Imperfect Marketing
Imperfect Marketing
Stop Being Afraid of Being Annoying
Stop Being Afraid of Annoying People: Just Send the Email
In this episode of Imperfect Marketing, I sit down (solo!) to talk about one of the biggest email marketing myths: the fear of being annoying. If you've ever hesitated to send emails to your list because you don’t want to "bother" people—this one’s for you.
I’m sharing real client stories and lessons from my own experience with weekly emails, including how I got over my own fears and how email marketing has driven serious growth for my business.
We discuss:
The Fear Factor in Email Marketing
- Why being afraid to send emails is holding your business back
- How unsubscribes can actually help your business
- What it really means to add “value” in your emails
Real Stories, Real Results
- A client who started emailing weekly and saw direct replies and engagement
- Why staying top of mind matters, even with a 24-month sales cycle
- How relatable personal stories (yes, even stubbing your toe!) build stronger connections
Strategies to Stay Consistent and Relevant
- How weekly emails turned my “sometimes” list into a revenue generator
- My approach to writing emails that feel like coffee chats, not sales pitches
- The “Homework for Life” technique to never run out of stories
Key Takeaways for Email Marketers
- Unsubscribes = market research, not rejection
- Email marketing doesn’t have to be epic—everyday stories connect best
- Consistency is more important than perfection
- Your audience wants to hear from you—don’t make that decision for them
Whether you're new to email marketing or trying to get back on track, this episode is your permission slip to show up, send the email, and stop worrying about being annoying.
Are you ready to ditch the fear and grow your business through simple, authentic emails? Tune in and find out how.
Connect with Kendra Corman
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kendracorman/
Website: KendraCorman.com
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Hi, I'm Kendra Korman. If you're a coach, consultant or marketer, you know marketing is far from a perfect science, and that's why this show is called Imperfect Marketing. Join me and my guests as we explore how to grow your business, with marketing tips and, of course, lessons learned along the way. Hello, and welcome back to another episode of Imperfect Marketing. I'm your host, Kendra Korman, and today I'm really excited to be talking to you about how to stop being afraid that you're going to be annoying and just send the emails. Right, that's the key here, because I get this complaint all the time. Well, I don't want to annoy people, I don't need any more email. Therefore, I don't send any emails to my prospects, my clients, my referral partners, you name it. The regular weekly emails, or monthly emails or bi-monthly emails just aren't happening, and that's not good. I have a client who finally, finally, finally, finally agreed to do email marketing, and actually there's three that happened over the summer. So the first one focused on social, some activity, invested in some business development tools, but also started doing email and started getting replies after the first couple of emails. Staying top of mind, staying relevant, was hugely important, right? And one of the really big things there is. She's getting replies, and not all of them are leaves. Not all of them are the perfect client or the perfect piece of business, but what it really came down to was that she is top of mind. Now another client this summer set up his email marketing campaigns and started working on a weekly cadence. For him also, the issue was is he was actually looking to expand his sales team and hire more people? He didn't end up hiring more people and started doing email just to stay top of mind with the people he wasn't getting to and to keep them engaged right, telling real stories, engaging with people in a way that they wanted to be engaged with, so that they saw his name and when they were ready to purchase his. He has a longer purchase cycle could be anywhere from six months to 24 months and so that was really important to stay relevant for him.
Speaker 1:I get a lot of people. Well, I'm so worried because when I send emails, people unsubscribe, and I don't want them to unsubscribe. Those people weren't buying from you anyway, and so I don't want you to be afraid of that, and I don't want you to be afraid that you're bothering people unless you truly are bothering people and not sending any value. A lot of people talk about value and I've heard that I attend webinars and different trainings all the time and I do a lot of testing. So let's talk about the word value first.
Speaker 1:What you're sending doesn't have to be like a free tip or a list of things or anything you want it to be right. It can literally just be a story. You're adding value to people's day by entertaining them, by sharing your thoughts, getting to know them and really building that relationship. Not everything has to end up in you giving them something for free, so let's just cover that off first. I talking about that value piece. I'm not always adding a ton of value, right? I'm not always giving my audience a free tip or checklist or things like that. Sometimes it's a story that they can relate to, so that they can relate to me and tells them how I got over it.
Speaker 1:So one of my emails this summer was about how I spent a whole weekend reading the entire fourth wing series, which if you haven't read it, you totally need to, because I mean, my heart was racing. I was really mean to everybody in my family because I was so stressed out. I mean dragons and everything. It was way more important than the marketing, that I had scheduled that weekend to do my social. And so I went dark for a little bit because that was my social. Thank goodness for processes and the podcast, because I was actually able to at least post once a week on my personal profiles.
Speaker 1:But what really it came down to was I was sharing an example of how I fell off the wagon on my marketing. Right, I kept the must-dos, which one of my must-dos is email but I didn't do the nice to have. So my social was lacking a lot. Social was lacking a lot, like a lot, a lot. Nobody emailed me complaining, right, I was still present. I was posting at least once a week, so I wasn't totally dark. So people still knew I was in business and alive, but that was about it. That cadence was able to keep me afloat and the email was really about doing something other than what you were supposed to do, and that sometimes it's okay, right? So I was authentic. I shared a story of how I didn't do what I was supposed to do. And you know how do they get out of that, that rut that they're in if they ever find themselves in that kind of rut like I did, and the interesting piece about that is I got a lot of emails about how many people love fourth wing.
Speaker 1:So, again, if you haven't read it, definitely check it out Again. It's creating connections. So it's more than just adding value. You're adding value to the relationship and having a conversation just like you would with anybody else. So think about what would happen if you shared your real Tuesday instead of just the highlight reel. When was the last time that someone's imperfect content connected with you? Were they talked about a situation that you could relate to? That's the type of stuff you want to do.
Speaker 1:So let me bring you to a little piece about my email philosophy. That might surprise you a little bit and it deals with unsubscribes. So I want you to think about. I get four to five unsubscribes per email and I think that that's a success. My goal is that my overall, my list continues to grow right. So I have to bring on four to five new people every week and that's okay for me. I'm good with that, because those four to five people were never going to purchase from me. I was paying for them to be a part of my list, because you get different brackets based upon how many people you have on your email list. I'd rather have engaged subscribers than passive ones.
Speaker 1:Any day, when someone opens your email in Outlook or Gmail or Yahoo or AOL, wherever they happen to be, it sends a signal to that email service provider that the email you sent to them was wanted and desired. So they opened it. Maybe they filed it for later, maybe they clicked on a link all of those interactions that email service provider sees Any of those actions are great. It's the one that just hits delete or puts you in the spam folder. That aren't good. Those are the ones that give the email service providers flags that your content isn't really wanted by their subscribers and so that's got a bigger chance of you ending up in that spam filter. So getting those engaged subscribers and getting those unsubscribes off of your list is totally fantastic. So I know that in my world I think I had a heart attack.
Speaker 1:I'd been told you need to send weekly emails. You need to send weekly emails. I'm like, oh my gosh, I am not sending weekly emails. Who wants to hear from me once a week? Several thousand people actually, which surprises me that they actually don't mind hearing from me once a week. They engage with my emails. Every now and again, they'll send me an email letting me know that they like my emails, that they like getting my emails and everything that goes along with it, and I think that that's good. My unsubscribe button is helping me find my true audience. So, as I continue to grow with freebies and different offers and different ways that I connect with people and add them to my list the ones that aren't supposed to be there that unsubscribe button gets them off and out so that they're not annoyed by my emails, and I'm okay with that.
Speaker 1:That fear of annoying people. That's costing you a lot. I want you to think about all the money that you're leaving on the table because you're not top of mind when somebody is thinking about you, leaving on the table because you're not top of mind when somebody is thinking about you. There's also the belief that email is old school or, again, bothersome. You know that newsletter philosophy that we had way back in the day, where everything was structured as a newsletter. Well, it shouldn't be that way. It should be structured as an email to one person, like you're talking to a friend over coffee. It's actually part of my AI voice when I'm using and leveraging my email to have it draft and I give it my big brain dump. It says it's like you're chatting with a friend over coffee. That's what I want my emails to do. I want them to feel like they're creating a connection.
Speaker 1:My business continues to grow from my weekly emails. Nobody is ready to purchase from me at any and all times. There's a lot of emails that have really not much of a call to action. They'll drive to my podcast or they'll just ask a question, not really selling anything. I still get replies off of those emails and people will say to me I was just thinking about you, thank you so much for sending me this email. And then something totally unrelated to the email that they were thinking about. But again, I needed to be top of mind to get that business inquiry right, to get that referral, to get that lead, to have that conversation. Email does that for me and I think it's so, so important.
Speaker 1:Now I will say that I used to have a sometimes once in a while email list. So sometimes once in a while I would email them because I didn't feel like I needed to right and I didn't want to bother them. And I will tell you that my business has grown exponentially since I started sending consistent. At first it was monthly and then it became bimonthly and then it became weekly emails. The more consistent I was, the more business I actually got, because I was top of mind and not everybody on my email list is ever going to buy from me, and that's okay. Some of them just like my emails and I like that and I want to continue to be that. So again, I used to think I was bothering people who wanted to hear from me.
Speaker 1:Turns out it's several thousand people, like I said, and the ones that unsubscribe I'm okay with. I mean, sometimes I get annoyed but because I'm like don't you want my really good emails, it just means that I'm not the right fit for them and that's okay. I want the fear of being annoying to be put out of your mind. Have conversations with individuals. Pretend you're writing to your ideal client and send that email and then your unsubscribe button. Don't even look at those.
Speaker 1:I had Sina of Sina C, the fish company, on previous episode that we'll link to in the YouTube description and the show notes for you, but in that episode she really talked a lot about how she's totally good with unsubscribes. Those people are not going to be buying from her and she 10x'd her business with just email. Yes, she's a product, but I'm a service and that works for either of us and I want you to really think about that and how much power that can have. You show up when you want to in people's inboxes, not when they're necessarily chose to scroll through social right. That's got a lot of power. Now, I'm not saying social media is bad by any stretch of the imagination. Social media is fantastic for reach. That's one great way to get people on your email list. So invest the time in social to reach people that you haven't met and don't have their email address. Your goal is only to get them on your email list. So again, I want you to think about sending content right. Sending conversations it can be short, it can be long. Whatever your style is is really where you want to focus.
Speaker 1:I recently got a question. Someone's like well, I don't have as interesting stuff as you do, kendra. I stubbed my toe and I think I broke my pinky toe several months back and I sent an email about that because I was cleaning. Cleaning is not my thing. My husband actually said that my father-in-law calls me Grace for a reason, and it's not because I'm graceful. You know I talked about staying in your lane Everyday. Activities can become those stories, can become that point of view that you shift into what you want to share with your email list. And again, that's something I would complain about around the water cooler at work. Or I would discuss when I was having a meeting with a client hey, be careful. Or I'm wearing these ugly sneakers because they're comfortable, but also because I think I broke my pinky toe and it gets into the conversation. Right. That's the kind of conversation I would have in real life. So that's what my emails have in them and don't be afraid to do that and to show that From.
Speaker 1:Episode 295 was also on and we talked about storytelling, and one of the things that I've started to do and become addicted to is one of the things that she brought up, which was homework for life. So you can Google it. It's a TED Talk and it's about taking five minutes a day to say if today was a story, what would that story be? So at the end of every day and I think he said at the end of every day, like at night, I do mine at the end of every workday right now. Note down if today was a story, what would that be? Five minutes, that's all he does. Right, it's got hundreds and thousands of stories, things that you might not remember when you go back to think about it. But if you have it in an Excel sheet or Word document or I think the guy that did found Homework for Life actually has an app for that. But I think, again, that's important.
Speaker 1:And in his TED talk he talks about how it's about those small, everyday stories that other people can relate to. Not everything needs to be some epic moment. That happened, right, he had said that he was homeless and in jail and had a ton of information in his stories, but that's not the story he started off his TED Talk with. He started off with talking about his kids throwing food. More people could relate to that than being homeless or in jail, and people felt bad for him, right, people felt really bad for those stories and he admitted that. But he said I started with something relatable, something that everybody in the audience could connect with.
Speaker 1:So I want you to start thinking about those stories and how you can connect. You're not gonna be bothering somebody by sharing this information with them, right? You wanna tie it to an offer, tie it into what it is that you do, but again, you definitely want to be tying it into you, right, to stay top of mind. And you wanna be sending it and most likely you wanna be sending, probably weekly, maybe every fortnight, if you don't like the bi-monthly or bi-weekly, and you wanna be sending it and most likely you wanna be sending, probably weekly, maybe every fortnight, if you don't like the bi-monthly or bi-weekly, because that always confuses me. So every other week, twice a month, weekly, whatever you can handle, is what you wanna do because you wanna stay top of mind with your audience. All right, so let's go ahead and wrap up what I talked about today.
Speaker 1:I want you to get over thinking that you're being annoying. People need what you have to say. Start sending emails. Unsubscribes are not personal rejections, they are business research. They are business intelligence. It is very powerful and it is helping get more of your target audience on your list and less of those who are not a fit for your business off of your list.
Speaker 1:Small stories can create big connections. Stub your toe, fall on stage, kids throwing food at the dinner table, reading the fourth wing series and not doing what you're supposed to be doing binging something on Netflix Again. All of that is real and can happen and people can connect with it. I really want you to think about how can you connect with your audience, how can you start sending emails that don't feel salesy, that don't feel over the top. You can still add tips and information and tie them into it, but you definitely need at least a little bit of story, because storytelling is important and it doesn't have to be big. So I want you to go ahead and get rid of that fear of annoying, because it actually costs you more than being occasionally annoying to four to five people every week.
Speaker 1:Then unsubscribe, start that email you've been putting off. If you don't have an email marketing system, you can check out Kit, formerly known as ConvertKit. It's the one I recommend for most business-to-business service providers. Then begin documenting that daily moments with homework for life, that homework for life approach. We'll have a link to the TED Talk in the comments also and a link to Renee's episode.
Speaker 1:And then I want you to reframe your next unsubscribe and celebrate it. It is market research and that person is not right for you. And then ask yourself what question do I get asked? What question do I wish I was asked and make that into content. You get asked tons of questions. You wish you got asked a ton more questions. What are those questions? Answer them. Answer them with a little bit of story and experience, tie them together and go ahead. I want you to send an email out this week to your list, even if it is three to five people and they're all family, just to get started. It may feel a little bit scary but in the end, trust me, I know it is going to make a difference in your business. So thanks so much for tuning in to another episode of Imperfect Marketing. I hope you learned something today and if you did, it would really help me out if you would rate and subscribe wherever you're listening or watching. Until next time, have a great rest of your day.
