Email lists are a powerful tool to nurture relationships with your peers and potential customers. Email marketing has an impressive ROI and a great email list can help you build relationships with potential clients and convert them into long-lasting clients.
Eman Ismail is the founder of Eman Copy Co. and an email strategist & copywriter for online business owners & e-commerce brands. In this expert series episode, Eman Ismail shares how to build an email list that attracts high-paying clients even as a beginner.
✉️Name: Eman Ismail
✉️What She does: Eman is the founder of Eman Copy Co.
✉️Company: Eman Copy Co
✉️ Noteworthy: Eman helps 6+ figure online business owners and eCommerce brands fire up their conversions, by crafting data-driven, personality-packed email strategies and copies. She has a podcast “Mistakes That Made Me” where she asks extraordinary business owners to share their biggest business mistakes
💡Creating aligned lead magnets
A lead magnet is also known as an opt-in. The most important thing about this is that you create a lead magnet that actually attracts your ideal audience. The biggest mistake when it comes to creating lead magnets is that people create one that has very little to do with what they’re actually trying to sell. That’s a problem because, at the end of the day, you attract what you put out.
💡Segmenting your email list
Segmentation is when you divide subscribers into smaller groups based on specific criteria. Those specific criteria could be, their role, their job, the industry, that they’re in that interests that entry point like how they entered your funnel, or it could be literally anything else that is useful to you.
💡Share your work and your results
Even if you don’t have results to share, share the past projects you’ve worked on. For those projects that do have results share not just the results, but also the process.
Unsubscribes are actually a good thing.
Eman says these are just people, keeping your email list healthy for you. These are people who are not going to keep opening your emails and who don’t want to hear from you anymore, not because it’s personal, or because they don’t like you, they’re just not interested in maybe what you’re offering them.
Differences between Tags and Segments in Email marketing
A segment is a specific group of email contacts altogether, while a tag is assigned to a specific contact and the individual.
Email your list regularly
Ideally weekly, you should mail your list, because you want to stay top of mind. You don’t want them to forget who you are, you don’t want them to forget how you can help?
You can take breaks from email
When you need to take breaks, it’s really about the relationship that you’ve built with your subscribers. That’s when you can kind of like, do it in a way that works really well. If you haven’t built that strong foundation, then, yeah, it won’t, it won’t work for you.
Connect with Eman Ismail:
– Linkedin.
Click here to grab Eman’s free masterclass.
Listen to her podcast here.
[0:04] Eman Ismail
Great, can you see this? Yep, perfect how to build an email list that attracts high-paying clients? So I’m gonna skip these two because we can’t chat. But I just wanted to see how many of you have an active list and how many of you are able to sell using that list because I think we all know that having an email list is different to having a profitable email list. Right. So by the end of this, hopefully, you’ll have some really good strategies for how to make more money from your email list.
But first of all, let me introduce myself. My name is Amanda smile. I am an email strategist and copywriter. I’m a podcast host, my podcast is called mistakes that made me it’s where I interview extraordinary business owners and ask them their biggest business mistake. So do check that out. I’m also a mother to two boys one is one and the other is six. And I’m a pizza ninja. I love love love pizza, I’m probably eat it a little too much.
Now in terms of what I do, who I work with, these are the clients that I’ve I’ve some of the clients that I’ve worked with, you may or may not recognise some of them depending on where you are in the world. But generally I work with online business owners, multi six and seven figure business owners like coaches podcasters course creators, membership makers, and they also work with E commerce brands as well. So my specialism really is email and because I love email, I like to really just keep it open in terms of the types of people that I work with so that my job never gets boring. Now in terms of the results I’ve been able to get from myself and my clients through an email and the copy that I’ve written is for one client 300,000 pounds in revenue over three launches in one year $200,000 in revenue from a launch in seven days.
That’s $5,000 launch from an email list that had just 2000 subscribers. And one that I’m proud of was for myself actually I have a mastermind for copywriters and I created you know a small segment from my list where I only send invites to the copywriters on my list. So that was 422 copywriters, and from sending emails to those 422 copywriters, I was able to have a $35,000 launch.
And so in terms of kind of who I am, what I do, this is why you should hopefully want to listen to anything I have to say, because I work with clients on a daily basis. And I’m able to use emails for them to get them more money, more sales, and also for me in my business as well. So do get online and get social Tagami at Eman Copyco on Instagram and Twitter as well. Um, although I’m not great at Twitter, I’m much better at Instagram. So come say hi, follow me and take pictures, screenshots and tag me.
So everyone knows I’m missing out on an RA, because invasion and stay in touch. Okay, today, you’ll learn the six steps to building an email list that attracts high paying clients. And the six steps I’m going to walk you through is number one, creating an aligned lead magnet. And number two using segments number three, using tags number four, selling your services. Number five, emailing Gillis regularly. And number six, sharing your work clients and results.
But first of all, let me tell you a bit about my background. Because I feel like this is really important because a lot of the time people just start with and only share the kind of highlights of that career. So I want you to know that I haven’t always been able to sell using my email list. This isn’t something that you know, just happened overnight that I one day I could couldn’t do it.
And the next day I could, there really was a journey here. So back in 2018, I started my business because I am a mother and I wasn’t happy with the situation I was in in terms of my job, I just wasn’t seeing my son enough. I was working too much and not having enough time with him. So I resigned from that full time job so that I could start my business. When I started it. I had no savings. I had no backup plan. And I had the salary of that month that the job had given me my very final wage. And that was it. So this had to work because I had a little boy relying on me that really needed me to make it work. So 2018 2019 kind of happened you know things are going well in my business.
But I was still definitely experiencing kind of feast and famine up and down. You know, one good moment You know, too bad months, one month of, you know, having clients the next month, no clients kind of went like that until 2020 When I decided to specialise in email strategy and copy to really get good at this. And then what happened is just as I specialised in email strategy and came out to the world as an email strategist and copywriter, of course, in March 2020, COVID hit and the world shut down, I lost all my clients, I had one that I was working with, that I had been working with, and continued on with that project. But you know, as millions of parents across the world, we’re forced to work full time, while also parenting full time, it was really difficult. And I had some of my lowest revenue months in the history of my business.
By the end of that year, my business was back on track, because I was able to do this because I was able to start using email to make money for both my clients. And for me, so here we are now in 2022. I’ve since had another baby in that time. So there’s I took a year out, or whatnot, I took seven months out, and have been back in business since March. So definitely been a roller coaster.
But it was this skill that has really allowed me to, to build the life and the business that I have. So hopefully this will help you do something similar or even more of what you’re already doing. So number one, create an underlined lead magnet, and the key word here is aligned. So let’s talk about what is a lead magnet first. I know most people in have probably know. But just in case anyone doesn’t. Let’s go over what a lead magnet is.
It’s an incentive that you offer in exchange for an email address. Right. So the thing about marketing, as we all know, we use so many different words and terminology to mean the same thing. So a lead magnet is also known as an opt in, it’s also known as 1,000,001 of the things. But this is basically why you say to your audience, look, I’m going to give you this really super valuable, helpful thing.
If you give me your email address in return, then this is like the very start of having any kind of relationship with subscribers is where they opt in to receive something from you so that you can get that email address. Now the most important thing about this is that you create a lead magnet that actually attracts your ideal audience. So the biggest mistake that I see people make when it comes to creating lead magnets is that they create one that has very little to do with what they’re actually trying to sell. Right. And that’s a problem because at the end of the day, you attract what you put out. So if you create a quiz for coaches, and coaches will join your email list.
If you create a an ebook for football, as footballers will join your email list, right? So I had this issue because I initially was a generalist copywriter, I did a bit of everything. And I like to open a website. So my old lead magnet was a an ebook that taught you how to write better copy for your website. And it was literally called Six secrets to writing web copy that converts. And this is my old brand and house I’m now email copy call.
So this is super old. And the issue was this with this is I mean, it worked great. But when I changed my specialism to email strategist and copywriter, this lead magnet didn’t make sense anymore. This was bringing me clients that wanted website work, but I didn’t offer website work anymore. And so this lead magnet became totally misaligned with what I was trying to do and actually just became a bit of a waste of time.
So I had to go through the process of figuring out well, okay, what does in what do I want my ideal clients to come to me for? Okay, so if I want them to come to me for email, it makes sense that I’m going to have to create a lead magnet on or about email. So that’s what I did my lead, my new lead magnet is a 35 Minute free email class called the email rules, and is the free 30 minute fast track email class that teaches you how to boost your conversions and sales through email. So first of all, it’s establishing me from the very getgo as an email expert, if you you know, if you want to learn something from me, it’s going to be about email. Here’s what you’re going to learn. From the moment people enter my world as subscribers. They know I’m all about email. So that’s that.
And then in terms of copywriters and actually, I have to because I have two different audiences, right? So I have the business side of my business where I serve, where I write emails and create emails for businesses, ecommerce brands, online business owners, that kind of thing. So there’s that side of my business. And then there’s the because I’ve actually coached copywriters I mentioned to have a mastermind. I do a lot of copyright a lot of coaching for copywriters.
So there’s also this whole other audience that I also want to attract. So I have a second lead magnet, which is a free one hour online masterclass, called five steps to catapulting your copywriting business. And it’s an ask us where I walked through, you know, the things that really helped me get my business from struggling in the pandemic to where it is now.
And so this of course, attracts the copywriters to my email list. So again, I have an online lead magnet. And I think the important thing to realise here is that you can have more than one lead magnet, I had one client, oh my gosh, one client had maybe, like, I think 15 Different lead magnets at one point and had all these kind of all these subscribers coming from all these different places, and they would enter like her funnel, and then go through her, you know, experience as well.
So you don’t just have to have one. But if you if you do have one or more, make sure they are actually attracting the people that you want to work with. So that you’re not just bringing people onto your list. And then those people are just, you know, not opening emails, they’re bored. You’re like pulling your hair out thinking why these people not buying because of the wrong people. What happens when you get your lead magnet, right? You know, this is the kind of love that I was getting from actually the ebook. So when I did have that ebook for website copy, it really worked. And this is how you know it works.
When you’re getting great feedback about it, you know that you’re on the right track. So the second thing to then consider that one I feel like was a really basic kind of step that most people will know. The next thing is to create a welcome sequence. I feel like this is something that a lot of copywriters in particular will do for their clients but won’t do for themselves. And it’s so important to do for yourself, because your welcome sequence is where you get the chance to onboard potential leads and potential clients. So you’ve created this amazing lead magnet, and then what they come into your world, and then maybe you email them, maybe you don’t email them.
Or maybe you when you email them, you just go straight into like into your weekly newsletter or your monthly newsletter, whatever it is. And you’re really missing this opportunity to welcome leads and to take them through a kind of educational journey where they can learn about you, what you do, who you help, what your values are. And so with a welcome sequence. But anyone who doesn’t know, a welcome sequence is an automated series of emails that go out over a certain amount of time. So you might have three emails that go out over three days, or five emails that go out over the course of a week.
But the point is that it’s automated, and every single subscriber who joins your email list gets this welcome sequence. Okay. So what a welcome sequence can do is, well, this is your opportunity to build your authority to share your personality, and to tell your subscribers how you can help them. So your lead magnet has brought in these, you know, brilliant leads, and now you almost get to woo them. You got to like entice them, and make them want to say yes to hiring you.
But the main question that you need to ask yourself is, what did they need to know about me? To say yes to hiring me? What do they need to know about me to say yes, to hire me. So those are the things that you want to put in your welcome sequence. So here’s an example of what’s in my welcome sequence. So the first email that goes out is the lead magnet delivery. So for example, the email rules.
I promised that I was going to give you this email class. So here’s the email class. And then the second email is a soft segment email, which I’ll go into in more detail in a little bit. But it’s where I basically talk about where I asked the subscribers like, Hey, who are you? Or you know, what are you most interested in, so that I can send you relevant emails. And then the third email is always the introduction to who I am my story, what I do, who I help.
And then the fourth email is how you can work with me. So this is a real really direct pitch. So the email before this is really about getting them to like me and feel like they know me. And then the fourth one, it’s really about, okay, this is how you can work with me this, these are my different services that I offer, so that every single subscriber that comes through my through my funnel, knows how to work with me, they’ve all received that email. And that’s a very direct pitch as well. I don’t kind of beat around the bush is a very direct and then the next one is an email where I show off my email strategy skills. So if I’m saying hey, I’m an email expert, hire me to do your emails for you. This email is the one that demonstrates why I’m an email expert and really shows them my skills in action.
So in this particular email, what goes out is my email teardown for Kylie Cosmetics, which is basically a video where I walk through the welcome sequence of Kylie Cosmetics. That’s Kylie Jenner’s company. And they basically talk through, like, what’s working and what’s not working, why they could have done this better, and why they could have done it better. So that people can see like, oh, man, actually, she really doesn’t know about email, maybe I can hire her to come review my emails, or my emails, or maybe she can come and write my emails, right. So it’s really about getting them to start thinking of you as the expert that you are.
So when it comes to creating your welcome sequence, ask yourself what do I want every subscriber to know, I should say to know, and what do they need to know? So they’ll hire me? Okay? How can I build trust and demonstrate my authority? And always ask yourself as well? What is my end goal? What is your end goal? Okay, so we’re all here. So I’m assuming your end goal is to get clients.
So for you, you need to really be thinking okay, if this is the end goal, if like point Zed is hire me, what does step ABCDE and all these other steps in between have to be or what do they have to share in order for this person to get to this step and say yes, I’m going to hire you. Number three, segment your subscribers. So in case you’re unsure of what this means, okay, segmentation is ah when you when you divide subscribers into smaller groups based on specific criteria, so again, you divide your subscribers into smaller groups based on specific criteria. So that specific criteria could be you know, their role their job, the industry that they’re in that interests that entry point like how they entered your funnel, so maybe did this person and to through by signing up for the email rules, or did they sign up through five steps to catapult in your copywriting business or it could be literally anything else that is useful to you? So let me go backwards. My slides are a little bit messed up my segments for my email list.
Today I have loads of segments but the ones I’m going to talk about here are two copywriters and non copywriters. So everyone who joins my email list as a business owner, I know that the difference is are you a copywriter? Or are you a non copywriter because the copywriters are going to get a different welcome sequence from the non copywriters This is what a segment allows you to do. It allows you to personalise the experience the email experience that your subscribers getting based on the information that you know and have about them. So the copywriters will get emails about my copywriting background so for example, the tutorial Tuesday that I did for Copy Hackers because why will Copy Hackers is a big deal in the copywriter world and copywriters will know that’s a big deal but non copywriters won’t Copy Hackers doesn’t mean very much to the other business owners in my world who are not copywriters, so there’s no point in me sharing that with them.
But the copywriters will also get, you know, links to find out more Oh, I guess like my podcast interview on the copywriter club podcast. They’re going to be specifically interested in that but the non copywriters are not going to be and then the copywriters when it comes to that direct pitch that direct sale that I told you about. I’m not asking the copywriters to hire me because of course they don’t want to hire me they have no interest in hiring me. The copywriters usually wants to be coached by me so I’m telling the copywriters about my mastermind.
I’m telling them about my bar and my brain coaching calls. I’m telling them about you know my free masterclass for copywriters I’m telling them about my how to design your VIP day masterclass. So, copywriters, the non copywriters get a completely different welcome sequence. And I can only do that because I have enough information about them. That allows me to segment them. And this is why it’s helpful as well to create different lead magnets for very different audiences. Because when someone joins through the email rules, and well I know their business owner, okay, but when someone joins through five steps to cooperate in your copywriting business five steps to catapulting your copywriting business. Well, I know you’re a copywriter, so I don’t have to do any extra work to find out who you are.
I just assume you’re a copywriter. And what this does is allow you to send the relevant emails to the right people and again if you send in the relevant email So the right people, people will enjoy your emails more, they will enjoy your emails more they’ll stay on your list will open your emails or share your emails. And they’ll engage and respond to your emails and hopefully be converted by emails as well. So I want to talk about Carrie. Okay, so Carrie is actually a copywriter, and an SEO expert as well, who has done one of these presentations for the freelance coalition. So you might know her. She’s brilliant, she is so clever. And she uses, she uses segmentations. So smartly that I really wanted to mention on this page, and I think she’s actually taken this down since I think maybe a very recently, like a month ago.
So unfortunately, I can’t, like you can’t go to her website and have it look at it. But let me walk you through what Carrie used to do. So Carrie had case studies on her website, right? So he goes to a website, and it goes to case studies. And instead of just letting you read her case studies, she would make you opt-in to her to get her case studies, right. So you’d have to give her your email address. So this was her lead magnet her opt in. And I went through this because I actually hired Carrie, right. So this was my experience, I give her my email address, and then the case study comes to my inbox. Then I read the case studies. And once I finished reading the cases, she gave me a bit of time. And then came the sales sequence, where she allows me to find out more about her services, how she can help me what her prices are, the all the information came auto automatically. To my inbox, it was the most amazing experience, she didn’t have to even, like speak to me, I didn’t have to email her. There was no conversation beyond these emails. And it was so beautifully written that it felt like we were having a really genuine conversation anyway, it didn’t feel like an automated sequence. She was nurturing me and said selling to me as we went along. And what Carrie most recently did as well is because she has been segmented her audience so well, by the way, did and didn’t end up in a sale for her because I did hire her in the end, it worked. It was a great, great, great sequence.
What Carrie most recently did is because she has organised to less than she knows, you know, who is a lead, who is a an existing client who’s worked with me who didn’t hire me in the end, she actually recently sent an email to everybody who showed interest in hiring her by opting in, but didn’t hire her, she sent them an email to reengage with them to let them know that she’s taking on clients. A few more clients before the end of the year, you see how when you start to get really strategic, you can use your email list to really, really just like keep your pulse on your leads your clients, you can be really smart about this, and it does take work. But Carrie only had to set up that sequence one time, she didn’t one time, and then it continued to do the work for her. Okay, for use tags, smartly. That was for use tag smartly. Now, tags are different from segments, but I’ll go into that in a second. Okay. So I want you to think of a tag as a post it note. So you have a subscriber. And then imagine like, what am I post it notes here in my post it notes. You have a tag, you have a subscriber, and then they join your email list. And then you go, Okay, you’re a copywriter, and you you tag this little post that note to their name, this person is a copywriter, this person is not a copywriter, this person is a lead this person is an existing client, okay. And you can do that individually for every single subscriber. And you can create these tags based on your subscribers behaviours and interests. So, for example, anybody who clicks the link to go and view my service page on my website, or anyone who clicks the link to open up the contact form on my website, gets the tag read. Okay. And with that tag lead, I know that this person is interested in working with me. Maybe they hire me, maybe they don’t, that’s not the information I’m looking for right now.
I just know that because of this person’s behaviour, their lead, they’re interested in working with me, these are people that I should be going back to and following up with. Right? If I was Carrie, if I was as organised as Carrie, I’d be sending a whole you know, sales sequence to the lead, okay. And this means that I can then email leads directly whenever I want. All the ways that I use tags If someone shows interest in my mastermind, if a copywriter shows interest in my mastermind, I will tag them as interested in like a boss. The mastermind is called like a bus. If they show interest in a paid workshop or specific masterclass, I will use that use a tag to tell me, okay, they are interested in this masterclass or that workshop. Why? Because I can sell it to them later on down the line because I have the information that, hey, they’re already interested, they just need maybe more information to help them really figure out if it’s a yes or no for them. Now, in terms of segments and tags, it can be a little confusing. So you may be wondering, whoa, what is the difference between a segment and attack. Our segment is a group of contacts, whereas a tag is assigned to a specific contacts. So just to clarify that a segment is a group of contacts that you’ve created based on whatever criteria you want. So maybe copywriters, or me, a non copywriters, two different groups of contacts, then I can send emails to those contacts as I want. Now a tag gives you information about a specific contact. Okay, so hopefully that makes sense. If it doesn’t, we can chat about it in the q&a section, don’t worry. And the third the eye have completely confused myself with these numbers. I think this is the fourth point now.
So the fourth point, is to actually sell your services. Okay. So the biggest mistake that freelancers make with that email list is they build an email list, they put so much work into creating a lead magnet, you know, getting people into that list. And even emailing their list, like you’ll work hard to email your list, you won’t neglect them, you’ll email them. But then you don’t talk about your services, you don’t sell your services, because you’re too scared, you’re too worried about selling, you’re, you’re scared that your subscribers are going to feel like you’re spamming them, you’re scared that they’re going to pull you pushy or salesy, you’re scared that they’re going to unsubscribe, well, you shouldn’t be scared, because number one, piece unsubscribes are totally fine.
They’re a good thing. In fact, this is just people, keeping your list healthy for you. These are people who are not going to keep opening your emails who don’t want to hear from you anymore, not because it’s personal, or because you know, they don’t like you, they’re just not interested in maybe what you’re offering them. And that’s okay. So let them leave. Okay. And then the other thing is, for those who will stay, which is a much bigger, much bigger portion, or majority, like the majority will stay, the minority will unsubscribe. For those people who do stay, they want to hear from you that on your list, because they opted in to hear from you. They expect to get emails from you. And actually, probably they’ll be more surprised if they didn’t get emails from you. They want to know what you do.
They want to know what you sell. It’s really not about what you sell, it’s more that they want to know how you can help them. So if you change it, and you kind of like reframe it so that you start thinking about well, this is really about how I can help them how I can make their life easier. I feel very happy telling my email list how I can make that life easier. If you have a launch coming up. Let me redo your sales page for you or your you know, your email copy for you. I want to help you, this is me trying to help you if you don’t want to hear about it. And that’s okay. But there are people who do want to hear about it. So I will keep emailing you and selling you my services. Now there are two ways to sell regularly without it feeling icky or weird, is what Joanna Wiebe recommends, which is a three to one ratio of send an email that offers value, send another email that offers value, send them another email that offers value and then sell in the fourth email. So maybe this is like over the span of a month, you’re sending one email a week, you send in a value, email value, email, value, email, sales email, and you’re gonna feel better about that one sales email because you’ve sent three value emails, thank you, you’ve, you’ve helped them you’ve been a value, and now it’s your time to sell.
Another way, a different way to do that is to you know, send your emails and then to have a reminder on the every email, that’s what I’ve been experimenting with recently, which is, you know, PS, there are three ways to work with me, or here’s how I can help you. So actually, at the end of every single email I’m actually selling, but it’s a much more of a soft sell than a hard sell right. Now, the other biggest mistake that I see freelancers make which is the other side of this is selling too much. Okay? So every email you send to the sales email, you don’t do any thing else was sell, there is no value to be had from your email list. You just sell sell, sell, buy, buy from me buy from me buy from me, you’re watching all the time, there is nothing of value or nothing good that your subscribers are getting from you. Don’t be that friend, okay? Who only gets in touch with you when they want something, they only message you, when they need money from you or they only remember you when they have no one else to talk to when they need something from you. Okay, we all don’t like that friend. We don’t want to hear from that brand.
They call those and we’re like, Ah, it’s time again, just you know, ignore the phone. Don’t be that for your subscribers. Don’t only get in touch with them when you want something from them, when you want them to buy from you. The times that you don’t have anything to sell, keep emailing them provide value, you know, stay top of mind. And again, you know, just provide value and the sales will come. But again, remember, the sales will only come if you ask for the sale. Okay, so you need to ask for it. But you do need to strike that balance of, okay. I’m not just only selling and I’m not just only providing value, there is a middle ground. I’ve given up on these numbers now. So I don’t even I don’t trust this. I knew that I think this is a number five. But I’m struggling to trust these numbers right here.
So email your list regularly is the fifth one. Now how often, ideally weekly, because you want to stay top of mind, you don’t want them to forget who you are, you don’t want them to forget how you can help? No, I found this really hard because I went off on maternity leave earlier well last year, but it did bleed into this year. So for me, I was away for a long time. And I didn’t want to keep emailing my list. After tried to panic baby, I needed a break. And so I found actually that I told my list like hey, I’m going to go away have a baby, they were very aware that I was having a baby. So can they kind of follow in my story and expected it.
And then I told them, I’m going to take a break from email and you’ll hear from me again soon. I’ll be back soon. And when I came back, it was a case of oh, you know, people were happy to hear from me. And we’re still engaged in my emails, because they’ve kind of been following me. So my experience is that you can take breaks from email and when you need to take breaks, but it’s really about the relationship that you’ve built with your subscribers is really about that. That’s when you can kind of like, do it in a way that works really well.
If you haven’t built that strong foundation, then, yeah, it won’t, it won’t work for you. Okay, so do email regularly. It is a benefit to you to do that. And you know, some people will say, Okay, well, our monthly newsletter, I don’t think monthly is enough for people to remember who you are. Let’s even look forward to your email to your emails, right? Imagine, just think about for a second how much happens in your life in a month, you’re not thinking about that one person who sends you monthly emails, give them a monthly reminder that you exist, that you can help but your services exist, you want to stay top of mind. And the truth is that people do read emails, they just don’t read boring emails. So make sure that your emails are not boring. And let people you know, enjoy reading your email, let them have a good experience reading them. Okay, the final one, number six, share your work with the clients that you’re working with, and your results. And this one’s really important.
Because this is all about authority building and trust building. So open up and start sharing about what’s going on in your business. We forget to do this a lot of the time. Because we’re so busy like in the project, we’re too busy working on the project with the clients to talk about the project and the clients that we’re working on. So what you want to do is, make sure you’re sharing the projects that you’re working with right now, even if like you’re in the thick of it. Okay, so right now I’m working on a webinar invite and show up sequence for a course creator. So I literally I’m in the middle of it, I’ve not finished it, I don’t have results to share, because I’m in the middle of writing it. But I’m telling my instagram or my LinkedIn, this is what I’m working on this week, I’m working on a webinar invite and show up sequence for a course creator. And that you know, the purpose of this sequence is to XYZ and this is what we’re hoping to get.
Why because it paints me firstly as the expert and it reminds people like this is what I’m available to do for you what this is what I’m doing for this client. This is also what I can do for you. So other people who hold webinars who host webinars are going to be thinking, Oh, I didn’t even know maybe that that sequence either exists or that I need it. Or they didn’t know that the mom offers it. Okay, that’s great. That’s good to know. Now I know for the next time I’m launching, maybe I’ll hire her to do it. Share what you’re working with. Now, even if you don’t have results to share, share your past projects that do have results share you know, not just the results, but also the process. Shatter stone skills, share your clients, even if you do nothing but say this is the client I’m working with this week shout out to XYZ. Why? Because if I want to work with more membership creators or membership makers, then I’m going to tell the world hey, I’m working with this membership maker today. So that maybe a membership maker who’s reading that postings, oh, email works with people like me. Maybe I’ll get in touch with her next time.
Even if I don’t have anything else to share, no, no project, no results. Just sharing who you’re working with, allows people to start connecting those dots. And of course, share your case studies as well create custom case studies and share them and you can do this all through email, like I mentioned, doing this on social media, but do this in your emails as well. Okay, so we have plenty of time for question answers. So get your question answered in. We have a couple already, while I just wrapped this up getting them in now and I’ll start answering them for you. So today, you learnt the six steps to building an email list that attracts high paying clients. Number one, create an aligned lead magnet. Number two use segments number three, use tags. Number four, sell your services. Number five, email your list regularly. Number six, share your work clients and results. So just before I start answering questions, I want to let you know that I do have this free masterclass, but any copywriters in the room
five steps to catapult your current business. I did mention it in the presentation. So go grab it. It’s at bit.do/five-steps. And it’s a one hour masterclass. And I think it’s interesting, it’s fun, and hopefully you learned some stuff. So go check it out. And if you’re not a copywriter, sorry, but I do have a podcast so you can go check out a podcast and and go listen to that I have some great interviews with some great business owners. Okay, and that’s that, so I’m gonna get on to answering some questions.
Chima Mmeje 37:00
Okay, am I before you finally get into those questions? And I say, Okay, I’ve lost my train of thought, Okay, I found my train of thought again. Alright. I wanted to see some okay. Yes, I wanted to ask a question about lead magnets, because I think that’s where many people struggle with. So how, how do you even determine like, what is going to be your ideal lead magnet? Like when do you know, oh, this is what I should be doing as a lead magnet. And this is where I should? Like, based on the offer and all of that, how do you determine what the lead magnet is going to be?
[37:36] Eman Ismail
That is such a good question. And I’ll tell you that with my lead magnet, actually, the email rules, I actually created it as a product. And I sold it as like a really low priced product. So it was something like 17 pounds. And it actually did well. And I thought, You know what, I don’t want this to be a paid thing anymore. Like, I’m actually going to refund everyone that paid me for this. And I’m going to give it away for free. Because I want my lead magnets to be so good that people will say, I would have paid something for that. Like that’s how valuable I want them to be. So that’s my experience with my lead magnet. But I will say that don’t ever create a lead magnet without doing some kind of audience research without talking to your audience and asking, Is this helpful? I often do like votes and polls on social media, like what do you want to? What do you want to hear about? What do you want me to teach you? What Szalai? What do you want me to teach you? So like the actual topics like you know, what you want to see do? And then also how do you want me to teach you? Do you want a webinar? Or a master class or an interactive workshop? Do you want a private podcast recording that you can just like put in your ears and listen to you as you walk? Do you want an ebook? Do you want some kind of quiz? How do you best learn? So speak to your audience? Ask your audience. I don’t think I’ve ever created anything without asking first, like, what do you want from me? How can I help you? And I listen to what they say. And then I start creating based off of that. And then also remember as well, like, be kind to yourself. This is all just an experiment, some things won’t work. And that’s okay. Because it’s just an experiment. And now you know, okay, well, that’s that didn’t work, I’m not going to do that again. And other things will work amazingly. And that’s great as well, because you know what to do more than that, more of more of that. So, just realise that. Sometimes it’ll go well, sometimes it won’t. Either way, it’s a lesson to be learned. And it’s, it’s beneficial for your business, whichever kind of way that it goes. So be open to creating, failing succeed and creating again trying again, and see it as a process rather than, you know, an end destination I think,
[39:49] Chima Mmeje
okay, okay. So the next one is kind of like, I want to I want to kind of contract dx and because this is something I always do, I don’t always agree with everything. People think I want to just like bounce this back to you again, you said, you talked about using Kerry as an example on how she gets her case studies. But the last question as you I specifically told the audience not get case studies that you shouldn’t be getting. I don’t I don’t. Often. So if you I understand why Carrie does that because it’s a way to like, get very qualified leads, but it’s not something I advocate. So if you’re not getting case studies, because I don’t advocate for getting case studies, what do you think copywriters can get on their website as a way to attract qualified leads?
[40:38] Eman Ismail
Hmm, good question. And first of all, I don’t I have, I don’t get my kids to do that. I have them open on my website. And to be honest, probably not because I don’t agree with gatekeeping. But because I don’t have the strength to create that amazing secret that carry great, I just don’t have the strength all the time. So it’s open on my website for everyone to get, but in terms of what contents a gatekeeper? You know, I guess it depends, it depends on you and what your audiences I’ll tell you what I get. It’s like, it depends on so now, I’m sorry. But I’ll tell you what I get keep, which is usually trainings like this actually, where I put in a lot of time and a lot of effort to put everything together. And where I feel like okay, you’re getting like, you get an insight into my brain. And you’re gonna pay for this, you’re gonna hate this. So that’s, that’s what I will usually get keep. And, and as well also, because it motivates me to do like a great job and to really put my all into this thing, and, and then you go into it with like, no resentment. No, you know, oh, you know, I can’t believe I’m like giving this away for free. So yeah, that’s the stuff that I get
[41:52] Chima Mmeje
That’s a good idea. You get what people would pay for basically? Yeah, exactly. That’s a very, that’s a very good idea. All right, questions. That’s the questions. Amy’s asking, what’s the best email platform for beginners?
[42:06] Eman Ismail
This is a really good question. And you know what, I’m gonna say, I this is what I always say, there is no best email platform, it really is about, I feel like it’s personal preference, and also, what you like what works for you, I am on Active Campaign. And I joined Active Campaign from MailChimp because I hated MailChimp, it just, it didn’t work for my brain, I could, I just didn’t like it. Again, personal preference. I know loads of people who love MailChimp. And so I moved to Active Campaign and I moved to Active Campaign because I loved the way the Active Campaign made that automations really visual. And like you could map it out visually. And back then when I joined, most email service providers didn’t even allow that it wasn’t a thing it was actual company was the first one to do that. Today Active Campaign is getting on my last nerve, because it’s having like all these Boogie issues, these glitches, it’s sending out emails looking really wonky and weird. So unfortunately, it looks like I’m going to be new then. And I want to try out ConvertKit because I, you know, ConvertKit have sold me on actually just like that culture. And they’re like love of the Creator economy and the fact that they’re specifically for creators. I love that. And isn’t it so funny that you can fall in love with a brand. And now I’m like, willing to move all these like automations and everything that I’ve put in Active Campaign over to them, but it’s also because of active campaigns glitches. So bear in mind that you know, different email service providers serve different functions for different you know, industries and people. Just to put it really simply ConvertKit is for creative act, this campaign is really for those people who are who want to get the like automations and like triggers like onpoint last night, I really liked Active Campaign. There’s mail modo now, which is a more new email service provider that is really interactive and allows people to do quizzes inside emails, and register for events inside emails, this Klaviyo which is, you know, for e-commerce brands, there is no best email platform. It really depends on your business.
[44:08] Chima Mmeje
I think it depends on what you need. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I was gonna say that. Okay. I want to like to quickly take this minute three questions. I want to start with Roshni is Roshni’s question. Can you elaborate on the differences between tags and segments?
[44:21] Eman Ismail
Yes. Okay. Yes. Oh, that’s really interesting. So it’s a tag like a label in Gmail. I’m kind of and kind of not so a tag is again, I’m going to just have like a post it note, okay. So I have this tag that is that says, okay, a man is a copywriter. So maybe I know that the man is a copywriter because the man clicks on the catapult your copywriting business masterclass. So she clicked that and I’ve set it up so that anyone who clicks on that is tagged as a copywriter. Okay, great. Now I know that you’re a copywriter. I’m a copywriter. And now with a segment what you do is you maybe group all the copywriters together. Okay, so the segment is the group of all these people together and the tag is the individual, the intact. Okay. Does that make sense? Yeah, that makes sense. I know it can get complicated. Yeah,
[45:24] Chima Mmeje
rationally, rationally. Does that make sense? If you want, as you said, got it. Okay. Yeah. Okay, great. All right, so quickly. Hello. Eman, gotten so much value from this session. And my question is, what should a copywriter include in their reengagement sequence? Oh, good questions. All right.
[45:41] Eman Ismail
Okay, so I thank you, Deborah. So include in your reengagement sequence, Oh, okay. That mean there’s so much you can you can do for starters, you might want to remind like, what I’m assuming this is two leads, right? So people who are interested in working with you, so you might want to remind them firstly of who you are, okay? Because maybe they’ve forgotten maybe so much how many spots haven’t been open emails, whatever. You want to remind them of that maybe you want to remind them that you know, they opted in to your lists haven’t signed up to XYZ in case they think Wait, why is this person emailing me how do they have my email address? Well, no, you got your head because you signed up to get the MasterCard so that your ebook right? Maybe you want to talk about you know, projects that you’ve been working on cool results that you’ve had with clients? Maybe you want to share a podcast interview or a free masterclass that you’ve done. Like for example, maybe you know, like this, maybe I go hey, you know, I did this free masterclass comm check it out here. And but the idea is to just bring them back into your world, remind them that you’re the expert, remind them that, you know, they were once interested in you and the work that you had to do, and to get them just really interested. So there’s loads of things you can do. But again, it really always depends on what your end goal is. So start with the end goal, and then map it out with like, Okay, what do I have to do to get this person to that goal? What steps do I need to take?
Chima Mmeje [47:10]
Thank you. Deborah. I hope that answers your question. All right. Amy’s asking, what is the best way to learn about email analytics? Oh,
Eman Ismail [47:21]
good question. Oh, good question. I feel like I read a lot and Copy Hackers Copy Hackers website popping up because tutorial Tuesdays, I did text emails. Again, Copy Hackers. I did some roses. Email, bootcamp, that was actually for E commerce emails, but I’m gonna get it taught me so much about just emails in general, not just ecommerce emails. And I read a lot of books, I don’t know, I have, like, have different have like three different email books on my just around me right now. Maybe I need to buy like a blog of the email, like books and resources and things I read. That’s actually a really good point. But yeah, I think I just I read a lot. And I will say as well that I’m gonna, like newsletters of people that talk about that emails in their analytics and things like that, as well. So, yeah, I don’t know if that was helpful to me. Hope so.
[48:23] Chima Mmeje
All right. I think someone wants to know if you can recommend classes for someone who’s learning copywriting.
[48:31] Eman Ismail
Oh, yeah. I’m Belinda Weaver. Glenda Weaver’s amazing. And I feel like she Belinda is great for people who are like beginner to intermediate. And then if you’re kind of like at the intermediate stage, you can go from like, from there to Copy Hackers. I feel like I think a lot of people start with Copy Hackers and then get really overwhelmed and feel really overwhelmed because it’s intense. And it’s a lot and Joey has a lot of knowledge to share. And so I don’t think Copy Hackers is the best for absolute beginners. So start with Belinda Weaver and go from there. She has some really great, I mean, I mean, she just has countless, countless countless tutorials, videos and things. And she has a free Facebook group as well. So go check her out.
[49:16] Chima Mmeje
Alright, so Belinda Weaver final question. Still back on the email sequences, what do you use to map old email sequences? What’s the thought process that goes into mapping emails?
[49:28] Eman Ismail
This is a really good question. I marked my emails in my notebook. Wow. Yeah, yeah, I do it manually. So I literally get my pen out. I go to my notebook and I start writing like I’ve just I did, here’s one that I did yesterday. And like one to like six, seven emails. I don’t know why but my brain works best with pen and paper. And I’m like, and then I can like move all around. I can make notes and scribble and but when I’m presenting it to the client, I use whimsical and create a nice like you Email flowchart. So the client, they see it, you know, the nicer kind of professional version all mapped out visually and whimsical for me. But I know a lot of people use Miro or balsamic or figma even. So there are loads of different things you can use.
[50:18] Chima Mmeje
Okay, I like the idea of being on paper when you’re drafting because I don’t know, they’re just some sort of creativity that happens.
[50:24] Eman Ismail
Exactly, exactly. And it means like, I can go out for a walk, I don’t need to stare at my computer, sometimes just things like like the creative juices. I can just take my notebook with me it goes to like outside or a cafe and just like, okay, cool. And honestly, what happens a lot of the time is, the email sequence will come to me in the briefing call with the client. So as I’m talking to them, I can already see it. I’m like, Okay, it’s all coming together. Or, as I’m doing the research, I’m data mining, I’m going to the voice of customer, I’m seeing the emails come together. And then it’s about okay, let me just write this down. So I don’t forget any of it. And then also, let me figure out the order of the emails. And then once I kind of do that basic outline, then I’ll go back and refill and fill in all the details. So okay, what goes in each email? What’s the CTA for each email? What’s the purpose of each email? I’ll do it that way.
[51:14] Chima Mmeje
Oh, my God. Mind blown. That’s the only word I can think of mind-blowing. Oh, great. Good. I’m so glad this was so good. Thank you so much for doing this.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
