Create to Convert Podcast

021. The Secret Email Funnel All Service Providers Need with Prerna Malik

• Yevgeniya Davarashvili

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Have you ever felt like your email marketing is more of a chore than a powerful tool in your business? Maybe you’re struggling with what to say, how to say it, or even why you’re sending emails in the first place. It’s easy to get caught up in the numbers—opens, clicks, unsubscribes—and lose sight of the true purpose: connecting with your audience and driving meaningful results.

But what if you could simplify your approach, remove the overwhelm, and create emails that not only build relationships but also boost your sales? Sounds too good to be true? Trust me, it’s possible!

In this episode, we explore the game-changing concept of Nurtured for Sales newsletters, a secret funnel that runs in the background of your business, helping you convert leads without the stress of constant live launches. And who better to guide us through this topic than Prerna Malik, a seasoned conversion copywriter and co-founder of Content Bistro. Prerna shares her expert insights on how to craft emails that resonate, nurture, and ultimately convert, all while simplifying your email marketing process.

About Our Guest: Prerna Malik
Prerna Malik is a Copyhackers-certified conversion copywriter and the co-founder of Content Bistro. With years of experience and a knack for crafting high-converting copy, Prerna has helped countless entrepreneurs turn their email lists into profitable, engaged communities. She’s the strategist behind multiple million-dollar launches and six-figure evergreen sales funnels, and she’s here to help you do the same.

Explore more of Prerna’s work: https://www.contentbistro.com
Unlock the power of your email marketing with Prerna’s insights: https://www.contentbistro.com/blog

Tune in and discover how to transform your email marketing from a source of stress into a streamlined, sales-driving machine.

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Yevgeniya (Gigi) Davarashvili: Hey there, welcome back to the podcast. Today, we're going to talk about a topic that I know many of you have on your to-do list, myself included, and that is email marketing. Now, I'm a huge fan of emails, and I love my email community, but I'll be honest—I could definitely do better with more consistent emails, better segmentation, and personalization. There's always room for improvement, and I know that. But when I tell you I jumped into implementation mode after my interview with Prerna Malik, our guest for today, I’m not kidding.

It's not often that I learn something new and my jaw just drops, but in this case, it’s something that seems so obvious, so simple, but I totally see how it could transform my conversion rates, my sales, and strengthen my relationship with my audience. And it's all in one secret email funnel that no one is talking about. But first, let me quickly tell you about Prerna and set the scene for her genius mind. Prerna is the co-founder of Content Bistro and a Copyhackers-certified conversion copywriter. That’s a little bit of a mouthful! She’s also the strategist and copywriter behind multiple million-dollar launches and six-figure evergreen sales funnels. She has written for iconic brands and recognizable names such as Pat Flynn, Amy Porterfield, Copyhackers, and Vanessa Lau. And actually, I worked with Prerna and her husband/co-founder Mayank myself all the way back in 2020. She’s also the creator of the strategy-focused sales copywriting program Ready to Sell. In general, if you haven't noticed yet, she’s a pretty impressive business owner and an incredibly talented copywriter.

So, to be honest, I’m actually not surprised that she’s the one who taught me about the secret funnel in the first place.

Gigi: What is the secret funnel we're talking about? Well, let's find out. Hi Prerna, thank you so much for joining me today. I'm so glad to have you here.

Prerna Malik: I’m so excited to be here! Yeah, I can't wait to chat.

Gigi: I already introduced you a little bit at the beginning of this episode, but I'm sure listeners would love to hear your story from you as well. Can you share a bit more about who you are and what you do?

Prerna Malik: Well, thank you so much again for inviting me and, of course, for the introduction. In a nutshell, I write words and create strategies to help course creators and creative entrepreneurs, including service providers, coaches, and consultants, sell more of their programs, services, and memberships—basically, whatever they’re putting out into the world. I'm the co-founder of Content Bistro. My husband and I work together in our business and have since the very beginning, which was in 2011. So I've been in business for a very long time and have been doing this for a very long time. I absolutely love writing words that count, words that matter, that carry weight and can, yes, drive conversions but also build stronger connections with your audience, with the people that you're looking to serve.

Gigi: I love that, and I’m so excited about our topic today. But before we get into that juicy part, let’s talk about email in general. I know from learning more about my audience and speaking to my mentees that email marketing is something a lot of creative entrepreneurs really want to commit to, but they struggle with it because they don’t know what to say. They don’t know where to get subscribers or how to convert subscribers into potential clients. So can you share a little more from your experience working with creative entrepreneurs and course creators? What do most creative entrepreneurs get wrong with their newsletter?

Prerna Malik: This is such a big topic, actually. But if I were to just put it into a nutshell, I wouldn’t say they get it wrong, but I think where most creative entrepreneurs end up feeling stuck when it comes to email marketing is that we tend to overcomplicate it. We tend to get all caught up in funnels and lead magnets, sequences, and yes, all of that is a part of email marketing. But in reality, what you're actually doing is emailing another person.

It is as simple as that. You're emailing someone who has raised their hand and said, "Hey Prerna," or "Hey Gigi, I want to know more about what you do. How can you help me today?" That is all you're doing. And the reason I think most of us creatives get stressed about sending an email out is because we start to think about the 200 or the 2000 people on our list. When our head starts to do that math, our heart starts to get overwhelmed, and that’s when we hesitate. That’s where we start to think about, "Oh, what if I get this wrong?" or "What if I offend somebody?" So it’s really important for us to simplify it and think of it as a conversation that you're having with another human being. There's a real person at the other end of the screen who’s saying, "I’m curious about what you do." Simplify the process of people getting on your list, and then simplify it for yourself so that you can send those emails out without feeling stuck, overwhelmed, or worried about getting it wrong. I think that is key for all of us creatives.

Gigi: I feel like it's almost about focusing less on the numbers and more on the content and what you’re saying, right? It’s so easy to get into your email marketing platform, and the first thing you see is numbers—how many people you have on your list, how many opened your emails, how many unsubscribed. Then you see, I don’t know, 10 people unsubscribed from the last email you sent, and you think, "Well, nobody wants to read my email, so why would I commit to sending emails consistently?" I sent out a newsletter yesterday, and I had 35 people who unsubscribed, and I was like, "Well, yeah, that sucks." But also, these people will never become potential customers, students, or clients because we’re just not a match. There’s so much marketing around growing your email list and getting as many people on your list as possible. But in reality, it’s not really the size of your list that matters but the quality of the people who are reading.

Prerna Malik: 100 percent, which is exactly my point. You don’t want to let the big numbers or the unsubscribes scare you away. You don’t want to let your head start to process this; you want to lead from a place of understanding. "Okay, people unsubscribed, but I still have 500 people who want to listen, who’ve said, 'Hey, this is interesting.'" So if you need to focus on a number, focus on the number of people who have chosen to stay on, who have chosen to hear from you, who have chosen to say, "Okay, this is interesting; I want to know more." So, focus on the content, the quality, and the depth of the engagement and interaction that you have with that list. You sent out an email and got 30-odd unsubscribes, but maybe you get five people replying to you, maybe you get the remaining part of the list saying, "Hey, this was interesting," and opening up your email and reading it. Look at all of those and let those lead the way forward as you continue to send emails.

And the other part of this is, I feel when it comes to content, you want to really think about writing your emails from a place of connection, service, storytelling, and sharing value. But also remember that, at the end of the day, you’re an entrepreneur. You run a business. Will you sell? Yes. Is that a bad thing? Of course not. And people who are signing up for your list are signing up fully aware that you run a business and that you are an entrepreneur. You have services, you have offers, and yes, you will help them move forward, but also, yes, you will sell. So we really need to get comfortable with the idea that sales can be service, sales can be fun, and sales can be easy.

Gigi: That’s actually something that stops a lot of—not just creative entrepreneurs, but I think business owners in general—in writing any form of content, whether it’s social media content, blogs, or emails. How do I ensure that my content is successful, interesting to read, that it builds relationships, that it’s valuable, and that it also helps me sell in the process? How do I do all of that with my content?

Prerna Malik: I’m so glad you asked that because it ties in really well with what we’ll be talking about today as we go forward about Nurtured for Sales newsletters. So, one of the best ways you could—and I’m a huge fan of simplifying things and of creating copy like I treat baking. So I have recipes and I have ingredients for every piece of copy I write, which are very different from templates. I’m not a fan of templates when it comes to copywriting. For design, your administrative communication, and all of that, sure, yes. But when it comes to the copywriting for your emails or for your sales pages or anything else, you want to look at key ingredients, and you want to have a recipe.

So, to make it really simple for you to find that balance between serving, sharing, and selling, you want to make sure your emails—or, in fact, your social copy as well—have, I would say, 3.5 key ingredients. You want to have storytelling because, at the end of the day, stories make your message stick, they make your message memorable. So you want to have a bit of storytelling. You want to have some value there, serious value. And now, a caveat on value: value does not mean you give away paid content; value does not mean you discount your offer. Value could be a key point or a key lesson or a key takeaway that your audience walks away with. Sometimes that value could be feeling inspired, encouraged, and motivated. Sometimes that value could be an action step that they can take. So you want to give some value. You want to include a call to action or what I would call the sales element. This could be talking about your service, talking about an offer or a special that you’re running, or a program that you have. And you can weave all of this into one email.

For example, I sent out an email today where I talked about the story of how, when we started our business, we did not have the money to invest in high-ticket masterminds or even attend events. We did not even have the money to get our website designed—it was designed pro bono by a former employer. To add to that, we lived in a country across the globe; we were wanting to work with clients in the US and the UK, but we lived in India. So that was my story. Then the value I gave was linking to how we landed our first client, which was a blog post. In this particular email, I wasn’t really selling a paid offer, but I was promoting a fellow entrepreneur’s freebie on cold emails. So that’s a very simple example of simplifying your emails and how you would want to include story and value and have a sales pitch in there. Again, a call to action or a sales pitch does not always have to be for a paid offer; it could be for a webinar or a workshop or something like that. And then I said point five, so you also want to include, where relevant, some social proof as well. This is especially key if you are selling a service or a product.

Gigi: Do you incorporate all of these elements into every single one of your emails usually?

Prerna Malik: No, not always. It would depend on the kind of emails I’m writing. If I’m writing Nurtured for Sales newsletters, then usually yes. But if I’m writing a regular weekly newsletter to our list, in that case, no.

Gigi: So for our listeners, can we define—can you provide two clear definitions of what are the differences between the two, between your general weekly email and your Nurtured for Sales emails?

Prerna Malik: Nurtured for Sales newsletters are different from your general weekly emails because these are usually, like I would say, 99.9 percent of the time sent out to an audience that has signed up for something that you are selling. This could be someone who signed up for your webinar but did not sign up for your course, someone who signed up for your waitlist but has not yet hired you to work with them. So these are people who you would call "prospects," these are warm prospects, right? But they’ve not converted. And you use Nurtured for Sales newsletters almost as an automated sequence. This is what I’ve done for clients in the past, where I write a whole batch—depending on how many months they want it for, we would write it for either three months or six months—I would write these up and then they would schedule these out to go out on a weekly basis.

So the biggest difference between Nurtured for Sales newsletters and general weekly newsletters is that Nurtured for Sales newsletters are sent out to a specific segment and are an automated newsletter sequence. Your weekly newsletters, on the other hand, are sent out pretty much to your entire list. Most of us would write them either in the week of or maybe a couple of weeks ahead if you’re trying to batch them up, and they’re sent out as a broadcast, so they’re not automated. That’s the key difference.

Gigi: So I would understand that the segment that is part of the Nurtured for Sales automation does not usually get the general weekly newsletter.

Prerna Malik: We’ve had clients who’ve done it both ways. We’ve had clients who send out the Nurtured for Sales newsletters on Mondays, but then their weekly newsletter goes out on a Friday or maybe on a Thursday. So in that case, that segment gets two newsletters. But then I’ve also had clients who, because they do not want the messaging to get mixed or because they’ve got more than one offer and they don’t want people to feel like, "Oh, I’m just getting a lot of offers," we put a Do Not Disturb tag on the people who are getting the Nurtured for Sales newsletters. So they’re excluded from the weekly newsletters. It kind of depends on the strategy that you’re taking when it comes to this.

Gigi: Alright, understood. Let’s talk about that funnel, that automated funnel. I would love to dive as deep as we can within the time frame we have, with, if possible, some specific examples for our audience. So if you can share any examples of where that automation might be a good fit for them, where could they set up this funnel? That would be awesome.

Prerna Malik: The secret funnel is the Nurtured for Sales newsletter funnel because it runs in the background of your business. It is something that would help you sell your courses or your services, whichever one you’ve got going for you, even without a live launch or an evergreen funnel for that matter. I work on both of these. I work on live launches, I work on evergreen funnels, and both of them are great, but they also have limitations. Like, what happens after the evergreen funnel? The timer has ended. People get into a general newsletter. What happens after a live launch is over? Things go back to normal. You have your weekly email schedule.

For our clients, we realized that we were losing a lot of people who would want to join, but maybe the time was not right, or maybe they just needed some more time to think, or maybe they just needed funds to show up at a particular time. Making them wait until we decided to either live launch or open up another round of evergreen enrollment just did not make sense because these people had already signed up, they’d already said, "Yes, we’re interested in learning from you." So what we thought was, how about instead of sending them general weekly emails and then telling them to wait until we open doors again, how about we have an automated sequence running in the background that we can turn on and off as we see fit? But we continue to nurture this audience and remind them about the program that we have.

So, a couple of things with the funnel that you want to keep in mind: this works great if you have a digital product. It works great if you have a course that’s open all year long, an evergreen course. It also works great if you have services. For designers specifically, who do not have a digital product yet or who aren’t selling templates or who don’t have a program, this funnel will work wonderfully. If you have a specific opt-in that people sign up for in order to learn more about whatever it is that you’re offering, whether it’s your service waitlist, they’re downloading your price guide, or they’re downloading the process of working with you, all of these people are really interested in knowing more about your services. That segment is the segment you want to nurture and sell to with the secret funnel that could run in the background without doing a big live launch.

How you would do this is, and I would recommend starting with three months, so that would be like if you decide to send out weekly emails, that would be 12 emails. Chances are you may already have a lot of the content from, say, past emails that have done well or a launch sequence—you just need to kind of customize it. Or you may need to start from scratch and think about, "Okay, what are the objections that my audience had, and how can I address those in these newsletters?" The job of every newsletter is essentially to strengthen the connection that you’ve built and then drive the conversion.

I know that’s a lot to take in, so let me know what you feel, and we can go further.

Gigi: That’s a great starting point. I already know that for some listeners, the moment you say three months’ worth of emails, they’re like, "Oh my God, 12 emails! I mean, I struggle with coming up with one. How am I going to write 12 emails?" So let’s imagine a scenario. I’m usually against putting your price guide behind an email wall, but we’re going to use that as an example. Let’s say that you have a price guide on your website to learn more about your services, your process, and how much it costs to work with you. Your prospect signs up and downloads that, right? What do I write about for three months? How do I structure that content?

Prerna Malik: That is such a good point. Here’s how I would approach it. The first thing you want to do is look at what are some key messages that you would want people to know before they start working with you. What I want them to know is, here’s how I work—this is a deep dive into my process because they may have gotten the guide, but have they really gone through it? Or would I want them to know, "These are the things that I would need in order for the project to be a success, and here’s why I would need them." So you can use those newsletters to talk about that. You would also use those newsletters to establish expertise. So, talk about what kind of skills you bring to the table, who are the people who already trust you, social proof, case studies, and also addressing objections. Why does it take so long? You could even use stories about it. For instance, marketing is like baking bread, right? It takes time, but if you get it right, it’s absolutely delicious. So yes, working with me on a full project takes, let’s say, six to eight weeks, but we’re not talking fast food here; we’re talking about something that takes time to prepare.

So you could talk about all of the things that your client would want to know before they hire you because in every email, not only would you be giving them those "aha" moments around, "Oh, I need to get this done," or "Oh, this is how I’m supposed to give feedback on design," but you’ll also be reminding them that whenever they’re ready to work with you, here’s how we can get started. You want to start with thinking about the reader, the person on the other side—what is it that they want to know more than what is it that you would be telling them? Approach it from that point of view, and it becomes that much easier for you to write.

Again, like the ideal 12 emails, honestly, for most of you who have any presence in social, you would find a lot of content that you can actually repurpose for your emails as well. You can repurpose your blog posts, you can repurpose your Instagram carousels, the reels that you’re doing. A lot of that can be repurposed into content for your emails, into copy for your emails.

Gigi: So, if that person did download your pricing guide, unless it’s a competitor and they’re just being curious about what you’re doing, there’s a very high chance that this is a person who is interested in your services and interested in working with you and learning more about you, right? But the reason they haven’t reached out yet is probably because they have some questions or maybe they’re just not sure about it. So you need to get into their head to understand what could be holding them back. And my advice is always to speak to past clients and figure out what was going on in their minds before hiring you. I had an episode with Tarzan Kay, who is in your circles as well, and we had a really great conversation about her rebrand journey and process and what it was like working with me, but also what was going on in her head as a client before investing in a designer. And for me, as a service provider, that was eye-opening because some of the things that I thought were important to her were absolutely not important. And then she mentioned something on the episode—she said, "The projects that you sent me as examples, I thought they weren’t actually your best work." I was like, "What? I thought they were my best work!" And it was so interesting trying to understand why she thought they weren’t, but it’s amazing that she trusted me anyway. It’s so important to talk to your clients and just have a conversation about what was going through their minds.

Prerna Malik: Absolutely, 100 percent. This is, in fact, one of the questions I ask in my testimonial form that I send out to clients, whether they record a video or send it to us via email: What were some of your questions before hiring me? What were some of your hesitations before hiring me? It’s very interesting to see what clients say, which is why I’m saying you need to approach this from the point of view of the reader. The reader is the hero of your story, the story that you’re telling. It’s not about what you want them to know; it’s more about, "Hey, I understand that this is what’s going on in your mind, and here are some answers." So that makes it so much easier for you to approach writing emails.

And again, if the idea of writing 12 emails feels daunting, start with a month. Just write four emails. Think about the last four clients or the last project you had—what questions did that client have before they hired you? And just look at answering one question per email. Remember, these emails don’t have to be mini-novellas; you’re not writing a blog post here. You’re writing an email to a fellow human who said they’re curious about what you do, they’re interested to know more. So you want to keep them short, you want to keep them to the point, you want to keep them clear. Remember, you’re strengthening the connection while you’re also driving a conversion. I call this funnel a connection-rich, conversion-driving funnel because, at the end of the day, that’s what we’re doing.

Gigi: Going back to what you said at the beginning, if you think about the fact that you’re writing to that one person who downloaded your pricing guide—in this example, imagine they actually emailed you. They actually sent you an email that said, "Hey, I downloaded your pricing guide. I’m just curious, though, about the length of your process." If you’re struggling with blank page paralysis, you can actually type out as if you were typing out an email reply and then think, "Okay, how can I add a little bit more storytelling, as you mentioned, right? How can I add social proof, maybe an example from past projects? And a call to action?" For that sequence, do you always need a call to action? And in that case, should that always be like, "Hey, let’s chat, let’s book a call," or what are your recommendations there?

Prerna Malik: Yes, for this sequence, a call to action is key, and what it is would again depend on what your offer is. I most recently finished a Nurtured for Sales newsletter sequence for a health coach, and our call to action varied between sending people to her program and asking them to book a call with her. A lot of her audience had been burned in the past by working with other nutritionists, and we realized that while they may be curious about her offer and may check it out, they might feel better getting on a call with her and talking to her face-to-face before making a decision. And it’s working so well. I just got a testimonial from her saying that her sales were stagnant, but now they’re not. That was really great to hear. So you would vary the call to action depending on what you’re selling. For this specific example of your design services, if a call is part of your process, then that should be your call to action. If you’ve got a productized service like, let’s say, Design in a Day, or "I’ll customize your template," in that case, you can just send them directly to that page.

Gigi: And what about those subscribers who reach the end of that sequence and are still not feeling it, they’re still not there? They reach the end of those 12 emails, what would happen then?

Prerna Malik: We actually, right from email one, encourage our readers to make that decision because at the end of the day, every email that we send to them, we want them to actually enjoy it, right? And get value from it. So right from day one, we have that option where we say, "You’re receiving this because you signed up for A, B, and C. If that is something you’re no longer interested in or would no longer help your business, feel free to click here, and you won’t hear about this anymore." In that case, we remove them from the sequence. That’s it.

Gigi: I’m curious about the difference between a welcome sequence and that sequence and how they work together or independently. When do they intersect? Because I’m sure again, some of our listeners are going to be like, "Well, I have a welcome sequence, isn’t that the same thing?"

Prerna Malik: That is such a good question. And yeah, so your welcome sequence is essentially to welcome new people into your world. This could be through a newsletter signup, maybe a downloadable checklist or a cheat sheet, which is like for everybody in your audience, or maybe you’ve got a separate segment for people coming in from Instagram or wherever. So the welcome sequence is essentially for people who are just coming into your world. They’ve not actively indicated that they’re interested in either your program or your services. Unless, of course, you’re collecting that information at the start, which I don’t think any of us are doing right now. And also because it doesn’t really make sense—these are people who are really new to your world. They just found you, maybe through a podcast like this, through social media, or through a search or a blog post, and they’re curious. They’re just curious about what you do. So they’ve not actively said, "Hey, I’m interested in working with you," or "I’m interested in learning from you." What they’ve said is, "I’m interested in knowing more about you." So your welcome sequence is doing that job, which is essentially a sequence of five, sometimes seven, emails. In contrast, your Nurtured for Sales newsletter sequence is for that specific segment that said, "Hey, I’m not only curious about you, I want to work with you, or I want to learn from you, or I’m interested in knowing more about this particular offer that you have." Nurtured for Sales newsletters is the funnel that you will set up for people who have signed up for your course-specific opt-in, your service-specific opt-in, or have indicated that they are interested in working with you in some shape or form.

Gigi: From a technical point of view, imagine we have someone who signs up for our welcome sequence. They go through it, they’re in the automation, and then a couple of days later, they’re like, "Oh, actually, she has a pricing guide. Let me also download her pricing guide." And they’re also on the general list. Does that mean that all three automations are fired up?

Prerna Malik: So if they’re in your welcome sequence, and they end up signing up for, say, just for the sake of this conversation, your pricing guide, you would remove the welcome sequence tag, remove them from that sequence, and add them to the pricing guide sequence. Add the Do Not Disturb tag, which means that when you’re sending your weekly newsletter out, you would exclude the entire Do Not Disturb tag. But like I said, we’ve had clients in the past who have wanted to send out both, so we just separate the days. The Nurtured for Sales newsletter goes out on a Monday, and the other one goes out either on a Friday or a Thursday. They’re comfortable sending two emails in a week, and people are happy. We tested it out for a period of three months to see how things are going, and then continue. But for the sake of simplicity, this is how you would do it. Welcome sequence, the signup for a specific opt-in for which you have this funnel set up, the Nurtured for Sales newsletter funnel set up. You would pause the welcome sequence, add them to the Nurtured for Sales newsletter sequence, and add the Do Not Disturb tag to exclude them from your weekly emails. That’s it.

Gigi: I love that.

My final question before we get into the action steps and recap this episode—my final question, I mean, in today’s day and age, we cannot avoid at least having one question around the beast that is AI. So how can AI step in to help our audience, our listeners, put that in place in their business, simplify it? What are your suggestions?

Prerna Malik: I would say AI, whether you use ChatGPT or Claude or whatever else, can really help you with understanding what your audience may have questions about. This is especially great if you’re brand new to business, or maybe you’ve worked with clients but you don’t really have the bandwidth or capacity right now to get on calls or collect data from them. You can use AI as your research assistant to understand what questions this audience—whether you're working with, say, designers who specialize in certain industries—might have. Like, I know there are designers who only work with food bloggers or who only work with the finance industry or travel. So you want to find out—give ChatGPT or Claude your audience profile and ask, "What are some questions they would have about working with a designer or hiring someone to do this with them? What hesitations?" Then, kind of go from there. Just have a conversation with them, and then use that to come up with your email copy. You can also use AI to take, like I said, your Instagram carousel and have it turn it into an outline for an email so you’re not starting with a blank page. You’re not starting with looking at a carousel and going, "Okay, now how do I turn this into an email that would be helpful for my audience and help me sell my services?" You can let AI do that heavy lifting for you. And then you can go in and refine it, finesse it, make it yours so that it sounds like you, comes from you, and isn’t very recognizable as AI-created content.

Gigi: Absolutely. You can use it as an outline, help you with that first draft, then infuse it with your own tone of voice, your own stories, your own style. Because if you just rely on AI, your audience might feel that disconnect, like they’re suddenly talking to a completely different person with a completely different personality, and that ruins the entire relationship.

This was such a great topic, and I could talk about marketing forever, but I don’t want to overwhelm our audience. I know that was already such a lightbulb moment. I’m pretty sure that a part of our listeners does not have that secret funnel in place, and I’m so excited for all of you listening to go and actually implement it. Please do implement it. I just recorded an episode about the behind-the-scenes of my first-ever summit, and one thing I was sharing about there is that if you learn something and do nothing with it, it’s useless and pointless. You’ve wasted money, time, and effort learning something new.

So, Prerna, can we give those listeners who are like, "Yes, I’m going to do it, I’m on it," the action steps they need to follow to implement everything we learned today?

Prerna Malik: Absolutely. So the first thing you want to do is start by identifying the audience segment that you would set up this funnel for. That’s step number one. This could be any number of segments, but I just want you to start with one right now. That’s your first step.

Step number two is to identify what is it that you want them to know before they come to you, whether that’s for learning from you or hiring you. So start thinking about how you can help them make an informed decision. They’re the hero of this email. Your job is to guide them, help them make that decision. What are some questions you could answer for them? What hesitations could you remove for them? What "aha" moments could you give them? Right now, you’re not writing anything; all you’re doing is opening up a Google Doc, putting down the audience segment, questions you want to answer, and then what is the next step you would want them to take? Will that be to get on a call with you? Will that be to buy a product or service? Right now, all you’re doing is outlining a very basic strategy. That is it, right? Once you have this in place, that’s when you want to start looking through the content you may already have—like we talked about, your social posts, past emails you’ve sent—comb through that and start putting the copy pieces together. Or you may realize, "Hey, maybe I haven’t done this. Maybe all my content’s just been 'how-to' or very inspirational or just all storytelling," which is great, but we also want people to buy from you for this particular sequence. That’s when you would start writing the emails or compiling the content that you can then repurpose into the emails.

So the first step you want to take is start thinking about which audience would be the best suited for this. Start there, and then everything else falls into place.

Gigi: Oh, I love that. And I really hope that for those listening, you will take those first action steps. And listen, there is no pressure, right? One thing as business owners we need to accept is the whole idea of delayed gratification. In the online space, we are expecting instant results, but we need to accept delayed gratification and realize that not every single piece of content, not every single email, needs to lead straight to the sale. The more effort you put into building those relationships, the bigger and stronger that relationship is, and the higher your chance of conversion. So just go into it with the idea that, "Hey, I am committing to writing these emails, testing this out, and seeing what happens from it." Because guess what? If you don’t do it, definitely nothing will happen, and you will definitely not learn whether or not this actually works for you and your clients.

So, Prerna, thank you so much for all of this amazing value. Where can people go to learn more about you?

Prerna Malik: Well, thank you again for inviting me. You and I share a lot of the same principles. You’ll hear me talking about pretty much all of the same things, that learning is fabulous, but implementation is where it’s at. We live in an age of instant gratification, but we need to learn how to pause and look around, see how far we’ve come, and wait for the results because the ripple effect runs wide and deep. For anyone who’s listening, and I’d love to connect with you, Instagram would be the best place for you to connect with me and let me know what you thought about this podcast episode. But head over to our blog, contentbistro.com/blog, for in-depth posts on all of these email sequences that we’ve discussed. And finally, if you were to sign up for my newsletter, we send out weekly newsletters that would be great. I’m at contentbistro.com/newsletter.

Gigi: I’ll pop all those links in the description for this episode. Make sure to check it out. And once again, Prerna, thank you so much for all the value today. I cannot wait to implement it in my business.

Prerna Malik: Thank you so much again for inviting me.