Today we’re featuring a guest post by Brandon Richardson. Brandon has worked in real estate development/construction for 14 years. He writes about marketing for the construction industry at Constructing Insights. He also runs his own eCommerce and Amazon FBA business, and he blogs about it over at www.fbaroadmap.com. He also loves pizza, so he’s pretty much a modern day renaissance man.
He recently attended SumoMe’s big conference and was more than happy to share his insights on it.
If you care about growing your business, then you probably have an email list.
And if you have an email list, then you probably have tools on your website for collecting those email addresses. (If not, then you should.)
SumoMe is a company that “makes tools to grow your website’s traffic.” Simple and descriptive tagline? Check. Social proof? See for yourself:
Their apps are installed on over 400,000 websites, so they must know what they’re doing. Landing pages (aka the “Welcome Mat”). Pop-ups. Sliders. Tops bars (called the “Smart Bar”). You name it, and SumoMe makes it. So as a loyal customer (and longtime subscriber to the AppSumo email list), I jumped at the chance to attend their first ever convention: SumoCon 2016.
SumoCon 2016 was a weekend crash course on growing your business. The all-star list of presenters included successful entrepreneurs, writers, email marketers, and online business gurus. Even better, there were breakout sessions where we got to work in small, group settings with them. The presentations and breakout session topics covered a pretty wide range of topics:
- Scaling your business
- eCommerce
- Copywriting
- Working with influencers
- B2B marketing
- Hiring
- SEO
The highlight, of course, was a 90-minute session on the last day with AppSumo and SumoMe founder Noah Kagan. Noah had the entire convention of 225 attendees actually working on their businesses in real-time. Just imagine 223 MacBooks spread out in a hotel ballroom with a bunch of Internet marketers geeking out and blasting emails to their lists at the same time. (I’m not sure what kind of laptops the other two people were using.)
I could write a 40-page eBook on all the insights and nuggets of information I brought back from SumoCon 2016 (dibs!). But since this is an email marketing blog and my space here is limited, I’ll leave you with my three biggest takeaways:
3. The “Problem – Agitate – Solve” Loop
Bryan Harris of Video Fruit grew his business from $100,000 to $2,000,000 revenue in 18 months. And this “problem – agitate – solve” sequence is the framework he uses in their email drip campaigns. Here’s the premise:
- Email #1: Point out the PROBLEM that your (future) customers are having. They signed up for your email list for a reason, so your job as an email marketer is to remind them of that. Did your CTA ask them if they want to lose weight? Then tell them that’s why you’re emailing them.
- Email #2: Now you want to AGITATE that problem. Highlight all of the issues your customers are dealing with. And really stir up those emotions. The more you can touch on their pain points, the better.
- Email #3: This one is easy, because your product was made to SOLVE their problem. Right? So just tell them how you’ll do it.
The goal isn’t to sell something in your first email. Instead, you want to turn a lukewarm lead into a “frothing-at-the-mouth” lead. Unless you run an eCommerce business where people sign up for your list just for the promotions, you may scare off potential customers by hitting them up front with a hard sale.
You need to wine-and-dine them.
And this leads me to…
2. Emotion Vs. Logic
Jake Puhl from Fire Gang touched on this during his presentation, but my favorite copywriter in the world really drove the point home in his breakout session. If you’ve never witnessed one of Neville Medhora’s website or email campaign tear-downs, you’re missing out. But I can summarize it for you. Here’s what a typical email may look like from a cloud storage provider:
Dear Customer:
Here at Up In The Cloud LLC, we specialize in providing cross-functional storage solutions for enterprise customers in data-driven industries. Our service is optimized across all major development platforms and integrates seamlessly with every data analytics application on the market. Customer data is securely stored on redundant servers and…
Stop!
Just stop. Seriously. I don’t even know if what I wrote makes sense! But I do know I see this stuff all the time. Companies spend way too much time talking about all of their product features because they think people care.
Booooor-ing!
Customers care about what’s in it for THEM. They don’t care how you solve their problem. They only care about what your product can do for them. Period.
So stop trying to “logic and reason” people into buying your product. I’m sure the features are great and all, but making a purchase is an emotional experience. People buy things because of how those things make them feel. A better email may look something like this:
Hey there!
Do you ever lose sleep at night worrying about losing all of your data files? What if the power went out and your hard drive got fried? Talk about a disaster!
Well, guess what? We can handle that for you.
That’s it. Just spend a little time telling your readers what your product can do for them, because that’s what people care about. Tell them how you can solve their problem!
Oh, and use a more “conversational” tone of voice. You know – use a little emotion! Pretend like you’re writing an email to your best friend and avoid all that technical, eye-glazing drivel.
1. Do Things that Don’t Scale, So You Can Do Things that DO Scale
I guess an explanation is in order.
If you have an email list of 300,000 people, you can’t talk directly with every single customer. This is pretty much a time-suck. It’s not scalable. But if you’re a small company looking to grow, you can (and should) talk with your subscribers.
When you send out an email to your list, ask your subscribers to reply and tell you what issues they’re having. Ask them what their pain points are. Ask them about any features they would like that you don’t currently offer. If you do this, chances are a small percentage of your list will respond.
When this happens, you open up a personal dialogue with current (or future) customers. These subscribers can give you valuable insights to help mold your product into something that’s perfect for your market. And when you build something that people love, then more people will start buying.
This personal, direct communication with the few that respond will help you build a better product. Which leads to more sales. Which means growth. And growth means you need to hire new team members to continue scaling your business.
It all begins with asking your subscribers to respond to your email. Talk TO your customers. Not AT them.
And there you have it. These are the three big lessons related to email marketing I took away from SumoCon 2016. (Well, they’re the only three I took notes on at least.)
And did I mention that all of the SumoMe apps are super-easy to use? And that they integrate seamlessly with WhatCounts?
Now you know!
Also check out The Only Email Marketing Checklist You’ll Ever Need and Apology Emails: Why It’s Important To Always Say ‘I’m Sorry’.