Email Marketing: 7 Emails You Need to Sell Anything Online in 2026

Email marketing in 2026 doesn't look like it did even a few years ago — and if your sequences still feel like guesswork, you're not alone.

The truth is, most email sales sequences fail for one simple reason: they're written for one type of buyer, when your list is actually full of several. In this episode, Jenna sits down with email funnel strategist Allison Hardy to break down the email sequence framework she built — a system rooted in buyer psychology that's since driven serious revenue for her clients.

Get Allison's FREE $80 email template: https://www.allisonhardy.com/80000email

In this episode, you'll learn:

• How Allison Hardy built a repeatable, "life-proof" email sales system out of total chaos
• Why some buyers only need one line and a link — and why over-explaining actually loses them
• The buyer type most business owners accidentally scare off with their biggest testimonials (and what to send instead)
• Why one email in this sequence should NOT try to solve the reader's pain point
• The order these seven emails need to go in, and why sending them out of sequence costs you sales
• The two buyer types Jenna and Allison ran out of time to fully cover (you'll want to catch this one)

Key takeaway: Effective email marketing in 2026 isn't about writing the perfect email — it's about writing the right email to the right buyer at the right moment in your sequence. Once you know who you're talking to, the words get a lot easier to find.

Ready to start building a list (and a sales system) that actually converts? Grab our free Instagram training and start turning followers into paying clients: [link]

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Music by Jordan Wood

Hosted by Jenna Harding (Warriner), Creator of Magic Marketing Machine

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Music by Jordan Wood

Hosted by Jenna Harding (Warriner), Creator of Magic Marketing Machine

Transcript

Jenna Harding (00:00)
When I first started my business, I would I would try anything. If you told me a peanut butter and jam sandwich would grow my audience, I would make you a peanut butter and jam sandwich, including teaching workshops in the basement of the bar that I worked at, teaching people social media. I'd try it. I put a paper list on a stool at the back of the room with a pen and said put your name and email here, and you can be on my email list, pretending I had one.

I did not in fact have one, but you have to start somewhere. So even if you are just starting your email list, today's episode is for you. Even if you just have five names on that list, that is a list. And we're gonna treat it like it is five thousand names. People are so hard on themselves. You know what else I want you to know? I want you to know that a lot of the huge names that you rec respect in online business don't actually even have massive lists with

thousands and thousands and thousands of people like you think they do. They're just really strategic and they're really good at selling to the audience that they do have. So as always, if I'm not the expert in something, I bring you the expert. Today I've brought in an email funnel strategist. her name is Allison Hardy. Not to be confused with Jenna Harding, my new last name, just taking the opportunity to pepper that in.

this morning we have Alison Hardy. She's an email funnel strategist. She's gonna tell us the seven emails you need to sell anything through email. I am so excited about this. Good morning, Alison.

Allison Hardy (01:32)
Good morning, Jenna. I'm so excited to be here.

speaker-1 (01:35)
can you give us a brief backstory on how you got so good at this?

speaker-0 (01:39)
Yeah, it was COVID. when COVID happened, here in the US, I live right outside of DC. Like everything shut down for eighteen months. My husband was a chaplain. he started his job in January and got and then COVID hit in March. So he delightfully got reassigned to the COVID ICU and would like basically help people say goodbye to their loved ones through iPads all day long.

So he was completely toasted when he would come home and was like basically not fully functional for a good chunk of time. my kids at the time were two and six and everything shut down for them, so no care at all. I couldn't call anybody, nothing. So

I really needed to like regroup and regroup really fast because life was coming at me really hard. and I still needed to make money. We're not in the position where I can't not make money. So I needed to sell and I needed to sell in a way that actually was was like life proof. So that's where email funnels came in. and then I got super obsessed because I have a bit of a obsessive personality. I got super obsessed with like buyer psychology and buyer types, and so

I landed on these seven emails through understanding the seven different buyer types that I like came up with.

speaker-1 (03:02)
yeah. So like different different types of people, different types of you know, I do like a lot of research before I buy. Is that what you mean? Like everybody kind of buys in a different way?

speaker-0 (03:12)
Yes. So if you do a lot of research, you're the details buyer. Yeah. So like everybody buys in a very different way. I personally don't need a lot of information. Like if I'm in your world, I've already like learned about you, already know about you. So when you pitch me, the email that you're gonna send me doesn't need to be super long. It just needs to tell me like what's the offer and how long do I have to make my decision? And then I usually buy because again, I don't need the information. But yeah, everyone buys in different ways. So specific buyer types all have

the same sort of limiting belief or similar objections.

speaker-1 (03:45)
You know what's crazy about COVID? Like

speaker-0 (03:48)
Yeah.

speaker-1 (03:50)
in my head, everything. Yeah, it sounds like you had a whirlwind of an experience. In my head I'm like, yeah. So like you've been doing this what? 18 months? Like no, six six years. You've been doing this six years.

speaker-0 (04:02)
Yeah, yeah. I had you know, I had my business beforehand, but the email component of things really like became what I do and what I've done since COVID. Yeah.

speaker-1 (04:13)
all right. So we I love that you're hearing you're like ready to be so generous with with your knowledge and like this is such a specific thing of like the write these seven emails and everyone's grabbing a pen right now and we're like, okay, sure. So when are we sending them? Who are we sending them to? So how do we know? How do we know if it's time to be selling to people instead of just like nurturing them and warming up the list?

speaker-0 (04:35)
Yeah, so these emails fire after you have either sent them through a nurture sequence or done some sort of like event like a video series or a challenge or a webinar. After they've lafter they have consumed kind of like a launch event from you, that's when these emails fire.

speaker-1 (04:53)
All right. So if we're in a say we're a physiotherapist and we're not in online business wherein we're like launching could we send these after we do a big promo? Like if we're doing a BOGO or a, you know, sell get your get all your book your massage before your insurance runs out December promo, like that sort of a thing.

speaker-0 (05:15)
Yeah, absolutely. If you have something to sell or you have a promo that you're running, you can absolutely send these emails.

speaker-1 (05:21)
Okay, perfect. That's what we do in booked out offers, which is my like more advanced program. I I basically co-opt all my launch strategies and give it to them as service providers so they can like run more intense promos. So this is like exactly the type of thing that they need.

speaker-0 (05:37)
Love it.

speaker-1 (05:37)
tell me which of the seven archetypes are you and tell me about it.

speaker-0 (05:42)
Yeah, I am a no-frills buyer. So again, I don't need a lot of information from you because I've probably already done my research on you. So I'm on your list with the intention of buying the thing from you. So when you send me like that very first email, I just need to know like where's the where's the link? Where can I click? How long do I have to make my decision? And I usually buy off of that very first email because again, I've already been sold prior to getting there.

So that email does not have to be fancy. It does not have to have super markety language. You just need to be like, here's what this program is. Here's who it's for. Here's the offer. You have this amount of time. Here's the link. And super simple.

speaker-1 (06:25)
That sounds insane to me because I'm like so far down the rabbit hole. Yeah. I'm like, how could like how could you buy with such little information? Like what like it does. Okay, so what type of buyer is your husband?

speaker-0 (06:38)
that's a great question. My husband is so he's an Enneagram 4. So he's like the romantic, the idealist. So I would argue he's probably like a transformational buyer. So he is pain point aware. He knows he's like, Yes, I have that pain point, but he is not motivated by solving the pain point. He is motivated by solving what's possible through he's he's motivated by what's possible.

through solving the pain point. So he's very much so focused in like the outcomes, the transformations, the more like bigger picture life stuff. But for him, in your email, you need to still anchor it. So you need to still have like, you're gonna do this so that you can achieve this. So they still need to know somewhat the work that they're gonna have to do in order to achieve it. Because the minute you're they're like overwhelmed, they're like, my gosh, this is too much, they're like,

not gonna do the work. They'll be in the program, but that email needs to state clearly that like you're gonna do this so that you can achieve this.

speaker-1 (07:43)
So it's okay if some emails, even though they're going to him, don't speak to his buying type because when he gets this one, that's when he'll take action.

speaker-0 (07:54)
Yeah, and what I teach in my membership is there is a specific order, and it's because certain people need certain things at certain times. So, like me, the no-frills buyer, email number one. Because again, I'm not looking for all the other stuff. For you, being a details buyer, you're gonna fire on email number two. Email number two is the details buyer because you've already given them like the nuts and the bolts, like the not the nuts and the bolts, but like the very simplistic version. And you when reading that email, you're like, that sounds great, but

Then that second email fires and gives you all the details that you need.

speaker-1 (08:26)
Ooh, that makes perfect sense.

speaker-0 (08:28)
Yeah. And so the transformational buyer, my husband, that's the very last email because they tend to be procrastinators. They tend to need to know all the stuff before they buy. and it finally like hits on their exact like this is why you buy and their exact buyer type.

speaker-1 (08:44)
So I'm trying to set you up to ask a question, but I really can't even think of what the other ones are. Like I think all I think all my emails are just those three. Like

speaker-0 (08:53)
Yes. Yes.

speaker-1 (08:55)
a case study clocks. Is that one of them?

speaker-0 (09:03)
Yes. So that's the person that needs to see themselves as your client. So the skeptical buyer. So they've probably been burned in the past. They've probably tried to solve it. And whatever method they were taught or whatever they did didn't work. So they have a history of failure. So what you need to do is come in on that email and be like, hey, I know this has happened. I know you've probably tried to solve it. You need to acknowledge.

But then be like, here's why this is different. And you need to share not your like best testimonial. Not the one that's like, this person had a hundred thousand dollars in sales in 93 days. Like, no, that's only gonna like build the wall higher for them. You need to share like a normal testimonial. Run of the mill. If you do this work, this is probably what you'll experience. Not like the best hit it out of the park testimonial in there. So yeah.

speaker-1 (09:56)
Gosh, okay, that's so validating to hear you say because like I am the type of person who wants to hear the the highest success story and I'll like place myself with them. Yeah, okay. And I was using those from my program and it was scaring people off.

speaker-0 (10:12)
Yes, absolutely. Yep. Because also they're like in that pain point, right? Telling them that they're gonna achieve this crazy result, it's overwhelming.

speaker-1 (10:22)
Yeah, and if they don't like I'm always telling my clients, one of the biggest things that stops people from buying has nothing to do with you. It's that they don't believe in themselves. Yeah. And so we create a lot of content around like helping people believe in themselves. Plus it feels good for us and for them. Right. So if they don't believe in themselves and you're like, go make a million dollars, they're like, Can you just help me post three times a week? Yeah.

speaker-0 (10:44)
Yeah, yeah. Or if they're like really struggling and you, you know, you're sharing those bigger testimonials, they're gonna be like, no, I I I can't do that. Like they're that self-belief is gonna go down. Like that's that's like I've tried all the things. I've tried to do that before and it hasn't worked. So like that they're they're disconnected from that.

speaker-1 (11:03)
Yeah. And I never included skeptical person emails before, but this launch I have some scheduled because people are telling me that they've bought like five Instagram courses. So I can quickly tell you why mine will be different, but I need to tell them. Like people are like like six years ago, people hadn't bought an Instagram course yet. It wasn't something that I was faced with, but now they've got like all these like hooks.

libraries and thing like, you know, all these different like prompts that they're still not using, sitting there. And so now that's like something probably would have been great if I started this last year, but that's something that's new for me is speaking to that.

speaker-0 (11:48)
Yeah, for sure, for sure.

speaker-1 (11:50)
I wanna guess the next one. Okay. So what what if somebody is

What if somebody doesn't know what the solution is, but they are really highly aware of their problem?

speaker-0 (12:06)
Yeah. So they're the pain point buyer. Okay.

speaker-1 (12:08)
I did it!

speaker-0 (12:09)
I did it. You did it. You did it. So that fires before the aspirational buyer, my husband, right? So this is the second to the last email in your sequence. The pain point buyer, now I don't know when you started your business, but when I started my business is 2015. And we were taught to like stab our listeners, our consumers with the pain point knife and then trying to make them really feel their pain. Like we don't do that anymore. That was old school marketing.

The pain point buyer knows they have the pain point. Like they're like, yes, I want to solve this. They've under they understand it. They're like, yes, I am motivated by solving it. They're not motivated by the outcomes of solving it. They're just motivated by the actual solving of the pain point. So saying things like, Hey, I know this is annoying. Hey, I know you've tried to solve this. Hey, I know that if you could have done this already, you would have done it. Like things like that. just helps them to understand, like, hey, she actually does.

Get this, she understands me, she understands the pain point. And yeah, I I think that this program might help me. So it's like a calling out of the pain point. And I know a lot of entrepreneurs like don't enjoy writing this email because they don't want to feel like they're like poking at someone's pain point. But for this person, they need you to acknowledge it.

speaker-1 (13:26)
Mm-hmm.

What's the downside of mixing these all up and kind of putting a little bit of each into every email?

speaker-0 (13:35)
would encourage you to put only one buyer type in each email because if we're sending out seven emails, like they're not gonna open every single email. And that's okay. That's part of email marketing. but if the subject lines are kind of on point with the buyer type, those subject lines are gonna speak more to that person. so they're more likely the buyer types, even though they don't know they're you know they don't know what type of buyer type they are, they know what they're motivated by. So if the subject lines are reflective of the buyer types

They will open ideally the one that is right for them. So they might, for like the aspirational buyer, that person at the very end, they might open up a couple of the earlier ones and for whatever reason they appealed to them at the time, they may not buy off of them. They may need that last email, that very last like aspirational email in order to buy from. So it's not a problem that they read the other emails before they got their specific email for their buyer type.

speaker-1 (14:30)
Yeah. Kind of like I was just on your podcast and I was talking about how testimonials and how when my clients saw one testimonial that spoke to her, I saw this worked for another acting coach, so I knew it would work for me because I'm an acting coach. Like she still consumed everything else, the emails, the posts, the webinar, all of it. But that one thing was what made her. And how lucky we are when we actually find out what made somebody buy, we we often it's we won't ever know.

speaker-0 (14:56)
Yes. Yeah. And you can weave testimonials throughout, you know, these sequences or these emails. You don't necessarily have to wait for that like skeptical email where the testimonial is like very heavy in that email. So if you have, you know, an aspirational buyer that bought from you and you have the aspirational email and this thing makes sense, heck yeah, put it in there. It only helps to emphasize what it is that you're trying to say. Yeah.

speaker-1 (15:20)
All right, we have no frills, details, transformational, skeptical, and pain point buyer. Tell us the last two, but no details about it. The rest is all inside the membership and we're out of time.

speaker-0 (15:33)
We have the engagement buyer and we have the relationship.

speaker-1 (15:40)
No, okay, wait. Just give us a couple of sentence. I I need to know.

speaker-0 (15:45)
The relational buyer, my best friend is a relational buyer and I am so not. The relational buyer wants to know more about you. Not because they're looking to be like same same. They just literally want to know more about you and why you do what you do.

speaker-1 (15:58)
My gosh, that's so smart. And then what was the engagement one?

speaker-0 (16:02)
The engagement is the person that has a random question that needs permission to ask it.

speaker-1 (16:07)
yeah, beautiful. Yeah, we like to put in our PSs like PS, just hit reply, just hit reply, just hit reply. Ask us whatever you want. We're on the other end of this thing.

speaker-0 (16:17)
Yeah, but I would encourage you to put that in just an email, like super like one liner email.

speaker-1 (16:22)
Okay. I'll do it. I'll do it.

speaker-0 (16:27)
Let me

know what you got from it.

speaker-1 (16:30)
So Allison, if people want to learn more about you or more about how to actually make these seven emails happen, where do they find you?

speaker-0 (16:38)
Yeah, so my website's Allisonhardy.com. And then the relational buyer, that fifth email, I actually have it templated for you. it brought in eighty thousand dollars in sales for my business last year. So I call it the eighty thousand dollar email template and you can find it at all sinhardy.com forward slash eight zero zero zero zero email.

speaker-1 (16:59)
That's how I found you, I think, was in a a bundle with that email. It's such a good freebie and such a good title and story and everything.

speaker-0 (17:07)
I love it. Thank you.

speaker-1 (17:09)
Thanks so much for being here, Allison. Have a good one.

speaker-0 (17:12)
Thank you, Jenna.