I think you’re doing a great job. Sending a weekly email now.  It’s so good for you and your people to be reminded of your products and services, not to mention your expertise!

 

Now, when they need your product (and even the best customers don't NEED you all the time) you'll have a bigger mental presence for each customer or potential customer.

 

What I mean by that (I think I'm stealing this from an author whose book title is escaping me right now) is that people don't crave McDonald's, they crave an easy meal. People don't crave a Pepsi, they crave soda. Whichever product is finds the perfect combination of being easy to access in both in their brains and in their actual buying location, will get the customer.

 

If someone realizes they need coffee, they will mentally access all the places they can think to buy coffee. They will think of the brands and stores they see the most. 

 

How do you beat Starbuck's when people drive past 5 per day? Make sure they have a deeper connection with your coffee or they SEE your coffee more than that.

 

Next is purchase location...

 

Is your purchase process easy to access and locate? If you don't provide tons of buttons on your ads, emails and website that lead to an easy checkout, the coffee aisle at the supermarket will certainly beat you because shoppers are already at the supermarket and already making a purchase.

 

So... you've got to be accessible. That means sending emails and getting customers to hangout on your website and engage with your website.

 

There are a few different types of emails and email sequences. The general mold for email sales sequences has multiple phases.

 

1)  Introduction to you & your company. Because you're likely an underdog, customers need to be familiar with you. In order to buy from you, they need to feel like they trust you. This happens with professionally designed websites, a good network of social media accounts, friend referrals and of course your personal introductions. Let the customer know who you are and why you started this company.

 

 2) Value or Nurture emails gives your customers and potential customers information they find valuable and interesting. You wouldn't go on a second date with someone you didn't think was at least somewhat interesting, right? You wouldn't go on a second date unless they had something you wanted and appreciated. Getting someone's email address is equivalent to a first date on a dating app. They saw you, thought you had SOMETHING and were willing to swipe. Now it's time to earn a second date with good presentation, kindness and fun conversation. Value or nurture emails show the potential customer that you're a real person/company and that you've got products, information or content they love seeing, hearing and reading. 

A lot of marketing experts even say that you should give so much great content that the subscriber actually feels subconsciously INDEBTED to you. That you've given them so much, they feel morally obligated to give something back. Aka... a purchase.

 

3) Offer emails are outright introductions to your product or service. They ask for the sale. If we go back to a dating analogy, I'd recommend you don't ask for a date until you've established some sort of connection. I don't recommend a marriage proposal after one or two meetings. Offer emails should be earned by the previous emails.

 

4) Scarcity emails create the sense that time or quantity is limited for this offer. The sad fact is people have to be pushed even to do things that are good for them. We see scarcity every single day in the form of "sales". Everywhere you look and on every holiday, there is a "special sale". Why? Because scarcity works! It gets customers of their butts so that they actually make a purchase. 

 

5) Fulfillment emails make customers feel good about what they just bought and it makes their journey easier. You provide all the good feels and instructions on your product. You shower them with service and appreciation and congratulations for making the purchase. If you want them to buy again or recommend you to a friend. You better make the post purchase experience AWESOME.

 

There are a few more types of emails but we won't get into them here.

 

The Monday emails you’ve been sending are what I consider value/nurture emails. 

 

Your newsletters, are doing a good job of giving value without being too pushy for a sale. What's nice is that you slide the opportunity to make a purchase in there. It's kind of like mentioning off-hand that you have an ex without actually saying "I'm single and want to date you." 

 

I see that you have written multiple emails now. They all have the same subject line (Coffee Talk Monday) and they include a full article inside the email.

 

Let's build on this!

 

Across all industries, it's normal for less than a third of your people to open and read an email.  

What does this mean to you?

If you send good information once, YOUR SUBSCRIBERS MOST LIKELY DID NOT READ IT!

Even if they opened it, they might have only skimmed it and thought "This is good. I'm going to open a more important email right now but I'll definitely come back and read this." Sadly, they'll never come back and read it.

 

Knowing that, I strongly encourage you to recycle anything good that you write.

 

You can recycle in a number of ways.

 

If you sent a Monday Coffee Talk email this week and 100 people join your email list next week, the new subscribers didn't get to see it :(  Combat this problem by creating EVERGREEN EMAIL SEQUENCES. This will be a series of emails that everyone who joins your list will always get. This means, if you write a fresh email, add it to a document or a sequence. Edit it so that anything which refers to a date or a current event is removed and this email would be relevant today or five years from today. 

 

Every time you write a new email, add the edited evergreen version of it to the tail of your sequence. I do recommend waiting 3 days until your open and click rates are accurate. That way you'll know if you should change the subject line, the content or the layout for the evergreen version.

 

You can also recycle content by making sure it's in a blog or a video and adding snippets of it to future emails. Utilize 2 to 3 sentence introductions with great titles and in future emails, give people a CHOICE of which headline they want to click on. This is a NEWLETTER, after all. You should have a few headlines to choose from.

 

That will increase your click rate because some people might be interested in different headlines at different times. Adding multiple headlines to an email gives you a bigger chance of getting a click.

 

 When you increase your click rate, the email systems take you out of spam and put you in more people's main inboxes.  If people don’t open or click on your emails over time, the email servers will start sending you straight to the dreaded spam folder. That means your current and future subscribers will never see your emails. and your sales numbers will crumble.

 

Don't send full articles in an email!

If you do, subscribers get all of the information you want to give them but they don’t have to click to get it.

 

Give them great teaser, a nice photo and a solid introduction to the information but make them have to "Click Here To Read More..." You want them to go to your website! They'll start hanging out around your products and services. The more time they spend on your site, the more comfortable they get. You'll also get nice "recently viewed" recommendations from their browsers. All of this traffic counts because it adds strength to your website and to your entire email system. Both email servers and web browsers recognize when people visit your site and when they spend more time there. Your site will start climbing in search results because of this

 

So, when you write your next couple email....

1) Make sure you don't give them an entire blog post. Write a great introduction that makes them want to click to your website to finish the story.

2) Add the introductions to 3 articles that you already sent to your email list.

 

If this is a newsletter or value/nurture email, its OK to put a graphic and a couple of sentences about your products and services at the bottom, but it shouldn't be the focal point of the email. You'll really highlight those in true "Offer Emails". 

 

Hope that helps or gives some ideas.