#021: How To Set Up An Easy and Effective Email Sales Funnel with Kate Doster (Part 2)
Today I’m back with Part 2 in my interview with email marketing strategist, Kate Doster.
In this episode we delve deep into online sales. We discuss how to set up an easy and effective email sales funnel, how to focus on your product benefits, how to write your emails, and how to do an open-close cart launch.
If you missed Part 1 of my interview with Kate where we go over why email marketing is exciting and easy, definitely check it out first.
Now relax and enjoy how to sell anything through email! I think you’re going to really enjoy this.
Resources:
- KateDoster.com
- Love Your List
- Inbox Besties Podcast
- Teachable
- Thinkific
- AccessAlly
- Marie Forleo
- Todd Herman
- MiloTree
Some of these links may be affiliate
Table of Contents
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Transcript – How To Set Up An Easy and Effective Email Sales Funnel with Kate Doster
Host: [00:00:03] Welcome to the Blogger Genius Podcast brought to you by MiloTree. Here’s your host, Jillian Leslie.
Jillian: [00:00:10] Hello and welcome back to Part 2 of my interview with Kate Doster, email marketing guru, were we get really deep into online sales. Here we go…
Jillian: [00:00:20] Let’s talk about sales emails.
How to start setting up an email sales funnel
Kate: [00:00:22] OK. So when we’re actually selling selling stuff. OK. So we had our list of our 200 people we’ve been talking to, the people who would talk to us.
Kate: [00:00:30] We have registered the fact that I use this checklist every time I have to organize my house, because that’s what people were really intimidated by that, their whole house was full of clutter and they couldn’t get rid of it all.
Kate: [00:00:44] Some of it was some kind of mental, some of it is they start going and then they lose steam. So we listen to everyone’s problems. We got all of our stuff and run.
Kate: [00:00:51] You know what, I’m going to create just a room by room checklist. And it is going to say what to do and how often. So that someone can just say, oh it’s Monday, like I need to do this, or I can do this once a week.
Kate: [00:01:04] So that’s what we’re going to do. So we have throughout our email and on our social and on our blog we’ve been teasing it out, so we can just start with an email and really just explaining the problem.
Kate: [00:01:17] And since you talk to your audience or even a friend that’s not on your email list, about it.
Kate: [00:01:22] “So I was talking to Cindy the other day and she was saying that one of the biggest things that is really dragging her down is that every single time she cleans her kitchen table, it just gets cluttered again, can you relate?”
Start by telling the story of the problem you’re solving
Kate: [00:01:33] It’s so frustrating. Like, I just cleaned that and now there’s no space to do anything! Which means now they’re eating in the living room. So you’re literally just like telling a story, guys.
Kate: [00:01:43] Which is why I’ve decided to create, and we can talk about naming things. But The Quick Clean Serenity House Checklist. And tomorrow I’m going to tell you how you can get it.
Kate: [00:01:55] Now, this is if you have not been talking about it at all before you sell. I always like to send one of those like pre-sell emails to kind of get the juicing going.
Kate: [00:02:04] You know, you’ve read this story. It was really really interesting. They definitely relate to the main character. You’re not necessarily selling, you’re selling the fact that you need open tomorrow’s email.
Kate: [00:02:14] So then tomorrow’s emails come and again you shout back from yesterday because sadly not everyone reads all of our emails. We wish.
Kate: [00:02:22] So yesterday I told you about Cindy and a kitchen table dilemma. Can you relate? Like a very short summary.
Kate: [00:02:27] Well today, I’m going to introduce you to your new best friend, The Superclean House Checklist, which will give you day by day and person by person handouts, so that your house is always as clean as it can be, and you can stop yelling at your family to pick up their mess.
Jillian: [00:02:43] Can we pause for just one second. I fall into this trap all the time, especially let’s say with MiloTree.
Jillian: [00:02:50] Which is, we’ve rolled out a new feature and I want to tell everybody about the feature, and where I am going wrong is I need to talk about the benefit, not the feature.
How to sell the benefits of your product and not the features
Kate: [00:03:05] And what’s really nice, and we’re going to use MiloTree because again, I’m a user and I love it.
Kate: [00:03:09] So you know, what you can start with, and this is like in your pre-writing so if you do a Google doc. So say that you can name a new feature and we can actually role play this in real life if you want. So we have this ability where people can do… blank.
Jillian: [00:03:27] So people get it, we’ll do it in real life. People can pick pages on their site and either turn off their MiloTree pop-up, like let’s say it’s a sales page and you don’t want this pop-up showing up. You can enter the URL and MiloTree won’t show.
Jillian: [00:03:42] Conversely, let’s say you only want to show your pop-up on a certain page. You can have it not show on every page of your site except for the pages you want. OK so that is the feature.
Kate: [00:03:56] I actually use this feature. OK. So guys, do this with your own stuff too, especially before you sell. Like OK so we can hide it from appearing on certain pages.
Kate: [00:04:16] So that means if someone is on your sales page they don’t get distracted. Yes so what. So that means that they stay focused. Yes, right. So that way they buy. OK. So if they buy now, you’re going to make more sale. People want more sales and you can keep going and going.
Kate: [00:04:33] It’s like OK so they get more sales and again you can go like that they get more money and MiloTree is like, paying for itself, like it understands that you don’t want someone to join your email list if they’re on your sales page because we want to keep people directed right now.
Kate: [00:04:50] So maybe, because I’m sure you’ve gotten this request or you yourself have noticed this as a blog owner and a business owner.
Kate: [00:04:57] And why would people want to have it on certain pages. So maybe they have their MiloTree set to a certain freebie that they have to join their email list, and say it is for healthy eating. But they also blog about exercise or like mommy tips, so stuff that’s not so relevant.
Kate: [00:05:20] So this is really great for our lifestyle bloggers. It’s like are they really going to want my healthy eating stuff when they’re looking for the best deals on fashion? Probably not.
Kate: [00:05:28] So this way you are not annoying the people on your site with things they don’t need.
Kate: [00:05:33] Now you’re showing that you’re caring so that you’re actually getting targeted people on your list. So that when you have a product to sell, you will be able to sell more because you are actually serving the need they have.
Kate: [00:05:45] So literally both times because we deal with usually people who are pro bloggers, and want to make money and not offend their audience. Both of those features now will help you sell more.
Jillian: [00:05:56] By the way I love the way you’re talking through this to the: “So then what. So then what. So then what.”
Jillian: [00:06:04] Because I will literally write something and then I’ll go back and go. Oh my god, I didn’t talk about the benefit at all.
Jillian: [00:06:13] And I like that you’re pushing me to go deeper, go deeper, go deeper. You know, “well, then what?”
Jillian: [00:06:19] And then I do this with my daughter, like she’ll have a fear and I’ll go. “And then what would happen? And then what would happen?” to show that there aren’t really monsters. If that makes sense?
Jillian: [00:06:31] But it’s that idea of like. “And then what?” And that I don’t think I dig deep enough to the benefit.
Kate: [00:06:37] Well, and a new way that you could do it. And this way I think would actually love is then like flip it. So in your email you would probably start off with: “New feature, You can now decide which pages MiloTree shows up on!”
Kate: [00:06:52] So instead, you could literally be like,”We know how hard it is for you to get people on your sales page and you want them to stay focused, intent and ultimately slap your buy button, which is why now with MiloTree you can decide what pages it’s showing up on so we can keep people on track. And you can better serve your pocketbook and your audience.
Jillian: [00:07:11] Love it. I mean it by the way I’m going to go back and I will literally write that down.
How to figure out the core benefit of your product
Kate: [00:07:18] And it’s the same with anything, guys, like why does it matter that you have a checklist? So that you don’t forget anything. Well so that everything gets done so that you don’t have that lingering feeling in her head. So that way you don’t think you’re done and then have to go back and actually start again.
Jillian: [00:07:38] I find it can go even deeper so that I have more time so I have more time with my family so I have more time for myself so that I can be happier in the world.
Kate: [00:07:49] That checklist is going to make it so you’re not arguing with your kid constantly about picking up.
Jillian: [00:07:52] Exactly and in fact at the core is love.
Kate: [00:07:56] Exactly.
Jillian: [00:07:56] So I can love my kid more.
Kate: [00:07:58] Exactly. There’s no tension and you can blame a checklist. They’re like, “Mom I don’t want to do it,” then you can be like: “Well the checklist on the wall says you have to so sorry honey.”
Jillian: [00:08:06] Exactly so. So again it’s like going back, going deep to those core things that we all want. We all want to love our families. We all want them to love us.
Jillian: [00:08:17] We want to have enough money so that we can be loving our families and not worrying. You know, so it’s like I feel like personally I need to push myself further and to really get at what is the benefit behind the benefit.
Kate: [00:08:36] Exactly. Or again with the MiloTree feature, we’re going to talk a lot about it because we both love it so much.
Kate: [00:08:42] To the subscriber, like functionality you don’t want it to show on your thank you page because it makes no sense. That you are asking them. To subscribe when they’ve already subscribed.
Kate: [00:08:51] So that’s their avoiding embarrassment by not being on the thank you pages.
Jillian: [00:08:54] Yes. OK. I love that. This is terrific.
Kate: [00:08:58] We can always come back for a whole copyrighting episode.
Jillian: [00:09:06] But by the way you are also a coach. I feel like I’m getting free coaching right here. So thank you.
Jillian: [00:09:14] OK. So let’s go back though to our organizer were where you got into the second email where you’re starting to talk.
Your second email in your sales sequence
Jillian: [00:09:21] You did a recap of the first email that you sent. This is the first time you’re introducing your product and you’re talking about the benefits.
Kate: [00:09:30] Exactly. So again it doesn’t have to be like a huge mile long email but you do want to highlight some features.
Kate: [00:09:37] So what are they going to be able to avoid. What are they going to be able to gain. How is it actually delivered. That’s actually usually like the end of the fact. So it’s like you know this is an electronic download so it’s instant you don’t have to worry about anything on the mail.
Kate: [00:09:50] You know you purposely made it printer friendly because while you love those pretty printables you do not love wasting money on ink.
Kate: [00:09:59] So a couple of times throughout that email. Usually I’d like to link to the sales page probably about three times.
Kate: [00:10:04] So usually when I am saying the product’s name because it doesn’t need a fancy schmancy name. I will have that just linked directly.
Kate: [00:10:13] So like I have my course “Love Your List” so anytime I set an email it’s linked.
Jillian: [00:10:17] Okay got it.
How to set up your call to action
Kate: [00:10:18] I have what I call a blatant sort of call to action. So what do you want them to do next.
Kate: [00:10:23] Where it’s actually like the link and you’re like, “Click here to snag your copy.”
Kate: [00:10:27] Now if this is the first time that you’re releasing something. I always encourage people to start a little bit slower.
Kate: [00:10:34] So I know everyone is like “Oh don’t discount your stuff” but you want to give the people that have been around you the longest. The benefit of like you know guys in two weeks is going to be $19 but since you’re already on my list you guys can get it for $10. As a nice reward.
Kate: [00:14:00] So the first time you’re rolling something out. I always say put it for a little less and then you can raise the price because then it also adds in that urgency.
Kate: [00:10:59] So the next email that you send will go right into the series like you first introduce that, the next one maybe you want to answer some frequently asked questions. This can be like a couple of days apart guys.
Kate: [00:11:09] I mean it’s not because it’s just a $19 ebook but you don’t have to sell it as hard as you would for like a two thousand dollar program or my five thousand dollar coaching package.
Kate: [00:11:18] So what you would then do after that is answer some frequently asked questions that people have.
How to speak to someone’s buying objections or yeah, but
Kate: [00:11:25] It can be a little bit about the printer but it’s more so you want to think about your frequently asked questions on how you can disrupt that, “Yeah, but” pattern.
Kate: [00:11:35] Yeah but I’m a clutter bug. So you want to answer any frequently questions like. So guys I’ve been getting a lot of questions and you know your industry about our fancy cleaner set.
Kate: [00:11:46] So question: “I’m a complete clutterbug and cannot stay organized to save my life, is this honestly going to help me?” and then you explain about how your system is specifically made for people who do not have the cleaning gene anywhere in their chromosomes.
Kate: [00:12:01] Okay so what’s another like “yeah, but” question you have? Yeah but, I can’t get my family to cooperate which is why we do have as an extra bonus — the colorful printer copies — that you can put up in every section of your home to remind you and your children. Did you check off your item for the day?
Kate: [00:12:17] And there’s even spots for stickers because now we’ve added that, “my kids won’t do this.” So this is where you want to use as opposed to like “How much does it cost?” “How many pages is it?”
Kate: [00:12:29] That stuff can be at the very bottom of your frequently asked questions. Do you have a return policy? You know, how do I actually get it?
Kate: [00:12:36] So you know that’s towards the bottom but we want to answer those like key “Yeah but” objections first.
Kate: [00:12:46] And the next email after that again depending if you decided to do price increases or not. I always like to give people a free sample of what they’ll get because in the online marketing space we like to call it, foreshadowing which is really they’re going to see what it feels like to actually have the product.
Kate: [00:13:02] So for you guys if it’s an ebook maybe it’s a couple of chapters, maybe it’s one checklist if it happens to be different than your freebie.
Kate: [00:13:09] Something, so they actually get ownership. And in that piece of paper that you’re giving them that free chapter you’re going to want to make sure at the bottom it tells people to go buy the book with a link to the sales page. That way they are not like “oh where did I get this from?”
Kate: [00:13:26] So for bloggers, a lot of us now are doing a lot more video courses. That’s my zone if you can’t tell because I love talking so much, like I will actually let people in my class port platform have like one free lesson.
Kate: [00:13:41] So they’re literally in the environment they can see the quality of the video they can hear me talking they can download to PDF, but if they click to go anywhere else where are they going?
Jillian: [00:13:51] To your sales page.
Kate: [00:13:52] And I’m still helping them because I’m still giving them value that other people are paying for. But since it’s such a little sliver nobody else who already bought is mad.
Jillian: [00:14:01] OK got it. And then you are giving value.
Kate: [00:14:07] And then the last one if you decide just to raise your price you can do it. “OK guys so tomorrow it’s going to be $19.99, popping in to that, if you did want to save this money” because you’ve been talking about it for a while now, “it’s here. Don’t worry guys. I’m not going anywhere.”
Kate: [00:14:24] Like reassuring people that even if they don’t buy you’re still going to be popping in their inbox weekly, biweekly if you’re really stretching it because I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been on people’s list where they’ll put you through a sale series like that and then they’ll just never talk to you again.
Kate: [00:14:41] Or they’ll only talk to you if they have like something else to sell and that’s a problem.
Kate: [00:14:46] Sell like money wise, guys, not like the fact that we’re awesome.
How to build momentum in your email sales funnel
Kate: [00:14:50] So that’s just something to think about and again you’re not going to do those all the time, but that’s just how you can start building momentum and hype.
Kate: [00:14:57] If other people had already purchased then take a little screenshots of people that bought, shout them out, just really make anyone who purchases feel really special and go ahead and use those into your emails as well.
Jillian: [00:15:11] So a couple questions. So let’s say I’m selling a ten dollar product. How many emails total would you put in this sequence?
Kate: [00:15:22] OK. Are you doing it like live or are you going to have it like going constantly all the time as well?
Jillian: [00:15:26] Well that is my next question, which is this idea of a cart and an open cart and a close cart. And what are your thoughts on that?
How to set up an open-close cart email sequence
Kate: [00:15:34] OK. So we can definitely talk about that. So something that’s small like an ebook, usually I say definitely anything honestly under $100 probably just leave open.
Kate: [00:16:19] With those, you do want to make sure that occasionally in your weekly newsletters, if you’re sending them in real time, that you are mentioning you have this product because somebody might not have had your first sequence set up when someone subscribed and they might not even know your product exists.
Jillian: [00:16:03] Right. Would you mention it in every email?
Kate: [00:16:05] Not in every email. If I linked to a lot of like themed months so I won’t necessarily come out and say to my list like, oh it’s productivity month. I mean in February I did. But in my head I’ll have set themes for the month of my email, which is the same as my blog, guys.
Kate: [00:16:24] So if I do have a product that relates to that and one or two of the -mails I’ll talk about it and throw it in sort of in the PS, like you know, PS if you’re really struggling with organization don’t forget to check this out.
Jillian: [00:16:37] Got it. That’s great.
Kate: [00:16:38] And then you know, another email in that series if you really thought to yourself, “I really would like to make more sales of this ten dollar ebook,” then maybe you want to feature a student who bought it or someone who was happy or a tag on social media, something like that.
Jillian: [00:16:53] So then OK. So if I’m selling a product. Hundred dollars or less. I should keep that open all the time.
Jillian: [00:17:01] Now tell me then about open cart closed cart.
Kate: [00:17:04] OK so open cart close cart. The reason why I say it needs to have a higher price tag is really if there is a live component.
Kate: [00:17:15] So I know some huge bloggers I’m sure if I name their names you’ve got to follow them, where they have larger courses that are again, that three four five hundred dollar mark and beyond.
Kate: [00:17:27] And they’ll leave it open all the time but they have more advanced software to like take away the course. Because having just like something for 2000 dollars just like sitting on your site you have people know it’s always there so no added urgency to you.
Jillian: [00:17:44] Yes. So by the way that concept is called scarcity, and we respond to things when they are taken away from us. It makes us go. And again it’s part of like FOMO.
Kate: [00:17:56] Exactly, the fear of missing out.
Kate: [00:17:58] So like my signature course it is open-close cart. So it is like absolutely everything I positively know about email marketing, writing, copywriting, creating easy yes offers, what I call little digital products, and to that I only open a couple of times a year because I really pour into those students.
Jillian: [00:18:17] How much do you charge?
Kate: [00:18:20] It’s usually $197. But it’s going to go up, because that’s another thing, every time I launch it goes up.
Kate: [00:18:27] Again, start lower. And then just sort of go from there. I’m going to skyrocket it.
Jillian: [00:18:33] How many times a year do you open and close it?
Kate: [00:18:36] So it is actually just opening in April for right now.
Kate: [00:18:40] You guys see this in real time and this is actually its first launch and with nothing y’all. I sold 40 spots though. It can’t happen, guys, and MiloTree is ginormous.
Kate: [00:18:52] So it’s having its official launch in April.
Jillian: [00:18:56] Okay wait, I just have to stop. It’s KateDoster.com.
Kate: [00:19:00] Yep.
Jillian: [00:23:40] Just putting a little plug in there.
Kate: [00:19:05] Oh I thank you. Yes. So Love Your List and LoveYourList.co. That’s the name of the course. So that’s opening up in mid April and I think it’ll open up again.
Kate: [00:19:14] We may have like a pop up sale this summer, but it’ll definitely be like closer to like September as well and we’ll see how it goes.
Kate: [00:19:20] But I have you know, other people call them passive income courses like ebooks I have a set of of email templates that’s available all the time that we make sales on every single day.
Kate: [00:19:31] My little mini course that took off and I never saw it coming was called Troubling for Traffic. That dude sells every day. Those are our lower priced items but I really poured myself into them, so that when my big things do come up people just buy it.
Jillian: [00:19:45] Did you make this course on Teachable?
Kate: [00:19:49] I am crazy y’all do not do this. I actually built my own course site using a plugin called Access Ally. Now it is expensive, it is cumbersome and if your’e not good at like web design and like tech or have team members to handle it then I wouldn’t advise it.
Teachable vs. Thinkific as a course platform
Kate: [00:20:09] I did that because I personally like the back end of things but for like 98 percent of people, I will say either go with Teachable or Thinkific, is actually my favorite choice because they will house all your videos, your PDFs.
Kate: [00:20:24] They’re not as pretty as Teachable but they pay you more promptly, so that’s fine.
Kate: [00:20:29] I tell all of my students, “Don’t do what I did, like it’s a headache. It is a headache.”
Jillian: [00:20:33] Okay, that’s good to know.
Kate: [00:20:34] Just go to like, thinkific and thinkific you can sell and teachable, both of them, very respectable. You can sell your books through them if you’re choosing to. Or you could do something like send owl is another one.
Kate: [00:20:46] Get DDP or get digital products that will sell it. But if you’re going for any videos that I would definitely go over thinkfic or teachable.
Jillian: [00:20:55] Perfect. Great. OK so your cart opens. Could you just briefly go through your sequence for from cart open to cart closed and how long is that window.
Kate: [00:21:09] Okay so. Always be testing. That’s another fun thing that you guys will find.
Kate: [00:21:15] So for this launch of Love Your List, its inaugural technical launch it is eight days.
Kate: [00:21:22] I don’t know if I’ll do one that long as well. But I have been talking about this course and prepping for it for like over a month so I am very very different.
Kate: [00:21:35] No offense to others other online marketers out there and that I am a straight shooter like you guys heard that disingenuous comment about “oh send the wrong link so you can get higher open rates” No.
Kate: [00:21:44] So like I literally told my list like, this is what I’m doing here. Here are my launch dates. Here’s my time. Here’s what I’m doing and I’m using it just as a case study to show people and they really reacted to it.
Kate: [00:21:56] Now your industries might be a little bit different so you might need to get them in the right frame of mind to be thinking about it.
Kate: [00:22:03] So if you are a lifestyle blogger and you are going to sell product and organization for some strange reason there’s that crossover then you want to launch the month before.
Kate: [00:22:12] Like maybe 4 weeks leading into that, really start sharing content and concepts around what your bigger course is so that way people are in the frame of mind and you’re not just slapping them with this offer from no time.
Kate: [00:22:24] So that’s a prelaunch. It doesn’t have to be a lot of stuff, guys. I know a lot of us since we’re bloggers we have huge archives so it can just be you revamping old pieces around that topic.
Kate: [00:22:34] So like if you’re going to sell a Pinterest course then all your Pinterest posts on your blog you are going to make them nice and shiny and you’re going to hit that resend button to Google and just make them great.
Kate: [00:22:46] And then that’s what you can start talking about to your list and then you open your cart. So there’s a lot of work if you’re doing an open close and it’s a higher priced item that goes in before. So that way when the cart actually open it’s not as much work.
Kate: [00:23:01] And so throughout that launch. Like when the cart is open it is about like building hype and really showing people that they’re making a right decision and that they need to be decisive.
Jillian: [00:23:12] And so are you sending emails every day?
Kate: [00:23:17] Towards the end of cart open I am going to be, but I’m going to be sending at least every other day.
Kate: [00:23:25] So like when the way that this particular launch is structured and this is again when you guys get to the stage, don’t think you have to do this for a little book and not a little book.
Kate: [00:23:35] Your first product, do not do this. OK. Don’t be defiant.
How to add extra urgency to your open cart sequence
Kate: [00:23:39] So what I have in there to add extra urgency and scarcity as we talked about is I have different milestones in my cart open.
Kate: [00:23:47] So for example my cart officially opens on a Thursday. Odd I know, but that’s the day I picked.
Kate: [00:23:50] On Saturday I have a bonus that’s going away and I made sure it’s really a great bonus that everyone would be like I need to have that.
Kate: [00:24:01] So that gives me a reason to email on that Saturday and be like look like this master class that I’m running. It’s going away. So if you want it you got to buy it now.
Kate: [00:24:11] So that’s going away for this particular launch, though not for every launch. I do have the price increase because I wanted to give early birds.
Kate: [00:24:18] So there’s another reason to email the prices going up and then mid cart on that next Wednesday because my cart closes on a Friday. I have one more disappearing bonus.
Kate: [00:24:30] Because what ends up happening, especially if you guys do these live launches is you’ll get a lot of sales at the beginning and a lot at the end, in those mid days you might get no sales whatsoever.
Kate: [00:24:41] Don’t be sad because that happens to everyone. Everyone will say that. And then those last couple of days that’s when you’re really sending those emails some people sent three times a day.
Kate: [00:24:53] I wouldn’t necessarily send three times a day to all of my list. I would definitely have like two scheduled and the third one would be to people who I can tell from my email service provider who have clicked on the link and gone to the sales page or whatever reason didn’t buy.
Kate: [00:25:10] And just like talk about some things about the “yeah, but” questions like we’ve been talking about, reiterating them.
Jillian: [00:25:17] And I like to call that like friction points. Points where there is friction and you want to smooth that out so that people will buy.
Jillian: [00:25:26] Exactly. Because the worst thing that you can send guys is like say your cart is closing on a Friday. You don’t want your e-mails on you know Wednesday Thursday and Friday to be like there’s only 48 hours left. There’s only 24 hours left. There’s like 12 hours left. There’s only two hours left. That’s not a really good selling point.
Jillian: [00:25:47] You need to think to yourself why wouldn’t have someone bought at this point in time. What do I need to address?
Kate: [00:25:53] And that’s how you’re always going to keep it interesting and fresh that you know one of those emails could be a case study of a student.
Kate: [00:25:59] Oee of those could be like we talked about, our sneak peek of the course. One of them could you really be talking about like some other things going on and then you know a couple of them could be like, Oh yeah on the carts closing.
Jillian: [00:26:10] What I really like about this is you’ve got your product. But then you are coming at it from all different angles with your email.
Kate: [00:26:20] Yeah the way that I like to think about any product. I don’t know how nerdy your audience is but if you guys played, and I got this thing from LifeHacker ages ago.
Kate: [00:26:33] If you guys ever played Mario. You know how you get that little flower and it makes you look super big and you could shoot fireballs and it makes you amazing.
Jillian: [00:26:41] Yes.
Kate: [00:26:42] Your product is the flower but your Super Mario.
Jillian: [00:26:46] OK explain that.
Kate: [00:26:47] You want to show them how awesome they are going to be after they get your product.
Presenting your product as a catalyst to a better life
Kate: [00:26:55] You know, like your product is just a catalyst. You are not selling them on your stuff as much as that sounds. You’re selling them on the relief and the after.
Kate: [00:27:03] Your person is always the star. And yet again you always put your people first in your mind. You’ll be able to address those things that you know 80 percent of people who sell the same thing you do don’t. So you stand out because a lot of people only scratched the surface.
Jillian: [00:27:20] I love that and again it goes back to the benefit behind the benefit behind the benefit. And at the core what you’re saying is it’s the purchaser feeling good about him or herself.
Jillian: [00:27:34] And feeling like a star, feeling like their life is better. They are better their relationships are like everything is like bright and shiny.
Kate: [00:27:44] Yeah I know a lot of people tend to come at marketing with like: “If you don’t buy those you’re like a stupid idiot face and you’re gonna die alone and your cat is going to eat your face.” That’s not the way that I do my marketing at all at all and it doesn’t need to be that way.
Kate: [00:27:57] Guys it doesn’t need to be that way.
Jillian: [00:27:59] OK. Right. But it’s the opposite. You buy my product. Your life is better you’re better. Everything’s shinier. You know.
Kate: [00:28:08] Exactly. Here’s one email that I think most people would never send because people don’t typically tell you this sweet insider information for free.
Kate: [00:28:17] But you guys all should know, is you need to be able to give your subscribers your audience some forgiveness.
Kate: [00:28:26] Meaning not like forgiving them for not buying from you. Not that. For themselves. Because when you address the fact that, “look, I know that you’re reading other organizational sites I know that you probably have a garage full of Container Store stuff. I know that I’m not the first person that you have come to to make this problem stick. That’s exactly why I created this fabulous organization toolkit the way that I did.”
Kate: [00:28:53] And then they are like “my goodness she gets me!” Cause. Go figure. The person that gets them is the one that gets their money.
Jillian: [00:28:58] Yes. Yes.
Kate: [00:29:01] Show them that you get them. You know I always talk about a lot and in my course Love Your List, we talked about treating the symptoms in business you’ll hear a lot about people like oh like spinning their wheels like what does that physically look like.
Kate: [00:29:13] Well for us you know myself and Jillian, it is people like stalking their competitors websites in the middle of the night in the dark rather than working on their own product.
Kate: [00:29:22] That’s what spinning a wheel looks like. It is trolling and Facebook groups to answer questions when really they should be working on their own stuff.
Kate: [00:29:28] You know what I mean like how does stuff actually show up and you’ll just you’ll write the best emails ever guys best emails ever.
Talk about fallibility in your sales sequence
Jillian: [00:29:35] OK so what you’re saying is talking to all of our fallibility. From a real place like, I’m confessing in this in this conversation where I fail.
Jillian: [00:29:49] So if you say to me I bet you you’re not selling the benefits because we all fall in love with our features. I get it. And here here’s why.
Jillian: [00:29:59] So that all of a sudden I go, Oh she totally gets me. So I’m not a failure. I’m doing this thing and I’m trying but I might not be like hitting the mark. So you’re going to help me get there right without being judge-y.
Kate: [00:30:12] Yep. You just weren’t given the right tools. You weren’t given the right methods. But this is going to give them to you.
Jillian: [00:30:18] Totally. And to be honest with you I always find like when I can confess my sins. I feel better.
Jillian: [00:30:26] And the fact that you’re not judging me or making me feel bad, like I should have known this makes me feel good. So oh my god.
Kate: [00:30:36] And when you make people feel good. They’ll give you their money.
Jillian: [00:30:40] Absolutely.
Kate: [00:30:42] That’s what everyone always says: “You just make it seem so approachable and fun” and like well because it is fun.
Jillian: [00:30:46] Right. Great.
Kate: [00:30:47] It’s just the mentality that you go in there with that brain.
Jillian: [00:30:51] It is about if you can lift somebody up. Yeah. Then they will pay you to make you make them feel good.
Kate: [00:30:58] And of course you know if you have 100 people on your list, like all of those you know I don’t know 70 other people because they you had an amazing close right you know didn’t buy like that’s fine and guys it’s OK, we will still help them.
Kate: [00:31:11] We’re still going to get more people like that’s why I think some people forget like they’ll launch one thing once in the like, oh my goodness I can never launch it again because only five people bought out of a thousand.
Kate: [00:31:21] Well between now and then you’re going to get more than a thousand new people.
Jillian: [00:31:25] Right. Right. Right.
How often to open and close your cart per year?
Jillian: [00:31:27] So so how often do you recommend people open and close a cart. How many times a year?
Kate: [00:31:34] I think that it depends really on you and your program. Obviously some people maybe they could tie their courses to different times of the year.
Kate: [00:31:47] For example most people tend there’s like I’m going to just name names so there’s like Marie and she has B School and she just is February.
Kate: [00:31:54] I think she’s playing a little bit off the fact that like people have New Year’s resolutions and January you know February the nice time to start with your business.
Kate: [00:32:02] Then you’ve got some people like Todd Herman who does 90 Day Year and again these are very high priced courses and he does his twice a year, and he does it again like that December where everyone wants to be better.
Kate: [00:32:15] And then he does it you know mid year in like June or July. So that way people are like first half of year didn’t go that well that’s why it’s this.
Kate: [00:32:26] One of my friends she does hers about three times a year so almost with the seasons kind of avoiding summer.
Kate: [00:32:31] But this is where it comes to like knowing your people, like I don’t think that I would do a full fledged launch of Love Your List at the very end of November beginning of December.
Kate: [00:32:41] Because in my audience, even though my courses are substantially lower than most, people aren’t ready to invest that much in themselves then.
Kate: [00:32:50] But like October, September is a really great time. You know if you’re helping you know PTA parents and back to school moms and that sort of thing, like know your personal cycle.
Kate: [00:33:01] And again you make a big hurrah in your house. So how much can your family withstand. I would say do a giant launch you know every single month like that would be crazy.
Kate: [00:33:14] You can do little promotions here and there obviously. But usually for big launches no more than once a quarter. So no more than once every three months.
Jillian: [00:33:22] Great. Oh Kate, this has been so so rich, so deep.
Jillian: [00:33:29] I feel like I have learned so much from you. Thank you. So thank you for the free consulting session. I’m going to literally go back and write all this stuff down.
Jillian: [00:33:41] So please share how people can reach out to you how they can learn more about your course.
Jillian: [00:33:49] Your blog is filled with really good information.
Kate: [00:33:55] All right. So the very first way and the best way to get in contact with me of course you can go to my general website KateDoster.com.
Kate: [00:34:03] But I want to make sure since you guys are podcast listeners that you were actually listening to my podcast. I have a weekly podcast called Inbox Besties. Go figure.
Kate: [00:34:13] We talk all about email marketing all that goodness. Occasionally we have guest come on. So definitely, right now while you’re in your podcast player search for Inbox Besties or just my name and it will show up.
Kate: [00:34:24] And I’m sure we’ll have a link in the show notes. So you definitely want to get in on that sweet action.
Kate: [00:34:28] But if you’re worried and you do not know what to send your email list. I have two years worth of e-mail ideas. They work for any industry. They are just prompts.
Kate: [00:34:38] If you head on over to KateDoster.com/2years. So literally just the number two. And then right next to it the word years and that’ll give you that so you don’t have to worry about what to send your list until 2020 y’all.
Kate: [00:34:51] Which is pretty exciting stuff to send and that’s completely free. My course is called Love Your List.
Kate: [00:34:58] And if it’s not open right now guys which it might not be, you never know, you can hand over to LoveYourList.co and get on the VIP wait list.
Kate: [00:35:07] So I have a couple of extra goodies for people to hold them over through launches.
Kate: [00:35:11] Occasionally I will do like a little like pop up like, oh it’s going to be coming out like you guys I’m going to one day sale as opposed to the rest of my list. Who wouldn’t get that?
Kate: [00:35:20] So those are probably the best places to get a hold of me.
Kate: [00:35:24] KateDoster.com/2years. And then of course the Inbox Besties podcast.
Jillian: [00:35:30] Wonderful. Kate it has been such a pleasure to talk to you. Thank you so much.
Kate: [00:35:37] And only scratched the surface like I said, I could literally talk about this all day.
Jillian: [00:35:42] We’ll do a part two.
Kate: [00:35:44] All right. Sounds good to me.
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