Liz Wilcox's Secrets: Elevating Your Email Marketing Game for Business Growth

How do you turn your email list into loyal buyers not just followers? That's the magic Liz Wilcox, the 'Fresh Princess of Email Marketing', brings to the table.

With her unique 'email staircase' methodology, she's breaking ground in the world of email marketing.

Join our enlightening conversation as we navigate the importance of email marketing in business, especially in today's world where digital platforms can crumble overnight.

Gain insights on:

✅️  How to own your audience, and learn why it's crucial to have your own email list.
✅️  Why email marketing not only promises high return on investment but also fosters a profound connection with subscribers.

We go beyond just building an email list. Liz teaches us to craft effective welcome emails, the significance of embracing unsubscribes, and the importance of delivering on your promises.

We're also sharing how to create compelling content that lands directly in the inboxes of your ideal clients, all in less than 20 minutes.

We dive deep into the do's and don'ts of email marketing, emphasizing on the power of being simple and direct.

Tune in to this episode full of practical strategies and discover how the right approach to email marketing can revolutionize your business strategy.

Connect with Liz on Instagram or join Email Marketing Membership!

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Wicky, wicky, what, oh my gosh, I feel like I should be spending on a turn table. Today's episode. I have the fresh princess of email marketing, liz Wilcox. Liz is an email strategist and keynote speaker showing small businesses how to build online Relationships, package up their magic and turn it into emails that people want to read and, most importantly, purchase from them. So if you are wanting to use email marketing in your business, then keep listening.

Speaker 1: 0:31

Hey you, your next level of expansion is here and you're not going to accomplish it through hustle and grind oh no, not you. You allow ease and flow to come through you so that you can manifest the business of your dreams. Welcome to the Align Business Woman podcast, where you get to be in flow and allow your strategic CEO to meet your inner goddess. This is the podcast for female entrepreneurs who want to strengthen their intuition muscle while applying simple and practical business growth strategies to accelerate. We'll combine Energetics and strategy, along with human design and your gene keys, to optimize your business performance and results.

Speaker 1: 1:20

Welcome to another episode of the Align Business Woman podcast. Vanessa, here I have a very special guest that I'm really geeking out about and I'm trying not to show it to her Over video as we are recording this right now, because I just absolutely Love the community that she has created for email marketing membership, and so, if you are hearing that and you're like, oh my gosh, is this Liz Wilcox? Yes, I have Liz Wilcox here on it podcast today where we talk about email marketing. So I'm so excited, liz, thank you for being here. How are you doing?

Speaker 2: 1:57

Oh my gosh, I'm doing so much better with that lovely introduction. Thanks, vanessa. I'm thrilled to be here and, no, I don't think everybody knows me yet. So, what's up, I'm Liz, I live in Orlando, florida, and nobody geeks out over electronic mail more than me, so I can't wait to get into it today.

Speaker 1: 2:19

You know it's so funny. I had someone on my podcast last season and I was like, oh my gosh, you know Liz will class. Like, yes, we're all like, oh my gosh, we love the email marketing membership. The community that you created is such a valuable asset and before we got on here, I did Instagram stories as like. This is the best $9 a month. Well, I know I upgraded, but this is like the best money that I spent in my business to create flow and ease and just really allow my nervous system to relax so that I know that I'm creating this content that gets directly into the hands of my ideal client. So thank you for creating this community For people that are really into social media and thinking that social media is where they're going to get a lot of conversion or, you know, that's where they really need to build their home on. Can you give us some facts about why email marketing is important to have in your business?

Speaker 2: 3:15

Yeah. So raise your hand if you were alive in 2022. And you remember some billionaire buying a social media platform and then that platform started to implode upon itself. Right, raise your hand if you know what I'm talking about. I won't name names, but you know that was a very real thing. So if you had built your entire business and a lot of writers, journalists, certain types of businesses did on that platform with the little bird, you might be in hot water in 2023.

Speaker 2: 3:52

So it's really important to have your own email list so that, if and when we never, we never could have predicted that somebody could buy a gigantic, you know social media platform, but it happened. So having your own email list is owning that email list is, you know, these people consented to hear from you and you can take those people with you, whether or not you decide to use MailChimp today and Active Campaign tomorrow. Of course, vanessa and I were talking behind the scenes before we hit record. And also, it gets a high, a high ROI you can get. You know, for every dollar you spend, you can get 40. I think the percentage is like $42 for every dollar or something like that. But that's because and I think this speaks to you and you know Vanessa's people in general are in particular because people consented to be on your email list. Yes, I want to hear what Vanessa has to say. This aligns with me, I'm into it and with email marketing. That's why you see that high ROI. That's why I can, you know, boldly claim you know Facebook ads be darned. You know you're going to get 40 bucks on your return here because those people consented. It's very much. They're saying yes, this is an alignment with me, so that's why email has a high ROI. And then, last, of course, for me in particular, why I started leaning really heavily into email, is because I realized I could make real connections.

Speaker 2: 5:29

Social media is very surface level, right. It's very oh, you know, I want to hit the like button. I want to get that dopamine. Even this morning, I told my sister yeah, I'm going to make an Instagram reel. I'm not feeling good about myself, so I know if some people comment on it, I'll start to feel better. Right, and it's just a very surface level thing, but with email it's this intimate connection. You can truly get to know your subscribers. You know the people that open, read, click, buy, reply. Those are the people that, oh my gosh. They're just so energetically aligned with you that you know you're going to build this business that you super duper love. Like Vanessa said, with the email marketing membership my $9 a month membership that community is very active, very fun. I often get comments about it because it is that very much like hey, I got to know these people on my email list and I just gave them exactly what they wanted. And that's the power of email. There's no guessing.

Speaker 1: 6:35

And I love that just the energy and the heart that you bring to email marketing membership. I feel that before I joined, I feel like I'm a pretty good copywriter. I just wanted to. Really, there was just part of me that kind of second guest and just wanted a template just to make things a lot easier, because I was doing a lot of different content out there, and so one thing that I noticed with the email marketing membership is that the templates you give us, I can easily connect the dots and how I can repurpose it for other platforms. So you saved me a crap ton of time.

Speaker 1: 7:13

But what I wanted to mention was that I go to the coaching calls that you do to be in your energy, because I just love the way you lead that community. It just feels really darn good to be in your energy, and so I appreciate that you created this. And so tell me when we're getting these templates. Well, not everyone's getting these templates, but pretty soon. Everyone listening. You better go into email marketing membership because it's like the best again, the best $9 you'll ever spend we have. You had said that you can spend literally 20 minutes a week creating emails. So how do we do that Like how is that possible for someone that feels like they're not the best copywriter or they're getting this is new to them?

Speaker 2: 7:55

Yeah, so one of the reasons I was so excited to come on this podcast is because you know you're listening, you get it. It's all about the energy, it's all about just finding the right people, not the maximum amount. So when I talk about writing a newsletter in 20 minutes or less, when I talk about finding those, you know, energetically aligned people, it can be really simple. So I follow something called the email staircase. That's sort of my methodology and it's you know. First you have a follower, you get them on your list and then you have a friend and once you have a list full of friends, you can have a list full of customers. So, follower, friend, customer we're just climbing that staircase. So how can we create this list of friends and how can we do it really quickly? Just a few things. Number one just show you're invested in people. This is the same with friendships you know in real life, right? The people that we align ourselves with are the people that we know are invested in them as much as we're invested you know, or as much as they're invested in us. So show, first and foremost, you know that you are invested in them. What is your vision for them? Right, my vision for you is that you make money with email. I don't care about your social media, you know, I don't know what you do when you turn the computer off, but all I care about for you in regards to this relationship is that you make money with email, and so I'm constantly in my emails just telling people. You know, hey, I watched this one hour webinar so you don't have to. You know, here are my three takeaways. Really simple stuff, but just showing that I'm invested in them, I'm invested in my business, is going to help them invest back into you.

Speaker 2: 9:34

The second thing is just share in a relatable way. A lot of people might have come on this podcast and told you oh, and your emails just tell stories. Stories connect. You know you tell the right stories and you're going to get the right people and sure that's okay. But you know, vanessa and I might call ourselves good writers, but you probably don't, right? You might think, oh well, you know I get so nervous when I have to tell a story. Nothing in my life is interesting. But I don't want you to be interesting, I want you to be relatable. So just share a quick personal update two to three sentences about something you've done since the last time you spoke to that person. So you know it might be.

Speaker 2: 10:15

I was on a podcast, it might be. You know the new in sync song came out and I've been listening to it on repeat. That's incredibly relatable, I mean to my, to my, like TikTok and Instagram feeds, it is anyway, you know, just something super simple. And notice, you know, vanessa started laughing when I mentioned that in sync thing. It's incredibly relatable.

Speaker 2: 10:38

But no, I didn't have to go on this long story about. I opened my cell phone and there it was the moment. I've been waiting 20 plus years for the 12 year old girl inside of me. You know, like nobody cares, it's a newsletter, not a novel. Just get to the point. So you know you can do that in two to three sentences. And then the third thing is just stay top of mind. Just don't forget to email the same way in a real friendship. If you fell off the planet for six months after meeting someone, they probably wouldn't feel that connected or aligned with you, right? So again, just show you're invested, share in a relatable way and stay top of mind. Those are, that's the sort of content you should be putting into your emails in order to write them quickly and get connected quickly with people.

Speaker 1: 11:27

Thank you for sharing that. Yeah, you definitely simplify everything in there, and when I'm coaching people inside my accelerator, it's like let's simplify things to reduce the stress on your frontal lobe so that you can be able to enjoy life, and so thank you for this resource. So tell me, though, like there's that 20 minutes of creating, you know, these weekly newsletters, is that included? Include creating the subject lines? Like, tell me about how do we create really good subject lines so the emails get open?

Speaker 2: 11:59

Sure. So I'm gonna challenge Vanessa here and you at, you know, listening at home about the subject line. So the the most important line for you is actually the from line. It's from Vanessa, it's from Liz Wilcox oh my gosh, I can't believe. She sent me something. I wonder what it is. And when you're so energetically aligned with your customers, potential customers it doesn't really matter what the subject line is. They're gonna open it because it's from you. It's the same as a regular mailbox. You know, oh, that's spam, that's an electric bill. Open that later. Oh my gosh, vanessa sent me something. I wonder what it is. I have to open it right away.

Speaker 2: 12:42

So if you can get that from line and we just talked about how to do that, to how to turn followers into friends, to get them there Then the subject line you can kind of. You know it can be hit or miss and people will still open it up. But to answer Vanessa's question, I want you to write the email first and then think, if I was just sending this to Vanessa, if I was just sending this to Liz, what would the subject line be? Remember, I'm turning followers into friends. So if this was just an email to one person, to my most ideal Client, or you know that one buddy who really cheers me on who's really? You know we are on the same wavelength here, baby. What would that subject line be?

Speaker 2: 13:23

So, instead of maybe something SEO base, where you know the three things I learned you know this week, it might be, you know, do you know about this yet? Question mark that's something I would send a real friend if I saw something on Facebook and I wanted to. You know an article on Facebook and I wanted to share it with my audience because it made sense. The subject line might be you know, saw this on Facebook, thought of you, right. So thinking about the subject line only after you write the email is really gonna help you, and remembering you know you're just sending this to the person who's most aligned with you, so write the subject line for that person and you're gonna be golden.

Speaker 1: 14:04

I Love that because there's so many Resources out there saying do three hot tips for this. And you're right, it's not. I wouldn't send that to my friend unless I was forwarding an article or something, so I love that. Thank you for that tip. What is the most common thing that we do? That is incorrect when it comes to writing our welcome emails.

Speaker 2: 14:26

Yeah, talking too much, of course. I mean, I know I'm guilty of that, I'm already. As we're doing this, I'm like oh, Liz, you didn't need to say that, you didn't need to say that, right, so you know, it's the curse of being human. So in our welcome sequence in particular, remember we're following that email staircase follower to friend. They're not our friends yet, so we don't want to say too much. We don't want to give away everything all at once. They just said yeah, I'm interested. You know I like your freebie or you know, whatever you're offering, let me see. You know if we're going to be friends. And so, especially in that first email, you want to get in and out as soon as possible.

Speaker 2: 15:07

The biggest mistake I see is everybody oh, this is my life story and this is how I get into it and look at my degrees and the background and you know just anything right. But what you really want to do is just deliver on what you promised. If that's some kind of lead magnet, opt-in coupon, whatever right, say, hey, you signed up for X, here's X, and then just give a little preview of your personality and maybe even the vision you have for people. Oh, but you know, a quick intro. It would be like you know, if you're meeting at a conference and you know the speaker's about to start talking, what would you say to that person who just introduced themselves?

Speaker 2: 15:46

For me it's oh, by the way, I'm Liz Wilcox. As much as I love the 90s, I love the idea of you making money with email even more. Okay, gotta go. Enjoy, you know. Enjoy the download, right. And so what would that look like for you? You know, as much as I love X and X is a little bit of that personality, that piece that's going to help your people say, say like, oh, yes, vanessa's for me, liz is for me, in sync is for me, right? What is that little piece? And then, what's your vision? What do you want for them more than anything? Just share that in one sentence and then get the heck out of there.

Speaker 1: 16:26

Yeah, and you also trained us on how to be just be really direct and like. This is why you signed up. You still want this, and so tell us before we wrap up why is it important to go ahead and be okay with people unsubscribing to your email list by sending emails like that.

Speaker 2: 16:45

Yeah, so you only want people on your list that like you and are going to buy from you, whether that's right now or later. You pay for your email list, right? And you work really, you know, you work really, really hard. Maybe you even have a full time job and you do this on the side, right? I don't want you to waste your breath and I don't want you to send emails to people that don't want them.

Speaker 2: 17:12

And going back to what we said at the top of the hour about email being consent based, so yep, I sign the form, I get on the bus, right? That's my way of getting on your email list. Well, I might, you know, we might turn down a lane and I realize, oh, actually, I didn't want to go to this football game, right? I don't want to go to this concert, let me off, let me off. That's why it's, you know, illegal not to have an unsubscribe button. It's consent based, right? So if people want to get off the bus, we should let them, because it leaves more room for you to be more of yourself, for you to share more of your personality, who you want to be aligned with, right, and you can get those correct people on your list. We don't want anybody on the bus that doesn't want to be there. And so, while I know list building is really hard and you work really hard to get all those subscribers, when you send an email from the heart, when you lead with that personality, when you show your invested and relatable, you stay top of mind.

Speaker 2: 18:11

Every email should feel like, yes, I'm going in the right direction. And when people unsubscribe, it should just be a signal to you of, yep, I'm going in the right direction, but these people don't want to come with me, and that's okay Because, again, it's all about energy, it's all about consent, and if you're going this way and they're not that committed, or if they decided, oh, that's not the direction I want to go, we should release our little dubs back into the wild. Right? We should never keep someone there for the sake of our ego. Right? We only want those right people who are going to be energetically aligned and also eventually want our products or our services, right, that are on the journey to that solution. So I hope that helps you feel better about unsubscribes the next time you get them For sure.

Speaker 1: 19:04

I remember when I first started email marketing, oh my gosh, my newsletters were the worst. I had so many CTAs, I had so many graphics, probably a couple of different brands I was talking about, and went email because I had multiple businesses, and so whenever someone would unsubscribe, I like, oh, that hurt, like I could feel it in my stomach. I'm like, oh, that hurt my feelings. But now I'm like, bah, felicia, no, but seriously, I'm like, well, that's okay, because when you're describing it like the analogy of a bus, when they leave that seat, I can allow someone that wants to continue with me open up that seat for them. So I love that. It's like you free things so that you can allow the universe to bring you the right people. Totally, that's awesome. Thank you for that analogy, okay.

Speaker 1: 19:50

So I want to talk about email marketing really quickly, or email marketing membership really quickly. This is why I love it and I want you to tell me something that I might be missing from the benefits of being in it. So I love it because you, your energy, the monthly coaching calls that you do that's always fun to watch. You. You're just, you know you leave with grace and you're just so funny, it's so convenient because I get weekly emails, templates and a five minute quick like this is how you use it, like I don't have to spend a lot of time doing it. I plug and play. You help me develop the skill and that muscle of being consistent with my email marketing and then, just from my perspective, I also can get that content and I can repurpose it for stories and other things. But there's more to the email marketing membership that I'm probably not including. Is there something else that I'm missing from there, from other people's perspectives?

Speaker 2: 20:47

Yeah, so you mentioned the templates. You also. You get a library of content. So it's not just you know, one week you get one template, you get access to all the other templates you know I've ever published. They're sorted by do you need to get your click rate up? Do you need replies? Are you pre-selling something? Are you trying to sell something? There's flash sale templates in there. There's foundational trainings like the email staircase. I go way more in depth with that. You need help with list building. There's a training there as well.

Speaker 2: 21:19

But I think for, like you listening right now, I and this might be a bit, I don't know, hashtag humble brag, not so humble brag, I don't know I feel so aligned with what I'm doing. There's a reason why it's $9, right, and I've argued with my business coach at Nazium about upping the price. It's been almost three years. I have absolutely no plans on upping the price, and so I think what Vanessa, when she says, oh, I like to come to the live Q and A's and things, is because it's very much you get to see a person. And again, this is tuning my own horn, but I'm going to do it because I think you guys will get it.

Speaker 2: 22:00

I'm very much in alignment and I and I'm noticing a lot of people like Vanessa say, oh, you know, I stay in the membership. I feel more confident with email and I don't always use the templates, but I stay in the membership because I I'm seeing how you're building a community and not, like I don't know, selling yourself out, like you're very much. Who you see on the website is who I see on the zoom call, is who I hear on the podcast, is who I see on Instagram, etc. So you see someone who really is truly in alignment. And y'all this took me a long time. This is my seventh year in business. I'm going on eight years and I've built three businesses and I also own a fourth business.

Speaker 2: 22:45

So this is not like my first go, but you can see how I really, you know, lean into my values, how I stay firm. And now that the the membership's at about 4,000 people and I'll tell you, come to those live Q&As and someone will challenge me, someone will ask me a question, you know, and I'm getting a little, even heated talking about it Like, why do you have it this way? Or I wish it was this way, or I don't like this, liz, and so now you get to see this person growing this business, having it skit. It's very much scaling actively as we speak, where we're recording this October 2023. And so you get to see how I react to those, how I still lean into my values and how I stay firm even with challenges, and how I tend to win those people over anyway. So it's something that I've worked really, really hard for it's.

Speaker 2: 23:41

You know, it's $9 for a reason. I don't want to up the price. I won't up the price. You know I don't take client work. My membership really is everything to me and I just love being able to show people what's possible. That's my personal definition of success is to show people what's possible, and I'm really like on a mission to show people. You can, you know, have a seven figure business with a low ticket offer and I'm really, really close and I'd love for you to join me to see it actively work out and, of course, to get all the benefits of the actual membership, which is amazing. I love my membership. Thank you so much for letting me go off on my cell box.

Speaker 1: 24:25

Oh no, I love that. Yes, I love your membership too. It's like my favorite, so thank you so much for being here. Okay, now I promise this is the last question. What are you reading or listening to on Audible, because we already know that you're listening to the in sync song on the radio.

Speaker 2: 24:40

Yeah, so I am not reading anything. I've never read anything on Audible. I actually haven't read a book in many a moon, at least four or five years. I follow a really low information diet so I try not to consume. I definitely am more of a producer, so I haven't. I don't even remember the last book I read, to be honest.

Speaker 1: 25:03

Oh my gosh, that's so amazing. I need to get into that space. I need to look up your human design chart so I can see how. I'll send it to you oh my gosh, I'm awesome, but thank you so much for being here is such an honor. I appreciate you being on the podcast and I'm going to make sure that I drop the link so everyone knows how to connect with you on Instagram, Facebook and then inside the email marketing membership. Thank you so much, Liz, for being here.

Speaker 2: 25:26

Yeah, thanks, friends.

Speaker 1: 25:27

All right, bye, bye. I'll see you guys next time on the next episode of the aligned business woman. Bye, bye. Thank you for joining me on this episode of the aligned business woman podcast. I'm your host, vanessa Ann Miller, and I'm so excited to share some things with you. Head over to the show notes so you can grab your free gift and make sure to leave a review and join me inside the aligned business woman Facebook group Until next week, but I love.