Drive Action with Psychology: Vanessa's Email Marketing Tips

Yeah, yeah.

So the key is, one, don't use what your english teacher taught you in marketing.

We want to go totally against what they're teaching you.

One, make sure that your paragraphs are one to two sentences, Max.

It should be very punchy to the point you're.

And not just like these super long paragraphs that are like four to five sentences like we were taught to.

Mmm, that's good.

And welcome to a new episode of Digital Coffee Marketing brew.

And I'm your host, Brett Deisser.

If you could please subscribe to this podcast and all your favorite podcasting apps and leave a review, it really does help.

But this week we're talking about email marketing and a little bit more of psychology and the sales about it, because there is a psychology, there is a science in an art to marketing, as we all know.

But we're going to be really diving into more of that specifically with Vanessa.

And she is a seasoned digital marketer with over ten years of experience and a background as a creative director.

And she's had a privilege for writing copy for a wide range of businesses, including multi seven figure enterprises.

But welcome to the show, Vanessa.

Thank you so much, Brett.

It's a privilege to be here.

Yes.

And the first question is all.

My guest is, are you a coffee or tea drinker?

I'm going to throw you off here.

I'm a water drinker, so I've always have my water nearby.

I will have herbal tea, but that's pretty much my choice is water.

Do you do like fancy waters or you just like straight plain water?

I don't really care.

Straight plain water is good.

I will do when I'm out.

Lemon water once in a while, or when our lemon tree has lemons.

Nice to put that in once in a while.

But I'm plain Jane.

No worries.

And I gave a brief summary of your expertise.

Can you give us a little bit more about what you do?

Yes, so I have, I'm a sales copywriter.

Pretty much the best explanation.

So I bring in the sales psychology, understanding what converts and write copy from sales pages and emails, landing pages for freebies, all of that.

So that there is conversion and that what you want to have happen, which is get them to the other side of the sale or getting their email actually happens.

And so what are some of the common things that people don't know about the psychology side of it, of getting people to click over or do what you want, as you said.

Yeah, I think the first thing is understanding where they're at in the stage.

We tend to just be like, oh, I think they need to understand this, but where are they in the stage once they actually land on your page?

So when they're taking this buyer's journey, have they done some research before?

Have they done tried some things before?

What is actually happening when they land on their page?

Because once you're able to know where they're at and understand that standing the psychographic more than anything versus the demographic of what's going on with your person, you're better able to speak to them within your copy so you can hit what they actually need to convert.

So if you're speaking further ahead than what they actually are, they're not going to resonate at all with their copy.

But if, okay, this person is actually researching, they're in this research stage, they're trying to figure out what will actually work for them, for their problem, for the struggle that's going on, then you can speak to, hey, you've been researching, you've been trying to figure it out, but you're struggling.

The other thing is just be to the point we tend to speak in like, we want to try to be fancy, we want to be fun, we want it to sound enjoyable.

And while you can bring some joy into writing because you want people to enjoy what you're reading, the more direct you are, the higher the conversion.

So recently I was talking about to someone about buttons.

When you tell them to actually click on the button to get the freebie to buy your course, whatever that is, or even book a call, that's been some of the sales pages I've written, and you want to be specific when they click that button, what is actually happening?

Click to purchase the course, buy your whatever now, book your call now.

Be direct.

The more fluffy it is, the harder the conversion is going to be.

Because I think of it with my kids, I have three kids, and if I say, hey, let's go on it, let's get ready to go to school, they're gonna be like, okay, and just keep playing their video games.

But if I'm like, go get your shoes on, because we're going to be going to school, it's so much more direct that they're, the likelihood.

We know kids, so it's not going to be 100% of the time, but the likelihood of them actually doing the action is going to increase.

I think the other reason why we're not as direct is sometimes we've, I think it's a society's problem a little bit is that directness can be considered mean in some ways.

And so being very direct, you're like, I want you to do this.

You're like, well, what are you trying to tell me to do?

Yes.

And also going back to that, like, car salesman feel, like we try to resist that feel of that car salesman aspect when really you're not being a car salesman.

You're just telling them, hey, if you want this, here's your next step.

Here's what you need to do to get it.

So as long as you're speaking to what they're desiring, what they want, that's totally fine.

The biggest problem is that when the car salesman comes up to you, they're like, oh, this is so good.

This is what you want.

This is amazing.

And so we're like overwhelmed, we're stressed out.

We're feeling like they're trying to pressure us into it.

And it's, no, I'm not pressuring you.

I'm telling you that if this is what you want, here's what you need to do to get it.

And how do you figure out from the psychology standpoint, like where people are at?

Because we all say we want to figure it out.

But since new tech and new regulations have made target marketing a little bit harder to figure out, especially with the iPhone, like really going in privacy, you're, it's harder to figure out where people are at.

You're still guessing quite a bit.

So how do you figure that out?

Are you going to use like AI tools now?

Are you going to really dive in?

You're going to figure out, like, where the exit rate are, where they're actually going from your website.

How are you supposed to figure all that out?

First off, you want to do your own research.

So that begins with talking to the people going in and having conversations, maybe that's already clients that you've had.

And just really during that onboarding process, understanding where they're at when they come to you.

And so including questions in that, so that you're able to speak to that, the specific language that they're giving you.

I would say Chad GPT has some benefits to it.

Like, you can play around and grab some stuff and ask it if this is your problem, what might have you been doing to solve that problem at this stage?

What have the actions been that they have been taking that would make them want to retake by this course, course, buy this product, whatever it is that they're wanting?

The other thing is there is different ways that you can go.

And if you have a sales page, for example, and people you're looking at where they're not.

Like they're scrolling down and then they leave.

Most of the people only get to a certain part of your page.

You can do a.

Now I'm going to lose the word, but the hot.

The hot page, it's lost my brain.

But that's okay.

So there's heat mapping.

That's the word I'm looking for, heat mapping on your page to figure out where are people dropping off on your page.

Because if they're really going through, they went through the desires, they're connecting with that.

But then your actual course, once you introduce it, that's when most people drop off.

Then you're not explaining your course in the right way for them to want to stay on the page.

Would that be like leveraging scarcity, social proof, anything like that, to get them to click on the page?

Because there are like psychological things, I mean, including for SaaS, I may bemoans a lot like monthly fees because there's a lot of them nowadays, but there's still that part where psychology, like social proof.

Is this good for me or like scarcity, like, we only have a few items left.

Is that part of the thing to get people to click over as well?

Yeah.

So there is that scarcity aspect, I would say the thing is people are smarter buyers than ever before.

And so if you're going to use scarcity, be realistic about it.

Don't make up something.

And then next week they're going to see, oh, she still has two spots left, or the sale still happening when she said it was, or he said it was 48 hours, don't be faking your scarcity.

But scarcity does work.

But there is a side of it is if you don't have, oh, I'm not going to do a specific time limit on bonuses, or I'm not going to do a specific limit to the number of people that can join or whatever that actual, tangible scarcity is.

Use scarcity as far as you have this problem and you need to take action now to solve it, and why do they need to take action now to solve it?

So use more of the emotional aspect to that scarcity of if you wait another month, what's going to happen?

Where will you be?

Why should you take that action now versus continuing to wait and hodgepodge your way through versus getting something that's going to actually make it easier, make your life easier, solve the problem that you're.

Having now and then, even for like email marketing, like, how do they make those headlines?

Like attention grabbing because that's like most the battle because if they never open it, then there's no point.

I know open rates don't really matter anymore because again, Apple has changed what they're doing.

I think Google has changed a little bit of what they're doing as well.

So how do you get to that point where it's in that email or in their email and they're like, how do I get them to click on it?

Yeah, so exactly.

Your subject line needs to be that first thing that you need to focus on, which usually tends to be an afterthought.

You're like, yeah, I'll just put this down.

It isn't your focus because you're so worried about the content, which is just as important because you want them to click, but if they don't even open it in the first place, you're not going to get them to even click.

So two of the things that you want to decide between when you're doing the subject lines is either doing something that's very direct, telling them exactly what's in it.

So the person that you want to have, open it, open it, opens it.

So you could say the three, like three ways that you're going to increase your income by ten k this year.

It's just very direct.

And they know, okay, if I'm going to be opening this, I know exactly what's on the other side.

The other one is the intrigue.

So you play around with it, you could do it as far as this thing changed how I close clients, so I increased my close rate or this thing like an ant showed up on my shoulder and it actually taught me a lesson in business.

And they're like, wait, what?

An ant in business?

I'm confused.

And so then they're intrigued of what is she going to talk about on the other side.

So when you're either direct or have that intrigue, it starts bringing in that interest of I want to see what's inside the email and so there's a higher click rate to get inside of it.

And if people are having trouble, could they write like maybe a headline, get jet GPT or another AI thing to write more so they can have a little bit more like of a spread?

Because I know it's hard to write headlines and you're like, I just wrote all this content and now I have to figure out a headline.

Could AI help with that gap if they're not really doing very well?

The headline?

Yeah, so I have a love hate relationship with chat JPT.

I use it every day, like, I have a paid account because I see the power in it.

And that's something like, I think every business should be understanding it because it's not going away.

And at the end of the day, it's not going away.

So you need to know it.

You need to understand it and not just outsource as far as people hiring people to use chat GBT for them.

Like, you need to understand it.

So yes, you can use chat GBT to help make headlines, but honestly, they're not the greatest.

So the key is to really prompt it and tell it.

What do you want it to go?

Do you want it to be a direct subject line or headline?

Do you want it to be a intrigue headline or intrigue subject line?

Do you want it to include something specific?

Can you give me a direct headline that touches on this part of my email?

So really prompt it and even be like, be punchy, be direct, or add some flair and character to the subject line.

So the better that you prompt it, the better the outcome is going to be.

And then also, if you don't like what comes out, which half the time I don't know, keep prompting it until it gives you what it's what you want.

And part of that is, I challenge you to go into your emails and see what you're actually opening.

If you're not, if there's ones that you're not opening, or if there's certain ones that you do open, take note of that because that in itself will help you refine your subject lines.

Now, I will say, if you may don't want to use chat GPT, there are plenty of others.

There's Gemini, there's Claude, there's perplexity, but that's more for research, I think.

But still, you do have your copilot on Windows eleven now, which kind of is chat GPT anyways.

But anyways, you have a bunch, so should they just try it out?

Because Claude just came out with their prompts and it's 300 plus prompts to, for people that may not know how to use prompts, would it be better to do that instead of trying to figure out and spending hours upon hours?

Because it is difficult.

It's not easy to figure it out.

And there's another one called hoppy chat, too.

I have a friend that loves it.

There's so many out there.

And to me, you got to almost think of marketing as a game.

Think of it as, okay, I'm going to send this out, and if it doesn't work, then I need to do a different direction with my subject line and so have fun with it.

Don't beat yourself up.

If something has a really low open rate, that means that subject line didn't hit a, hit the mark for you.

And yes, there's, there's an aspect of yes, there's technology and it's not always the best explanation of what is actually the open rate, but if you'll ebbs and flows within your own open rates, then there's a good chance that, hey, that didn't hit the mark for them.

And I even see that within my own emails that I sent to my email list, there's times it hit them up, hits the mark, and other times it's lower than what I typically see with my email list.

So watch that.

And then if you see something working really well, duplicate it in just different ways so that it's not the exact same every time, but changing up the wording, the format, but keeping that outline that similar.

And should, let's say they haven't really started their email marketing at all.

Should they start like maybe LinkedIn a little bit and then transfer over?

Because LinkedIn does have a really good newsletter system baked into LinkedIn and I know it's a rented space versus owned space, so you always have to take in consideration, but is it a good tool to still use?

I would personally get your email list up and going.

It doesn't take very long.

You should, as a business, have your own domain at this point.

So go get your email list up and going.

It's, it is to me, the foundation of a business because you need to have those emails to be able to target, to be able to talk to.

If you decide to do Facebook ads down the road, you can take that list and duplicate who's your ideal clients on that list and put them in to Facebook ads.

So you want to have that email list in your hand.

So I would just get it up and going.

It doesn't take very long.

Gotcha.

And then for the body of the content, like, how do you create that storytelling thing?

Because you want people to scroll through your email.

If you're writing a somewhat longer email than normal, but you want people to scroll through.

So how do you, like, create that, like, scrollability?

I guess the best way of saying, yeah, yeah.

So the key is, one, don't use what your english teacher taught you in marketing.

We want to go totally against what they're teaching you.

One, make sure that your paragraphs are one to two sentences max.

It should be very punchy to the point you're, and not just like these super long paragraphs that are like four to five sentences like we were taught.

The other thing is utilize bolding italics colors throughout on things that you want them to see.

So if something is really important, then bold it because you're going to have different buyers where some of them are different people in your audience, where some of them will read every single word and some of them will skip through.

And so bold the text that you're like, I need them to read this or make it a different color or italicize it.

Also, I like doing this and it depends on your personality, but I like adding gifs or gifs however you want to pronounce it into my emails.

I think it's so fun.

It adds in personality, it shows who you are, and it also catches people's attention because most of them are like shocking or interesting.

And so they're like, ooh, why was that added in there?

So it catches their attention as they're going through the email.

Now, would it depend on the industry too for adding like, the gifs or gifts as you say?

It can, because I've seen it work for SaaS companies.

It really just depends on your brand personality, to be honest.

And so if you're a, if you're a SaaS company that likes to bring in personality and fun into your brand, then utilize it.

If you're a lot more of that professional corporate feel, you can stay away from it.

Or maybe once in a while on some of the emails where you're like, this is actually really important and you want to shock them, have that shock value, put it in there because they're gonna be like, wait, why is this company adding this in there?

It's gonna shock them.

It's gonna catch their attention more where they're more likely to read what you have in there.

Gotcha.

And then should you start adding, like, other content, like maybe podcast episodes that you've either produced or been guest on or videos as well to mix up the content and break it up because like you said, you want long, flowing prose like you're writing a book.

But it, does it help with just like different media content as well?

So I, one, I would recommend doing different lengths for emails.

Just going back to the length.

You don't always have to have a full long email.

Sometimes they're short, sometimes I've done just a short email.

Hey, are you still looking for this outcome?

If so, just message me back or click here.

And so it's super punchy to the point if you're doing a longer one, keep the content that juice focused on what you're talking about at the bottom of every email.

I recommend making sure on every email that you have something free and something paid that they can do.

And I, what I typically do is at the bottom of this email, I say, and this is if it's not like a launch email, because your launch is going to be directly a sales.

But if it's your nurture emails, then you're going to want to do something about, hey, if you're looking for more support from me, here's two ways that I can support you or three ways.

And so then you're going to do something free.

It could be a podcast, it could be a freebie, it could even be your most recent podcast episode.

So it's a lot more direct and specific and juicier than just saying, hey, listen to my podcast and then do something free.

So what are you wanting to promote right now with your offering?

Is there a specific thing?

Maybe right now you're like, I want to promote this product.

I want to promote this offer, this type of coaching, whatever it is that you do, and then you can put that at the bottom.

So whether or not you're actually selling, you're still selling.

And when they're ready to buy, they can buy.

And what are the most effective call to action?

So you said be direct, but is there specific words or words combinations that work better than others?

Like how does that world work out?

Yeah, so I recommend having this format of if you're wanting this outcome, click here and find out more or click here to book your call.

And so first outcome, because like we're talking about earlier, people don't like being told what to do.

In the end of the day, they don't like it.

And so if you tell them, hey, like, you're going to get this outcome, you're going to get this thing, this incredible thing is on the other side, fancy outcome on the other side of, then they'll be more likely to click because they see, oh, this is for my, for me, this is what I'm going to get out of it.

And I'm just writing email because sometimes it's all risk to a certain extent.

So how do you minimize that risk with building the trust?

Because we never really know how people are really going to respond to our email.

We think it's maybe the most mundane, non risky thing ever.

And all of a sudden you're like, wait a minute, why is this upsetting?

So how do you minimize that and still build trust.

Yeah.

So one, I am all about authenticity.

So don't, to me, I'm like, don't sugarcoat.

But it depends on your brand.

So always go back to what your brand represents.

And that should be part of it is there should be a like smooth aspect to, hey, on your Facebook, on your LinkedIn, on your Instagram, in your emails, there is a connection with it all.

And so it's not going to be super surprising where if you talk about faith is involved, if you talk about a really intense situation that brought you to your business, it's not going to be a shocker because there's that coherency within all of your platforms.

So that's one is be really clear on your brand, build up your brand, make sure it's clear across all platforms where it's not a surprise.

The other thing is I am a firm believer in you're going to have people that don't agree with what you do all the time.

And that's okay.

That is okay.

And they're just not who you're supposed to be working with.

So bless and release, move on and serve the people that are meant to hear what you're putting out there.

And then we're talking about split testing because it's always important for emails, like how would you change maybe the title because it's probably the easier thing to change.

How would you change it to make it a little bit different to see which one works better?

Would you like change it completely?

Would you change a few words?

How, what's the best way of going about it?

I would test between the direct and the intrigue.

And so one of your subject lines be super direct with what's inside of it and the other test out an intriguing headline or subject line and see which one opened more and just go between those two.

Switch it up.

The other thing that has been interesting to test out and try just once in a while, don't do it with all your emails is a one word subject line.

And part of that goes under the intrigue side because if you're like, like happiness or like just one word, they're like, wait, what is she talking about?

Like just a one word subject line.

That's unique.

That's odd.

So then they want to go in it.

So if you want to do like a very direct subject line and then try just pulling one of the words out from that subject line, testing it out that way and seeing.

And so like, how should, how often would you do that with the one word thing?

Would you do it like once every few months.

Would you do it?

Depending on what you're writing, how would you go about figuring that part out?

Yeah, I'd only do it once every few months because what happens, and I see this too, with, hey, this is the last email I'm going to send you.

Or, like, where it's like repetitive, almost the same type of subject lines, people just look over them.

So every few months, bring in the one word, test it out, and if you've tested it a couple times and it's not working, don't utilize it again because it depends on your audience.

But don't do it all the time, just bring in every few months.

And where do you see the future of email marketing going?

Because I think we've heard ad nauseam that it supposedly was dying, but it hasn't ever really died, is eventually going to go over to, like, more text messaging and that type of a thing.

Are we, are we still going to stay within?

Email marketing is dominant and it's never going to go away.

I don't think it's going away, to be honest with you.

Email marketing is here to stay.

It is on everyone's phone.

Yes, text messaging is a great avenue and we have used it with some clients.

But the problem with text messaging is the likelihood of you being banned and blocked from sending text messages is a lot higher than emails.

And so you have to be so careful with text messaging.

It shouldn't be all sales, it shouldn't be all promotion.

They should be very clear, like what they're getting when they opt in with their phone number on the other side, or there's the spam aspect is going to go up and you're going to get banned from sending emails or blocked or, sorry, text messages or blocked from doing that.

So yes, there's a time and a place to use sms, but emails where it's at, you're going to get in front of more of your audience.

The key that I see the shift going is people want to really be connected in emails.

They don't want it to feel like it's always transactional because that's what's happening with so many emails is it's always transactional.

When you open the target email, it's just going to be transactional on the other side.

They want something from you, so they want to connect with you, they want to get value from you and they want to make sure that their email is a place where they actually feel heard and understood and not just, hey, I want this from you.

Gotcha.

And so people are listening to this.

They want to know more.

So where can they find you online?

Yeah, so I show up most of my time on Instagram.

I am on LinkedIn.

I just don't post there as very as often or my website, Vanessa Wild co.com.

and Wild has an e at the end.

All right, any final thoughts for listeners?

Just keep testing, keep trying, keep getting out there, and use every opportunity, even if it feels like a failure, as feedback so that you can continue to move forward and continue to get the feedback of what your audience wants and doesn't want so that you can optimize what you're doing with your marketing.

All right.

Thank you, Vanessa, for joining digital coffee Marketing brew and sharing your knowledge on email marketing, the psychology of sales.

Thank you so much, Brett.

It was an honor and thank you as always.

Please subscribe to digital coffee on all your favorite podcasting apps.

Your five star review really does help with the rankings and let us know how we are doing and join us next week as we talk to another great thought leader in the pr marketing industry.

All right, guys, stay safe to understand your email marketing better and how you can use psychology to get better sales.

And see you next week.

Later.