Sell More of Your Offers with These 7 Emails with Allison Hardy Podcast

Hello welcome back to Entrepreneur School. I am so excited to introduce you to my friend Allison Hardy today. Allison is an email strategist, and she helps coaches and experts enroll new clients into their courses or memberships on autopilot. She's the creator of the six figure secrets podcast, a Huffington Post contributor that has been featured in yf. F magazine and was named one of Washington DC most influential professionals under 40. By Washington Life magazine. She and her husband tear and their two kids Camden and Nora live right outside of Washington, in Arlington, Virginia. And I have to say Allison is one of my favorite humans, I have had the pleasure of meeting her a couple of times in person, we had some poolside 7am Business brainstorming sessions together, and she is truly the Queen when it comes to email funnel strategy. Allison in this episode is going to walk us through the seven email that you need in your pitch sequence. So these are the emails that actually present the offer that you want to send out to the people on your email list. And work through the different psychologies and information that's needed to actually help somebody make a buying decision. So that you can get those payment notifications while you are Christmas shopping at your kids holiday concerts or at hockey games or wherever you are, that is not sitting behind your desk having sales calls. And Allison is truly amazing at this, I'm so excited for you to learn her strategies and make sure you get your notebook out for this one, because we are seriously walking through each and every one of these emails that you need. So you should be making notes. So you can create your own template and figure out the best way for you to make sales through emails or your business.

This is the Entrepreneur School Podcast where we believe you can run a thriving business and still make your family a priority. This show is all about supporting you the emerging or early stage Entrepreneur on your journey from solopreneur to CEO while wearing all of the other hats in your life. My name is Kelly Sinclair and I'm a brand and marketing strategist who started a business with two kids under 3am, a corporate PR girl turned entrepreneur after I learned the hard way that life is too short to waste doing things that burn you out. On this show, you'll hear inspiring stories from other business owners on their journey, and learn strategies to help you grow a profitable business while making it all fit into the life that you want. Welcome to Entrepreneur School.

Allison, welcome to Entrepreneur School.

I'm so excited to be here. Thank you for having me. Yes,

I'm really excited for this conversation about emails. Because email marketing, still like what do they still have to keep telling people to do this, right?

It's like always a conversation.

Yes. So let's dive in. Because as an email marketing, email funnel strategist, you have some really great approaches and templates and structures and all of it to help people and we'll walk through your like seven main emails that you think everybody needs is sort of like actually helping them sell what they are offering to their audience. But let's just back up to the whole concept of email marketing, and why this is important. And you know, how it, how it's different from some of the other things that people are doing, such as social media, etc. Yeah,

so I hear this all the time, I hear that email marketing is hard. It's not that much fun. Instagram is way more fun. It's way more exciting. There's way more people to talk to. And while I get it, I totally understand. And I sometimes feel that way too, I would argue you are doing your business a disservice. And you're not actually making the impact that you could make if you're not utilizing email marketing. So if we just look at it from like, a numbers perspective, let's say you have 10,000 people that follow you on Instagram and you have 10,000 people on your email list. On Instagram, the average is one to 3% of your people see your stuff. So if we look at that number, I can't do that math super well on my head right now. But I think that's like 100 people, like 100 to 300 people are gonna see your stuff on Instagram, out of your 10,000 people to follow you. Whereas with email marketing, I like Okay, open rate is 20% And while that doesn't sound like a lot, that's what is that number to download. People, like if you haven't, that's 2000 People are gonna see your offer, or your email, right. And so if you have an offer and send out an email, they can easily click to it right and have the link hyperlink or you can have a button, they can easily click to that offer and potentially by, whereas on Instagram, if it's a post, you know, that's not clickable, right it to go to your bio, and if you go to your stories, I think all places to find it, and so you're gonna lose them, like they're gonna click off there, forget about you, because that app is meant to keep us scrolling, right, and they don't want us leaving the app. So like looking at adjust from that perspective. As far as I'm concerned, the numbers don't lie, it makes sense to lean hard into email marketing, and I'm not bashing Instagram, I think it's great. I think it's awesome. I hang out on there all the time. But email marketing is where you will see actual sales come through.

And even if you think about the difference in the way that people are participating in the platform, on social media versus email, like as the as the audience member, like, when I'm on Instagram, I'm like, you know, if I was doing it, like for consumption purposes, I would be just scrolling and trying to like, entertain myself, and then after five minutes, feel guilty that I was there because they shouldn't really be there. Because that's, you know, I'm clearly just like, distracted versus wanting reading my email. That's work.

Yeah. And emails that up to buy or to sell. Think about it. Like, for example, I get emails every single day from Old Navy, and I'm so upset that it'll be me send me an email every day, because sometimes they have the Rockstar jeans that my being full of a son wears for 50% off. So like, I'm gonna buy it when they're 50% off like, I am ready to buy from email marketing. I am not necessarily ready to buy from Instagram marketing.

Mm hmm. Yeah, totally. Yeah, so those numbers are significant. And in terms of the actual eyeballs on your thing. So what are some of your pro tips on email marketing, for sales,

Email marketing for sales. So number one, send out way more emails than you think you'll ever need. So if again, if we look at the numbers, if our average open rate is 20%, that means 80% of the people that are on your email list aren't opening up the emails. So in order to get that 80% to open up those emails, you have to send out more emails, there's really no way to like get by that you have this and that more emails. So if you're planning on sending out three emails over the course of three days, I would maybe encourage you to double that or triple that, so that you're getting more eyes on your emails, because the more eyes get on your emails, the more people learn about your offer, more people don't care about your offer more people buy your offer. And so again, it's just math, it's just simple math and percentages and knowing your numbers. Another thing I would recommend you do is that you invite people to join your thing or to buy your thing, whatever it is, multiple times in each email. statistics tell us that when people open up an email, they usually scroll right to the bottom and read the PST. So if you want someone to buy something, put that Buy Now button or that offer right there in the PDFs. And then if they're like, oh, this sounds interesting, they go back up to the top of the email and they scroll through it. So if they didn't buy off of that PS, they'll scroll back up, have your offer seated throughout the body of that email multiple times. Like I would encourage you to try three times in every email to have like a hyperlinked phrase or buy now button or something that directs them to that offer page. And then the third thing is I would split test your subject lines. So subject lines are kind of like your first line of defense. When it comes to getting people to actually open up your emails, they read the subject line, and they're like, oh, that sounds interesting or No, not for me. So let's say you're in a pitch sequence, and in January you send it out and then your plan is to launch that thing again in March. Go back and look at your January emails. And if the subject line or if the open rates weren't super high, they weren't like 40 to 50 percents, change up the subject lines, and try different ones how the same emails totally fine, but change the subject lines and see if you can create a subject line that gets more opens.

Hmm, yeah, I definitely love people's creative subject lines. Sometimes they really aren't even relevant to what the actual email is about, but I still open that up.

Yeah, sometimes there's like intriguing curiosity creating subject lines are super, super effective. And sometimes the like, how to X subject lines are super, super effective. And you never know until you know you try it out and see what works best for your audience because everyone's audience works differently.

Okay, so when we're thinking about like, say, I just want to like contextualize this for a second. Obviously, we're not going to be always selling in our email. Otherwise, people would probably unsubscribe at a lot higher rate than if you were also providing valuable content. So what does that kind of balance look like? And how do you separate those timelines for, you know, what do you advise?

Yeah, that's a really good question. And it really depends on the business. So like, if you have an open and closed cart models, let's say you launch a mastermind two times a year, you're obviously only going to be promoting that mastermind two times a year. But to keep it top of mind, and maybe to get people over onto the waitlist, what you could do is in all of your value filled emails, maybe like a month up to it, or two months after the launch, you offer them the opportunity to get on the waitlist. And so you're not selling them, right. But you're seeding the program, and you're telling them, hey, it's going to launch January 2, or OpenCart is gonna start on this day, when you run this week, we'll give you this bonus, like you're sharing with them, what the offer is going to be what the pitch is going to be. And you're kind of collecting like that pool of interested people. Stuff like one way to think about that. The other way to think about it is if you have a, like a close cart model, you have a closed cart model, you only open the cart to certain people. So you could have, you know, a funnel and automated funnel working. And that cart opens and closes to the people inside of that funnel. And so if they're not inside the funnel, you could provide value, you could always offer up new ways for people to get into a funnel. And like you could still pitch them, you know, you could flash sale, your course or your membership or whatever the thing is once a month, every other month to just scoop up people who have been eyeing it up. But it's really like, what are your goals? And how can you make the platform work more appropriately for you?

Yeah, and we were kind of having a conversation even before we jumped on our recording here just about like, how the content in your emails needs to help shape like, bring people along the journey, to not always be like, like, hello, I have this thing would you like to buy it like right off the bat, but you're interested in insert your expertise here. Here's like, different perspectives about it. Like, Have you struggled with this problem. Those are like kind of things that bring people along. So actually feel like this is gonna lead into your pitch sequins description anyway. So I know this because Alison has an amazing group called the funnel of the Month Club. And she and I was part of it for a long time. And she has the it's fantastic templates that help you like build out these email sequences that you can then write and then automate, and then bring people into, and then essentially get your, your emails to automatically sell your stuff for you, which is hashtag goals. So number one, let's talk a little bit about those seven emails that for a pitch sequence. So specifically, when you have an end goal of trying to sell an offer, and for those of you listening, if you're like, I don't have a digital product like that doesn't have to be that it can be working with you one on one, your service package, a bundle, anything that you are trying to get them to buy into.

Yeah, absolutely. So I've developed a system where there are seven emails that every pitch sequence should have. And they speak to the different ways that different folks are motivated, like, I'm the type of person that like I don't necessarily need a lot of details. When I buy something, it depends, it depends on the price point what it is. But like, I don't need to know that there's 45 Minute Calls once a week, I just need to know I get calls, right? So like, I'm not the details person. But some people are a super detail people, some people need to know all the things. Some people are really motivated by painful and some people are really motivated by pleasure points. So each of these emails is designed to speak to different types of buyers. So the first email is just a plain old OpenCart email. So it's the nuts and bolts, and this is the one I usually buy off of. So it's like name of program is open. The program is for this type of person, and this program want to help you do this. Here's your offer. And like here are the deliverables, right. So very like to the point, nothing fancy, very clear, cut through or cut, like to the point and like just cut out all the details. Cut out all the fluff and it is just details. There we go. The second email is the Frequently Asked Questions email. So as you open up the cart, or maybe as you've launched this before, you're gonna have people ask you the same question over and over and over again. And while we may answer these questions on the sales page, some people don't read the whole sales page like me. So what it does is it takes that frequently asked questions section and puts it into an email and the thing that we need Think about here is anytime someone has a question, it's actually a deeper objection. So if someone asks, How long should I expect to spend on this program every week, right? How much time? You're going to answer the question, you could say, five hours. But think about it deeper here. So that person probably has something going on in their life, that cuts on their time putting on the time, maybe they got little kids, maybe they are their spouse works really long hours, maybe they don't have help with their kids, maybe they take care of an aging parent, maybe they're in a nine to five, you know, whatever the thing is, so their time is short. So what you could then do after you straight up answer the question, you could say, inside of your program, and you can talk about a deliverable of the program that helps them to do something faster. So I'm going to help you set this thing up through this tool I have you get access to it in the program, and it's gonna go from you taking spending five hours to cutting this down to 30 minutes. So it helps them to see like, oh, because I'm going to have access to this thing. It's going to help me get this up and going faster than if I just tried to do this on my own. So validates me for the program while also answering their question. Does that make sense? Yeah,

Yeah, like you're helping them via their time back and really showcasing that this investment is more than just like the tangible program, or the tools and the things that are inside of it.

Yeah, yeah, it helps it to see you actually them actually using it. The third email is the client story. So we always have to share client stories, because people need to see themselves as your client, even if the person reading the email doesn't have like the exact situation as your client, they're gonna get a taste of what it's like working with you. So you want to make sure to share, you know, where this person was before they enrolled, why they enrolled, and then what results they saw as, as they work through the program, and what the outcome of the program was for them. So I think in this email, a lot of people get really, really caught up. And I think it shouldn't be like this big crazy, like life changing transformation. And that's great if you have one of those. But if you don't like on average, you're probably not going to have big like training, changing transformations with all of your clients, there's gonna be a different level of transformation. And that's okay. So pull out a different level of transformation, and include that in that email, because it's going to be very relatable. Most people need to be pretty realistic when they can't, when it comes to like investing in something. So showing like a nice super flashy transformation could actually be a really big advantage for you. Because they might be thinking, like, I just want to do this thing. I don't need this big, like this big thing, you know, and just a different level that people are motivated,

even a little more relatable. But what do you do when you're launching something new? And you maybe haven't had client testimonials yet?

Yeah, that's a great question, you just do to have email number four. So email number four is your story. So you probably been your ideal client, or you're like an expert in this field naturally. So what you want to do an email number four is share your story with like the topic that you teach. So share your transformation, storing a tray, share how you became an expert share, you know, a stumbling block you had, why you're so invested in this thing, and why you built an entire business around this thing. So if you don't have the client story, do two of the your stories. And I know sometimes people are like, Well, my story is not exciting. It's okay. Everyone will relate to something with your story. And I would argue a lot of people feel that way. Like, oh, I stories aren't really all that interesting. Sharing your like, kind of mediocre story helps them to see like, Hey, I don't have to have this big like, again, I don't have to have this big life changing story. In order for this program to work for me, I can be like, super normal, or super average and just want to do better in this area, just like her and it makes you a whole lot more relatable.

I think that's such an important point to share. Like, we do feel like we have to create these monumental things that transform lives. And yes, that's great if you have aspirations to have, like, see the impact that way, but at the same time, too, there are there are like, what's the level that the person really wants to be at? Is it like, is it relatable for you to say like, imagine having $600,000 in your bank account? Well, if somebody's like, I have $0 in my bank account, they're not going to very easily take the leap to imagining and like feeling like that that is a good and realistic step for them to

Yeah, and like think about the type of work that's going to go into making that happen if that's the example we're going with, right? So how likely is it that that person is actually going to make that happen? Probably not super likely it could be but round again, not a good likelihood. But if someone could go from like five to six figures like that might make more sense, right? That might be less of a uphill battle might be more of a no smell tend to get to client. So like thinking about it in that way could also be really helpful. Yeah.

And I see examples coming up in my mind right now. I was talking with a business owner who's like was, how do I say this? Helicopter. Okay, so they got that level of financial freedom. And I was thinking to myself, like, do I want to own a helicopter? Like, I don't have to literally own a helicopter. But do I want? Like, do I see myself as wanting the kind of money that I could own a helicopter? And that just seems like not where I wanted to go. Right. So that was just too big of a gap or too much differentiation from where I am. So I think that just kind of supports what what you were just saying. So what do you mean by the?

Yeah, okay. So now we're an email number five, this is the engaged email. And this is my favorite email. This is the one that I get the most sales off of when I implement this system in my business. So email number five is super simple. It looks like a just a regular Gmail email. It says, Hey, name of person, I see you haven't enrolled yet in name of program. What questions do you have for me hit reply and ask away. And what it does is it gets them to talk to you and you become like a real person to them. When you can get people to talk to you and ask questions. You can answer their questions, you can debug their objections and learn more opens up the door for a conversation. And that's a very powerful sales tool. Because the students you are feel like seen and heard by someone that you're thinking of buying a program from. It just makes it so much easier to buy, right? You're like, oh, okay, and you're like threshold is lower, and you're not, you don't have your guard up as much anymore. You're like, okay, she responded to me. And that's really cool. I really appreciate her doing that. And like, cool, yeah, then now I can move forward with my decision. So just like get them to make a decision, most of the time when they can talk to you, and you have an actual conversation as a yes. And they move forward with you. But again, it just helps people to like, figure it out once and for all, if you are for them. And that's awesome.

Yeah, I love I love that. And especially even from the side of the person who's making the offer. Sometimes we have this, like perception that email marketing is like, I'm just gonna wake up, and I'm gonna have all the sales and like, you sometimes just actually don't know what you're going to expect. And it can be super stressful. But if you actually start a conversation with someone, you're like, Oh, hey, there are like these five people who've reached out who are real leads now who I can think of is like, what else could I say to these people? Specifically? Could I look them up on Instagram? Could I like, have more of a conversation? Can I take this to the next level and have support them further in helping them make this decision? So when you're actually thinking about that, there's people on the other end of the email, it's definitely changes your own mindset to as the person making the offer.

Yeah, for sure, it helps. And you can also you know, during like, the OpenCart period, if you're getting, if you have like, this person emailed you back, and they're like, so ideal, but they just have this like wanna hang up, you can like create content, and Instagram posts, Instagram stories around that, like hang up, you can choose your emails lately to like, reflect that. So just gives you more, you know, data, more market research to really create content that is engaging and also helps.

All right, what's number six?

Number six is the pain point email. So I know we don't like talking about pain points. I know, we don't like to harp on things, and not all about the like, stab them, and then turn the knife types of pain points, I just want you to call them out. So your ideal client is looking to you to help them solve a problem. So they need to understand that you understand the problem. So by calling out the problem and painting the picture and saying, Hey, I get it, I know you're experiencing this, and they're experiencing this and they're experiencing this helps them to be like yes, yes, yes. And when you get them to say yes, yes, yes, they're more likely to say yes to your offer. So do not be afraid to send out a pain point based email.

Yeah, that's that validation, right like that. She gets me. Yeah.

And like, as you get more successful, you are going to like, get farther away from your ideal client. I feel weird saying it this way. But like, there's going to become a bigger gap between where your ideal client is and where you are. And so especially as you start to see and experience more success, and more because more clients and grow the business, you're going to become more unreliable. So you need to have I would argue more pain point based emails, so that they can be like, oh, right, this is for me, and it just helps it just help them to decide. That's really all we want out of these emails.

Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so wrapping it up in number seven.

Number seven is the aspirational or the pleasure point focused email. So this is the one And for like the Enneagram sevens for the people who are like, very extroverted, usually high energy people, they love this email. It's the email that talks about like the transformation, like what's possible when you do this work. This is what you're experienced, this is what you could have, this is what you could do. This is what you know how you will move forward and what you can expect to work towards inside of the program. So it just gets people really hyped up, what I find is the people who enroll off of that email are the procrastinators. But they're also the people who like VI, they get the portal link, and they consume like something within the first 30 minutes of the mind, because they're so excited about it. They're also the ones that go on social and shout you out. They're the ones that like talk about your program on social and have really awesome social proof for you. So it's just a really helpful email. And I always love sending this email like for with like four hours or two hours left of the cart open, because it just scoops up a very specific type of person.

Hmm, that's so interesting. Okay, so seven emails, how long? What's the type of timing of like, what this timeline looks like, or when you're sending these out?

Yeah, it depends on the program or the offer for courses or memberships that are like under $1,000, I think you could send these out over the course of three days. So two in the first day two in the second day, three and third day, if it's something bigger, like one on one, or a mastermind, I think you could drip is Allah one a day for seven days, a lot of times, we think that we're serving our people better by having these really long, OpenCart periods. And it's usually not the case, it's usually just keeping them in decision fatigue, overwhelm, and a confused mind doesn't buy. So shorten your OpenCart periods, I would argue you'll see a more qualified ideal client come through, you won't have the clients who are like, I don't know, this is for me, I know that, you know, you that sort of energy, you will have those folks booking calls with you, you're gonna have people who are like really interested, are empowered and want to hear more from you.

Oh, that's so interesting, because I feel like the seven day open card is sort of like the standard that is being shared. And, you know, like the one one email a day or two meet maybe two on the last day, sort of, that's even sort of what I've done.

I think for a smaller ticket thing now, like $100,000, like people can buy relatively quickly does, it depends on your audience, if you maybe are not filled with a bunch of entrepreneurs like us, maybe consider extending it to maybe four days. But at the end of the day, like get people to buy and get them to buy quickly. Again, if we look at odd like they have 24 hour sales for a reason, because it gets people to buy, sell, and they're not you know, they're not awnings, photos, entrepreneurs, their everyday people. So don't be afraid to shorten those which don't be afraid to shorten those pitch sequences.

Hmm. Love that. That's exciting. And then just quickly transitioning to other exciting things before we wrap up. And well actually first UVA UVA resource related to this email sequence that we're sharing with people.

Yes, so I have the $80,000 email. And so what this is, it's that email number five, it'll give you a templates. It'll give you an email example and give you a strategy behind it so that you can create a highly engaged email and get lots of people flooding your inbox with questions so you can answer their questions and enroll them into your program.

Woohoo. Amazing. That's so good. And we are sharing this episode today because it's a special week in December where Alison is hosting an amazing bundle of goodies that you can get access to. So can you tell us a little bit about that?

Yeah, so it's called the automated sales bundle. We have 50 experts who have come together and are sharing resources around how to make that actually happen for you. So we have lead generation experts. We have branding experts. We have visibility experts like yourself. And we have copywriters, we have launch strategists, we have Facebook ads strategist coming in to help you set up the system and have the tools in place so that you aren't required to constantly be on to sell your stuff. So you can grab resources from 50 amazing experts in the online space and it's all free.

And so the link for that will be below as well. And it will only be available for a short period of time. So make sure you are checking out when you're listening to this hopefully in real time and get your hands on that. And also make sure that you go and follow Allison over on Instagram and her website is below. Any final words that you want to leave the audience with today, Allison?

Yeah, I think a lot of people overcomplicate email marketing, I think we'd all have in our heads about what it has to be what it isn't. And there's all these rules behind it. But it's my hope and my intention to really help you develop like a framework for yourself, and have a way in which you move throughout your email marketing and develop a way that markets your offers that is not only effective and profitable, but also feels really, really good for you. So with anything that I said today, if you're like, No, making your own, like, don't feel like you have to be put in a box. If you don't like an idea, you don't like an idea, and that's okay. But try to make the, you know, the framework I gave you or the emails, I gave you how we're going to think about it work for you, instead of like feeling like you have to fit into them.

That's so good. I love that it's very aligned with my approach as well. I do think you know, all of us are different. We all have our own skill sets and strengths and experiences, etc. And so customization is a really important part of any strategy that you're going to start implementing in your business. But at the end of the day, do email marketing, do it.

It's figuring out what works for you. I highly encourage.

Allison, thank you so much for being here today.

Thank you for having me, Kelly.

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