Read The Transcript

Connect with Liz
https://lizwilcox.com/
http://lizwilcox.com/products/
https://lizwilcox.ck.page/829b08843e - freebie that includes a welcome sequence, newsletter examples, and 52 subject lines
https://www.linkedin.com/in/liz-wilcox-58740b1b0/

Connect with Russ
https://russjohns.com/
https://thepiratesyndicate.com/
https://nextstepnext.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/nextstepnext/

Audio digitally transcribed by Descript

[00:00:00] Introduction: Welcome to the #PirateBroadcast™, where we interview #interestingpeople doing #interestingthings. Where you can expand your connections, your community, #kindnessiscool and #smilesarefree. Let’s get this party started.

[00:00:10] Russ Johns: If there's one thing you need to learn today, it's a little bit more about how you can control your email. And also reach out to your ideal client with email. We're going to be talking to Liz today about email and some of the programs that she's running and some of the opportunities you have to learn about email. So Liz, good morning. How are you?

[00:00:34] Liz Wilcox: Hi, I'm great. I feel like Oprah, like #smilesarefree. You get a smile, you get a smile. I'm so excited. Thanks for having me.

[00:00:43] Russ Johns: It's awesome that we can connect and the whole point of the #PirateBroadcast is #kindnessiscool and #smilesarefree as well as just interviewing people that everybody can resonate with. Somebody has a story, everybody has a story, and I just want to be able to share everybody's perspective at some point in time and just recognize that we're all doing something out there, unique and it's It's such a great time to discover what works for you. How you can improve your business? How you can grow your interest or whatever it happens to be your passion or it could be a side hustle. It doesn't really matter, but let's dive into email because that's one of the things that you and I are both passionate about. And I know that I love video and I love video emails. And and also you had talked before the show about newsletters and I want to dive into newsletters. What's something that we need to know about newsletters and email in general.

[00:01:49] Liz Wilcox: Sure. So just a side note, I love that you mentioned video. I also love video and if anybody signs up for my list, the second email I sent you, the subject line is I made you a video and it says video. And it's hey, you might not associate email with video, but you definitely should because people need to see your face and, et cetera. But back to newsletters... hey everybody, I see some comments. I'm so excited. I'm a morning person. Can you tell?

[00:02:17] Russ Johns: I love it.

[00:02:19] Liz Wilcox: So with newsletters, number one, and this is going to sound harsh. I'm getting my serious face on. This is it, take a look. If it takes you more than 20 minutes to write a newsletter, you're doing it wrong. You are overthinking it. You're probably following some, I say on my homepage, I call it dusty advice. It's a little old, it's a little outdated, especially with the pandemic and everything. What did we do? I don't have my phone, but like I have a stick of deodorant and so what do we do the last year and a half? We were just scrolling on our phones and we were just, our brains are a really old computer and this is a really fast one and our brains really couldn't keep up. We've got this burnout. And so there's this really old advice about telling stories to connect, and you've got to have stories in your newsletter and I'm not saying stories don't connect. We are all human beings. We tell stories. I'm sure I'll tell you one, by the time we hang up the phone, but as far as newsletters go, I like to tell people, you're writing a newsletter not a novel, keep it short. Keep it relevant and relatable, and that's all you need to do. You can just make a quick connection without having to tell this story. I know we've all gotten the emails where they're telling a story about their kid choking on a hot dog and suddenly they want you to click over to a $3,000, private program. And it's like, how did they do that? And then you're using those as examples. Hey, Marcia, to try to emulate and sell your $20 thing and it just doesn't match up. But let me tell you a secret. Those people did not write those emails. Probably they had someone like me. They cost a lot of money. That's why they're charging $3,000. They got to pay off the copywriter. So instead of telling stories, what I really recommend is giving a personal update, right? Like where's my deodorant again, like if I'm on the phone with Russ and he, Hey, what's up Liz? Oh, nothing just got off a podcast interview. I've got another one today. That's the personal update. That is enough to make an actual connection. I'm talking about podcasts. That's something he knows a lot about. He's going to be excited to hear that for me. And then we're going to go into what we actually want to talk about. What's next for you next month? How can I help you promote or whatever. And so in your newsletter, if you just give a personal update, something you've done since the last time you emailed. Two to three sentences, I went to the beach because it was my daughter's last day of summer and we wanted to do something fun before school started. That's the personal update. It connects with people. Without telling them the beginning, middle end, you've got your 10th grade English teacher behind you. This is how you're telling a story. Now, put her away, go away, go back to Rich High. I don't need you just to give that personal update. And then you can segue into your new podcast episodes, your blog posts, your LinkedIn live video, that you want them to watch the replay of, your new product, whatever it is that you really need them to check out that day. And by segway, literally just put the caps lock on, anyway dot, dot, dot, caps lock off. But what I really wanted to talk about is my new podcast. My LinkedIn posts, my, new services page, whatever, and then sign off saying that, hey, thanks for being a part of the community. #smilesarefree Russ, right? That's the whole newsletter that should take you about 20 minutes.

[00:05:52] Russ Johns: Yeah, I used to blog more than video, back years ago. And I used to have a blog every week. And then I would do a newsletter announcing the fact that the blog was released and it seemed logical to me at the time. And I really love love the idea like Seth Godin has. He just has a short blog, a short email post every day that talks about something random. And it's a concept that you need to think about is the things that make you go and it's really short, convenient, easy to access, and it makes you think, and I really enjoy that style and that's what I do. One of the thoughts I had with doing the #PirateBroadcast™ every day, nearly every day, I don't do it on weekends and just being able to have a snapshot of somebody doing something amazing like yourself, Liz every day and just highlighting those individuals every day. And so it's been kind of my newsletter, so to speak. And I'm feeling like I really would like to change my newsletter, do a weekly newsletter with something in it that I can actually reconnect with my audience and my connections and make sure that people are aware that what's going on in the world of Russ.

[00:07:11] Liz Wilcox: Yeah, I love that you said about connecting and you like Seth Godin's model, you're doing it with the videos. I see clearly you've got people watching. Hey Howard, hey Wendy, hey senor, paya salah. That's exciting. And so with the newsletter, just off the cuff, I would suggest if you're doing once a week, you can do, I love what you say, #kindnessiscool and #smilesarefree. And so I see that as your personal update, like talking about your latest thoughts on that in the beginning and then saying, these are the episodes we did last week in case you missed it type of thing. And just signing off, it can be that simple. I'm sure Seth Godin has created this practice for himself, so I'm sure he cranks those out very quickly. And that's the beauty of email marketing as well. The more that you do it, the more, it's gonna be like, oh yeah, 20 minutes right now. It might seem like that's crazy. It takes me, six months to write a newsletter.

[00:08:10] Russ Johns: It doesn't take any time at all, you could just sit down and, pour a cup of coffee or tea or whatever you prefer to drink at the time of day. You're doing this and just knock it out. It's just real easy. I love it. So I have to ask you, you're doing this for other people. How do you go through the process of learning or collecting their voice? Because I know that some people are really partial to how they speak and how they deliver information. Do you go through a process of, kind of interview process to learn more about who they are and what they're doing and why they're doing.

[00:08:44] Liz Wilcox: As a copywriter, yeah, I love to work with people like you who have a podcast or do a lot of things because I can just listen to you. And I just hear you. And of course over the years, I've fine tune this, I have the ability to like, hear you and then I write it. And then I'll usually listen back to something when you're talking about a similar topic or the same thing and oh no, Russ didn't say it that way. He said it this way. And so I'll literally write out what the person speaks. Also, I do the typical survey thing and then really my main thing is just listening, I'll usually do the survey and then we get on a call and I'll ask almost the same questions, but I just want to hear, and then I can see, oh, they wrote it this way, but they actually said, and we need this more than that, and I can make it so it's cohesive and legible and all that. But there's always a difference between how you write and how you talk, but good copywriting is more how you speak, especially online. When I said, we've all been doing this for the last year and a half. We want to make our writing skimmable. That's why I say, even with the newsletters, just two to three sentences, that's all they need, and then just get any way dot, dot, dot, check out my podcast. And that's going to make it scalable. And that's what I try to do with the copywriting.

[00:10:07] Russ Johns: And I've had a few friends have said, hey Russ, why don't you create a newsletter? And exactly what you said, just highlight the episodes that took place last week and the episodes that are going to be, and the guests that you're going to have next week, it's like, okay. I pushed back. I just haven't done it. So I just haven't taken the time to do that. So I'm asking the pirates in the audience right now, if you would like an update from the #PirateBroadcast and just a newsletter every week, a little snapshot of what's going on and give me a thumbs up or do me a shout out and say yes in the comments. I would love to get your feedback because obviously, 20 minutes is still 20 minutes, Liz.

[00:10:52] Liz Wilcox: I fell out y'all I fell out, but I'm back. That's true. But it's 20 minutes well spent. And what I love about email versus everything else is it's okay. Think about it as how you interact with your actual mailbox, right? You go out to your mailbox, you get a bunch of papers and it's all bill, junk mail, bill. Oh my gosh. Something from Liz. I can't believe she wrote me, and that's what you're opening first. And if you could, if you do it right, if you set that a good foundation and you're, you're doing the 20 minute newsletter and you're making those, many connections time and time again. When they see Russ from the #PirateBroadcast™, oh, snap, let's see what he's got. What did I miss last week? Or what does he have coming up? Whatever you decide to do, Russ, is great to be a pirate. Yes, on updates. I like that guy. Thank you, Mr. Hedge. And so then we do the exact same thing. Let me pull up my dove deodorant film. This is exclusive you guys we do the exact same thing when we click gmail, outlook, apple, whatever we use, we do the exact same. We're scrolling and we're seeing what is actually relevant. What is junk mail, right? Delete. Oh, Russ. Awesome. I want to know what he's got going on this week. Is he going to have that Liz character back? And so if we can emulate that in the inbox, it's so much more effective, you just did something. Put in the comments, do you want updates? When you do that in the inbox, it's a little more intimate. You can open up that conversation. It's not just you on the screen and somebody in the chat and it's this delayed thing. You can get really intimate in your conversations and if Russ emailed that comment to you, you could say, hey man, what would you like? And it's not this common thing. You can actually have a real conversation. And the more you can do that, the more you can build that up, the more broadcast viewers you're going to have. If you're selling a product, if people are replying to you, remember people buy from people they trust. And if they're replying to you and you're keeping that conversation open, are they going to buy from you? Yeah, totally because they trust you. You're going to offer them only the things that they need because you've been having conversations with them.

[00:13:06] Russ Johns: You're showing up on a regular basis. You know what I mean? You're not really, you're not just popping up like whack-a-mole every two years. I just want to give a shout out to some of the pirates here. Good morning, Russ, Liz pirates. Happy to be here. J D is in the house. Happy Wednesday pirates. Woo Marcia. Good morning pirates. She's awesome. Wendy, I hope you're well. You're on my mind. I'm going to call you later. Hope you're available. Howard, this is a question that I really think we need to answer and I want to come back to that. I want to come back to this, but it's in your not so stinky conversations with Russ Johns, pirates packing deodorant. It's exclusive and it's scroll free. So greetings from Spain. Russ Hedge is in here from Oregon. Thank you so much. Good morning. Great to be a pirate. Yes on updates. Kenneth, thank you so much, KD. Great conversation today. Absolutely positively. So I want to come back to what Howard was asking the latest best practices on subject lines cause that's a never ending evolution of what to do, how to do when to do it.

[00:14:23] Liz Wilcox: Yeah. So I picture everyone, like when they're writing their subject line, are they going to open it? So basically I follow a three-step framework. First, you've got a follower, right? Somebody that watches you on here, you get them on your list and it's called the email staircase. It's a step. You get them on your list, you're a little higher. Then you turn them into a friend. And then like I was saying, because you have all these open conversations, you can turn them into a customer, you know exactly what they need. You don't have to guess. And so let's talk about, so they're on your list, how do we turn them into a friend and this isn't like your best friend and you're telling all your gross dirtiness too, but someone like me and Russ, we're chitchatting, we're having fun. We're talking about stuff we love to talk about. We've got this one little thing in common. And so when you write your subject lines for a friend, that's when you get the open rate. And so I find, especially if you're a blogger or, you've got to start up or something like that, you spend a lot of time thinking about SEO, five ways to get people to open up your newsletter, 10 ways to actually look like a pirate, things like that we see on Google that we would actually, we pick up our deodorant phone and we go you know how to get that deodorant phone Liz got. And that's the name? That's all that SEO stuff. But when we're in the inbox, remember we're looking for something, it's the same as our mailbox. Oh, gosh. Oh, this is from Russ. I'm going to open that first and I'll leave this for the rest. And so when we've got a subject line for a friend, instead of how to get the deodorant phone, maybe we write something like, here's the info about that deodorant phone. That's something I would really, if at the end of this Russ said, hey, send me that info about the deodorant phone, that's the subject line I would have. Wow, this analogy is this joke is really running itself old, I think.

[00:16:09] Russ Johns: I'm rolling with it.

[00:16:10] Liz Wilcox: Good. That's a good subject line. I'm just rolling with this instead of saying I'm trying to think of a bad subject line for that. Yeah. Yeah. But I see a lot of subject lines where it's my three tips for having a good podcast, instead it would be like, I was just rolling with her joke. That's something that kind of keeps an open loop. It's something you might send to a friend. So when you can think about that, does this peak interest is this something I would actually write to a friend if I was emailing my friend or I heard one time, it was something like if you had a three-story house and you wanted to send something to someone on the first story, what would the subject line be? So they open it right away. And so think about that too, instead of oh, article about XYZ. Oh, I saw this article and thought of you and it's oh really? Okay, let me open. What is it? So that's my advice on subject lines.

[00:17:07] Russ Johns: I love it. I love it. And it's the way I always thought about the process going through the three-step process is the subject line is to motivate the open. The first line is to motivate you to read more and then the body of the text is to get you to take action.

[00:17:28] Liz Wilcox: Yes. I love that. So I say every email has three jobs. Number one, make it seen. Number two, get it opened. And number three, take action. So that's exactly right. So I love that. In the subject line, I will say at first, those subject lines are very important when you have a new lead, but when you build that foundation, that follower friend thing. Then people are just going to open your emails no matter what the subject line is, if you do it right. Just there are certain people that even if Russ forgot to promote it, they're just going to come, at 10:00 AM Eastern. Cause they know he's going live. They're not sure what's inside. They weren't expecting Liz Wilcox today, but here we are. It doesn't matter. As it is, they just want to hang out. It doesn't matter what the subject line is when you have those true friends on your list. And those customers because they just want to know what's coming next.

[00:18:26] Russ Johns: Yeah, and what's coming next is always an adventure. And so sometimes you have to show up in order to discover what the adventure is, but it's nice to get an email notifying you, okay, if I've missed something that I think is important, it would be really nice to be able to say, okay here's what we had on the show last week. If you want to schedule your time and your day, here's some guests we're having next week, so you can actually check it out. I think that would be a good, simple email too.

[00:18:55] Liz Wilcox: I've almost convinced him pirates almost, but like in all caps, do it.

[00:19:01] Russ Johns: I've got this signal. I got the signal. So now let's shift gears because I want to highlight some of the things that you're doing that I think are really important for the pirates to understand is that you actually have a newsletter that is a paid newsletter. So shifting up the next step in the ladder, you're going, okay, I have a newsletter. Yeah, I'm on doing updates and everything else and you can also have newsletters, and this has been very common over the years in marketing, is a paid newsletter where you're delivering it every year or every month or every week. And you're putting a lot of information into it and people are paying you for this information. So talk about that.

[00:19:40] Liz Wilcox: Yeah. So mine is done a little different. It's called the email marketing membership. Of course it's very meta. And so my regular newsletter comes out Tuesday. I blab about, like you said, I just show up and see what pops out of my mouth. But when you're a member for $9 a month, every Monday, you get actually it's just a little newsletter that says here's your newsletter for the week. And so I'll write the newsletter for you. And so it's a Google doc. It's a link to a Google doc where I explain okay, this week we're going... like I just wrote one on Monday. Oh, gosh, I can't remember. But the last week it was, we're going to help your subscribers save money. And so this is an email where you're going to give them three tips on whatever it is. You talk about how to save money doing that thing and so I give a skeleton outline, right? Hey Nelson. And then I give an actual template where it's, hey name, here are the three tips, tip one, tip two, something, et cetera. And then I give two examples. So these are called swipes in the copywriting world. And these are A+ examples. You can take them, make them your own. And I write those from very different points of view. So maybe one, I think last week one was like a travel blog. And the other one, was like a tech startup, so very different. So you can see in real life how this would actually look. How you could take the template that I wrote and make it your own. Sometimes I read it in a very, if you can't tell, like extrovert voice and sometimes cause people I'm not like you, Liz. I love that question you asked earlier about like, how do you actually write in someone else's voice? So I do it, this is someone who an introvert just getting started. This is maybe how it would actually sound if you wrote it that way. See I'm even like loweringk my voice. So there's different styles. And what I love about this membership is that I was telling Russ this before we hit the go button. I just really believe email marketing is for everyone. And I believe there's for especially marketing, there's so many like gatekeepers out there that, oh no I spent five years understanding this, so now I'm going to charge you this or I'm going to give you 80% but not enough to take you all the way. I truly believe that this is for everyone. And I just want to give you the confidence. Even Russ is I don't know, tell me in the comments if I should write a newsletter. You're like a great case study. I love this. I'm so excited.

[00:22:16] Russ Johns: I like to play along, Liz. If you could tell.

[00:22:20] Liz Wilcox: Good. And So I feel for a really low price, you can truly get everything that you need to just get going, because I know that newsletter is like, what do I write every week? Every week you want me to sit down? Every week? I'm not that interesting. And so I show you how to actually do it. And I think having a membership or a paid newsletter, whatever you want to call it like that can translate to all sorts of businesses.

[00:22:46] Russ Johns: Yeah, I totally agree with you. And I love the idea of creating a newsletter and all I'll commit to that. And because one of the things that is going to happen is I'm coming up on 500 episodes and I'm going to take some time off. I'm going to take a break and I've got some other things in the works. And so I should probably start a newsletter to let people know that some other things are coming, right? And notify people that, hey, we're still here in the pirate community. We're still growing and expanding and we're going to be doing stuff that's going to be amazing. So I want to say hi to Nelson's here. Thank you so much for joining in. Jenny Gold. Thank you so much pirates. Good morning. And Wendy says, I like Liz. This is voice energy, passion, and knowledge, and an insider view of shenanigans. Absolutely.

[00:23:46] Liz Wilcox: We're now best friends. Thank you.

[00:23:49] Russ Johns: I want to make sure that people know how to get ahold of your newsletter and how to sign up for your membership if they're so inclined, Liz, before we wrap up. Give us the details. What's the details here.

[00:24:02] Liz Wilcox: Yeah. So obviously the best way to follow me is to get on my email list. I'm very consistent. And the best part of being on my email list is I want you to steal like a pirate on emails. I want you to pirate my emails. Oh man. This is the perfect podcast for this.

[00:24:18] Russ Johns: Yes. Yes. So you can steal like a pirate and also we have shenanigans on a regular basis. So Wendy says, wow, this is also a fan of soda fountain drinks, a must have on the pirate ship.

[00:24:33] Liz Wilcox: Oh my gosh. I am an avid Mountain Dew drinker, like a 12 year old motocross superstar. I love Mountain Dew. I'll tell you about my email list in a second. This is important. It's part of my branding. Thank you. I also have n'sync in the background here. You know that nineties boy band, it's very nineties. It's n'sync and Mountain Dew. If you don't know anything else about me, that's what you should know. So Wendy, oh my gosh. We're going to be best friends. Of course. My email list is the best place, you can go to LizWilcox.com. There's a hot pink, of course, button in the top right-hand corner. It says free email swipes. It's not Mountain Dew green. I really missed the mark. I gotta call my brand agent. So anyway, you can click that. It says free email swipes. You're going to get a welcome sequence that I already wrote. So if you're like I'm not really welcoming my people. I don't know how to set up that foundation to turn them into a friend like Liz was saying, I did it for you. You can steal it, please. Your pirates. I know, you know how and then also I give you three newsletter examples. And to Howard's point, I give you 52 subject lines that have gotten me a 40% open rate or higher. 52 so that you can use them as your own. You can use them as prompts, et cetera. You get all that for free at lizwilcox.com. Just click that button. If you miss it, just keep scrolling. I ask you about five times on my homepage to join my list. Of course, I'm an email marketer. So that's the best place. And then if you also love n'sync and fountain drinks, I talk a lot about both on Instagram, the Liz Wilcox on Instagram.

[00:26:15] Russ Johns: And all of these locations would be listed in the podcast, the broadcast, the live stream and the post on RussJohns.com. So Liz, thank you so much for being here. I love this subject and I'll have to have you back because I got more questions and I think we could dive into the swipe file idea concept. Cause not a lot of people are familiar with that.

[00:26:37] Liz Wilcox: Oh yeah. We'll schedule...

[00:26:39] Russ Johns: That's a whole episode though.

[00:26:40] Liz Wilcox: We'll talk. We'll talk. Thanks JD thanks Wendy. Jenny, everybody. Super awesome.

[00:26:46] Russ Johns: Thank you so much. I appreciate you and everybody, as you know, like and subscribe and all the social shenanigans that take place in the pirate community because you know, #kindnessiscool, #smilesarefree, so you #enjoytheday. Take care.

[00:27:05] Exit: Thank you for joining the #PirateBroadcast™. If you found this content valuable, please like, comment and share it across your social media channels. I would love the opportunity to help others grow in their business. The #PirateSyndicate™ is a platform where you show up, we produce the show. It's that easy. If you want to be seen, be heard and be talked about, join the #PirateSyndicate™ today.

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