[thrive_text_block color="note" headline=""] This is a long post about how to do email marketing effectively to get real sales day in and day out. I’ve summarized the gist of this post into 6 practical steps you can apply in your email marketing to get more sales for your digital product. PLUS you get the pdf version of this blog post as well so that you can refer to it anytime you like, even when you’re offline. Click here to get both FREE. [/thrive_text_block] Email marketing is not dead. Far from it. Even with the rising popularity of other communication channels like social media and instant messaging, email is still king. According to McKinsey: “E-mail remains a significantly more effective way to acquire customers than social media—nearly 40 times that of Facebook and Twitter combined.” Here’s another study from The Radicati Group. The key points are:

• The number of email accounts continues to grow from over 4.1 billion in 2014 to 5.2 billion by end of 2018.

• Email remains the most pervasive form of communication in the business world.
• Business users send and receive on average 121 emails a day in 2014, and is expected to grow to 140 a day by 2018.

  Based on this infographic by Wolfgang Jaegel, for every $1 spent on email marketing, you get back $44.25. That’s a whopping 4425% ROI! [bctt tweet="For every $1 you spend in email marketing, you get $44.25 back. Here's how you do it"]

Why Email Marketing Is The Best Way To Sell Your Digital Offer

[thrive_text_block color="blue" headline="What You'll Learn"] After you’ve finished this post, you’re going to know how to get subscribers to pay attention to you and how to comfortably sell to them in every email while making them LOVE you at the same time. [/thrive_text_block] I’ve always said that it’s harder to sell digital products than physical ones. With physical products, it’s very clear what the customer is getting -- laptops, cars, headphones, pens, TVs, gadgets, food, cars, etc. With digital products it’s not that obvious. You have to convince people you’re the expert when it comes to helping solve their problems. They are not going to purchase your offer right off the bat at the first contact for this very reason… they don’t know if you really are an expert or not. They don’t trust you. Maybe you’re just another scammer. Perhaps you’re one of those “pushy salesman” who only want to sell all the time. That’s where email marketing comes in. I’ve covered how to get visitors’ emails and contact info on this post. Email marketing, when done right, allows you to create and build relationships with your target audience (who don’t know you yet). Remember it gives you the best ROI (4425%) compared to all other marketing activities. Recall from above that the average business user receives 120+ emails a day. No wonder most emails don’t get the user attention.

How To Get Subscribers To Pay Attention To You

So how do you get the attention of your subscribers? How do you get them to read at least your first email? You do that by giving the download link to your Freemium / lead magnet inside your first email. I see a lot of marketers redirect people who have just opted in straight to the Freemium’s download page. A better way is to redirect them to a page that explains their Freemium is on the way to their email inbox, like what I’ve done: This way subscribers are compelled to open and read your email… and this is your first (and maybe last) chance to make a personal connection with them. First impression is extremely crucial, so make sure you make it count! [bctt tweet="How to get subscribers to pay attention to you"] I intentionally highlighted “personal” because I want to emphasize the importance of creating a personal bond with your subscribers. Yes we’re in business and we should create business relationships… but it is people who are going to pay for your offers. Real people with emotions. If you can make a strong personal connection where they remember you better than anyone else in their inbox, they’ll like you. And people are more likely to purchase when they like and trust you. Once they get to know who you are (personal connection)... provide tips, strategies, and tactics to help solve one or more of their problems (but NOT all of their problems because we’d have nothing left to sell to them if we solve all their problems), without asking for anything in return. It’s what you would do to a family member and close friend right? Without asking for anything in return. If your content (tips and strategies) really do work, they’ll know you’re the real deal and know what you’re talking about. They’ll then view you as an expert / authority in your field. When that happens, you can ask for the sale by providing even better and more complete solutions to other problems they’re facing.

Invisible Selling Is The Secret

First things first, you should be selling in (almost) every email. That is the proper way of how to do email marketing. After all, you’re in this business to make money. [bctt tweet="How to leverage the power of Invisible Selling to explode your sales"] However don’t blatantly say “buy my offer” in every single email. Do that and you’ll burn your list faster than new leads come in. Tons of people will unsubscribe and you’ll have to find new leads to “burn” all the time. Not to mention they’ll resent you. The way to sell in every email is in to be engaging in Invisible Selling… which essentially means selling without looking like selling. And you do that by being personal… by telling personal stories that relate to your product or service. After telling your story (keep it short and to the point because people are busy and they want to quickly get by), you “soft sell” your offer. I also include a signature in every email I send. Here’s what my signature looks like: Your brain loves stories. Your subscribers are human just like you and by being personal, by telling your stories to them… you’re subconsciously telling them there’s a real human behind the emails they receive. This infographic by OneSpot also tells us the importance of storytelling to cut through the noise and connect deeper with our audience: Here’s one of my (email sequence) emails:

• I lead in with the story of how I was lazy to cook back in college.
• I then chose to eat instant food to save time and effort.
• I then tied this “instant” crave that everyone wants with instant commissions affiliates want without having to wait for the refund period to clear.
• If you can provide instant commissions, it’s going to attract more affiliates to promote your offers.
• Finally I mentioned it’s difficult to create scripts/software that can payout instant commissions (even if you’re a programmer). The easy “plug and play” way that anyone can do it in minutes is via Zaxaa -- which is what I’m “selling”.

Invisible Selling In Communities

I love Facebook groups. People can come in and vent their frustrations and share their experience and results (which are essentially stories)… and others can chime in and give their feedback and advice. It’s a great way to make connections, help each other, and build social goodwill. If you’re the owner of the group, you’ll of course enjoy an active group. An active group leads to more exposure for your brand and offers, because at some point people are going to ask your product or service inside the group… or at the very least mention it, like this in my ConstantGrowth Facebook group: This way you won’t be seen by others to be selling all the time, since members are asking the questions, and you’re simply answering them. This works for any kind of communities (e.g. forums in your niche), not just Facebook groups. [bctt tweet="How to sell in your own Facebook group or forum without looking like you're selling"] By the way, if you haven’t joined our Digital Income Funnels group where we talk all things related to digital marketing and entrepreneurship, please do join us here.

Coming Up With Ideas For Storytelling

A lot of people will say “but I don’t have stories to tell”. That’s just excuses! Think deeper and harder. Everyone has a story to tell. Don’t tell me you don’t talk to you spouse, kids, relatives, friends, and co-workers. Nobody at all? Here are some questions to “ignite” your ideas for storytelling: [bctt tweet="How to come up with ideas for email storytelling"]

• When you turn on the TV, browse online, or read magazines... what stories caught your attention? If it caught your attention, it would probably caught the attention of others too.
• What events this past week did you find amusing?
• What was the last movie you watched? What 1 thing did you like and 1 thing did you not like about it?
• Over lunch or dinner yesterday, what did you talk about to your spouse, kids, friends, co-workers?
• What case study or results can you share with others?
• How did you get started in this industry?
• What things are you sick of in this industry? How would you like to change it?
• What’s happening today (news)? How can you use it and tell a story related to your product or service?

You can also use other people’s stories and tell them to your email subscribers. It doesn’t always have to be your story. We are born with 2 ears and 1 mouth -- which suggests to me that we should listen more than we talk. So start listening when people talk to you. Who knows you might pick up a story or two.

4 Types Of Storytelling To Connect With Your Subscribers

I first got to know about the types of stories you can tell in your emails from internet marketing legend Terry Dean, who is also my mentor and friend. [bctt tweet="4 types of storytelling to engage with your subscribers"]

Origin Story

This story is good in the beginning when you’ve just acquired a new subscriber. Since they don’t know you yet, it’s a good time for an ice breaker. ...and what better way to do that than to do introduce yourself. Possibly add a bit of humor to ease the tension. Toastmasters is the world leader in communication and leadership development. The first speech they have new members do is an “ice breaking” speech which serves to introduce who you are as a person, what you stand for, your background, families, etc. In your origin story, tell subscribers how you got into your industry, how you got started, what your background is, and what difficulties you encountered when starting out. For me, my origin story of why I created Zaxaa was because in early 2011 I was searching for an all-in-1 shopping cart solution for digital product creators that would allow me to set up sales funnels + send out ultra-targeted emails based on user behavior and segmentation. There were a couple in the market back then. However one was out of our budget and very complicated and confusing to use, and the other one lack the shopping cart features we wanted. After a few months of trying and continued searching, I decided to create one myself for our own use initially. But then we thought… hey if I’m having this problem, I bet other digital product creators like me have the same problems as well… so why not create a platform instead so that others can use it as well. That’s how Zaxaa was born. It was created out of frustration of not finding something we really wanted, and then fast forward a few years later we’re serving thousands of users. Recently, we’ve also released the beta version of our email & crm automation part -- which allows you to send ultra-targeted emails based on behavior and segmentation, using our BEATS Mail System™ (Bulls-Eye Auto Target Social Mail System) technology.

Vision Story

These are stories that relate to what you’d like to change in this industry. Maybe it’s the myths or lies that people have been told to. For example, in the internet marketing niche we often hear from gurus that it’s easy to make money out of thin air. You buy my secret software, click 3 easy buttons and see money coming in instantly by tomorrow. Or buy my course and I’ll show you a secret on how to get rich by the end of the week by working only 30 minutes a day. You know these are lies. Yes they are people who could achieve that feat… but these are experienced people with connections, brands, and huge email lists. On the sales page, they only tell you the end result, they didn’t tell the struggles and hard work needed to get to where they’re currently at. Your vision story is how you would like to make an impact in your industry. What do you stand for? What’s the core message you want to convey to your audience? With Zaxaa, my aim is to create an easy-to-use, quick-to-setup platform for digital product creators who want to sell their offers and build relationships with their audience via ultra-targeted email messages.

Rapport Building Stories

These are stories that you tell in order to make a connection with your readers. They might not directly relate to your product or service that you sell. Example: My end goal is to get more users to use Zaxaa for their sales funnel shopping cart and/or email CRM automation capabilities. I could tell subscribers that I send my kids to the school every weekday, and I’m stuck in traffic jam every day as well… but I’m happy to be stuck in traffic because I don’t have a boss to answer to and I already have systems in place. Even if I’m somewhere (stuck in traffic), we still get sales because of the automation I have set up in place. And this automation is possible because of Zaxaa. By the way this is a true story, I do send my kids to school every morning.

Candid picture of my kids I managed to capture one fine morning

Reason Why Stories

These are stories that are typically used when running discounts. Discounts with a specific deadline multiply your sales. If you supply a reason why the discount is there in the first place, you’ll make even stronger sales. Special occasions like company anniversaries, your birthday or your kid’s birthday, Black Friday, Christmas, milestone celebrations, scratch-and-dent sales are all examples of reason whys you could use for your discount.

How To Automate Email Marketing

Imagine the following scenario where you record all email marketing activities inside an Excel spreadsheet:

• You record how many subscribers you got each day
• You keep track which subscribers are supposed to receive which email today
• You send out all emails manually one by one
• You repeat the process every single day
• Imagine over the years when you’ve accumulated tens of thousands of subscribers. It would take you the whole day (most likely weeks) just to do one day’s worth of work. You’d have no time left for other important tasks in your business.
• Not to mention you don’t have stats to keep track of how many subscribers open and click each specific email. This means you can’t measure your performance.

The answer to this is to use software to automate the whole process, from collecting subscribers… to sending out tens of thousands of correct emails to the correct subscribers... to keeping track of stats. Zaxaa Ultimate Automation can do all these and much more.

Your Turn

Tell me in a comment below what you think of the post. Also let me know if you have any questions. I personally read each and every question. If you find this post useful, I’m sure others will as well. Can I ask a favor and ask you to share it with your friends by clicking one of the share buttons below? Thank you in advance!

How To Apply This To Your Business In 6 Steps

[thrive_text_block color="note" headline=""] This is a long post about how to do email marketing effectively to get real sales day in and day out. I’ve summarized the gist of this post into 6 practical steps you can apply in your email marketing to get more sales for your digital product. PLUS you get the pdf version of this blog post as well so that you can refer to it anytime you like, even when you’re offline. Click here to get both FREE. [/thrive_text_block]