best work and insert them in my emails in context. A shadow newsletter also allows you to make sure that you're onboarding a new subscriber and getting them familiar with what you do and how you can help them in a really well thought out way. They don't just join your email list and just get a bunch of updates. They don't really get a lot of benefit from that. Instead, you're crafting a sequence of emails that are guiding them through their journey as a new subscriber. Now there is a disadvantage, but it's a small one. Your latest content can't really be included in your newsletter because again these are pre written and they're automated. So this week's podcast episode or this week's YouTube episode or latest blog post, it's just not going to hit the new subscribers email because again it's pre written and you're guiding them through a journey. But the flip side is is that you can still get them familiar with your blog, with your podcast, with your YouTube channel, with your whatever in your shadow newsletter. It just means that they're not going to be told about the latest episode, but they're going to be told about a episode where they can dive into your podcast or your YouTube channel or your blog and then check out some of your latest stuff. It's a pretty good trade off. Now if you want Best of both Worlds, I know a lot of creators do this is they revive their newsletter by keeping their regular update kind of newsletter where once we tell them the latest and greatest that's going on in their world, but they add the shadow newsletter as sort of a guided tour, a guided onboarding. So subscribers will always get two emails a week. One strategic, the other one is all about updates. Now the thing about writing and writing delightful emails, as Matthew Kimberly calls it, it takes practice, it takes work and also takes time in the beginning because you're just not used to coming up with great copy right away. So go easy in yourself and know that this takes time. The good news is is that if you decide to take Matthew's course delightful emails, he's got all these different kind of strategies and techniques to help you out. And because he's a buddy of mine, he gave me a coupon code I can use for our community to get 50% off the course. Just go to delightfulemails.com ninja and the coupon code will be added automatically at checkout.

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To wrap up today's lesson, if you want to revive your newsletter, it's going to take some work. So you got to schedule the time in your calendar, whether it's a couple hours a day for a couple of weeks so you can start writing these new emails, maybe take the course, learn how to do this, craft the story that you're going to be sharing in your shadow newsletter. It's just not going to happen by itself. You're going to have to carve out the time. But this is an investment. This is something that you're going to reap the benefits of for years to come because you're building deeper relationships with your customers. Think about it. If your open rates are like 20% and you can bump them up to 40%, you just double the number of possible people that can read your content and become customers. So investing two weeks, a couple hours a day, not a bad exchange. On top of that, I would say that your email newsletter and email marketing in general is a great investment because it's sort of a unifier. People are all over the place on different platforms, on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and TikTok and all these other platforms. But email still is a unifier, meaning everybody uses email, everybody checks their email. So if you're in somebody's inbox, you really have an advantage, and it's really a privilege and an honor. And you should take it seriously that you have somebody's email and you're able to email them every single week. Take that opportunity seriously and win them over week after week with your great emails. And remember, when they're reading your emails, this is an audition. This is a chance for them to see what you're all about. If you can add value to their life in some way, if they get that feeling, they feel like this person's legit, they can help me. When you ask for the sale, when you have a promotion, it's going to be a hell yeah. It's going to be so easy for them to say yes because you've earned so much trust and they believe that you can actually add value to their life. Thanks so much for listening to the $100 MBA show. If you love what you hear, hit subscribe. Hit follow on your favorite podcast app. We're on every app. Spotify, Stitcher Radio, Apple Podcasts, Himalaya, you name it, we're on it. Hit follow. Hit subscribe so you don't miss an episode and you get access to over 2100 business lessons in our archives. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. If you are spending more time on social media than building a strong email list, you're doing it wrong. Email is an incredible investment of your time, so make sure you create an incredible experience for your customers, for your subscribers, for people that join your email list because this is an opportunity that you don't want to miss out on. We're in a gold rush when it comes to collecting email addresses and building a list, because people's attention is really becoming scattered and the most valuable kind of follower in all of the followings is an email. Subscribe because you have their full attention. Thanks so much for listening and I'll see you in tomorrow's episode. Free Art Friday. I'll see you then. Take care.

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