The Art of the Follow-Up

Happy Saturday,

I hope you had a fantastic week.

I will admit that I am exhausted. This week kicked my a**.

 

Monday started with Sophie’s first week, day 1 of her Facebook Lead Ads class at 5 am, followed by my first day at the new job, 830-530 Wednesday, I slept in and missed the Q&A and still need to watch the recording, but I made it to Thursday’s Certified Partner Virtual Event that started at 5 AM on Thursday!!!!!

I had to leave earlier and catch the last hour of recording because I had to work again from 830-530AM, but I did watch the recording on Friday!!!

 

Working a 40+ hour week, publishing my latest book, and trying to stay up with everything was not possible this week. 

 

It is important every day to get one thing done, this week, I have to celebrate getting to attend Sophie’s class and Thursday’s live evet because these are amazing opportunities not only to learn essential skills but to interact and build relationships with my peers. 

 

Exhaustion might have taken over this week, and I choose sleep over working on emails and lead magnets, but listening to your body, and knowing your limits, is important too. This is a journey, not a race it takes persistence and consistency. 

Thursday’s class was all about the follow-up! Glen, Dean and Sophie all shared their email journey, tips, and tricks! 

 

By design, this is the perfect timing. So far on Dean’s Proven Plan, we have….

• Set up our blog (owned asset)
• Selected a primary source of traffic
• Send out weekly broadcast emails
• Sending additional emails when you have something of value to share
• Learned about Facebook Lead Ads’ potential to generate leads for ~5/day. 

 

The biggest takeaway for me this week is that the only way to be truly successful as an affiliate marketer is to have really good emails. The journey that you take your reader on is everything. 

 

Although people won’t open them all, or maybe even most of them, they keep seeing you, and one day they possibly buy something. That’s way being consistent with sending good emails is vital to success. 

 

This set of emails will take the person who stopped scrolling and clicked on my add for my lead magnet, on a journey, and I want to make that journey incredibly welcoming, and through it build know, like, and trust. 

 

So, my takeaway is that I need to be OBSESSED with practicing emails. 90% of sales come from your emails.

90% 😱

 

The more you practice the better you get at it. So that is my goal. And I feel very grateful because as part of Sophie’s class, I will get 1:1 time with her to go over my follow-up and have her hands-on help. 

You will need some things set up before you start sitting down to construct your emails – there are some prerequisites:

1. A Domain – in the new world of email marketing, it is key to have a custom email. 
2. Lead Magnet -You need something of value to offer to exchange for email addresses = Lead magnet.
3. Opt-In Funnel: A way to capture email addresses – landing page, opt-in page/funnel, website…
4. Sales System- Product, service, digital asset to give and sell to people, Offers to make. 

 

 If you have been following along with me on the ride from rookie to riches, then you have the first three things set up!

 

Let’s talk about the sales system. As an affiliate marketer, you will want to find products/services/digital assets that you used, loved, and solved your problems, and you want to share with others to solve their problems. These are your affiliate links. Whether you’re an affiliate for Addidas or ClickFunnels, you will have a variety of offers to give to your target market to help them through their journey. I am starting my journey affiliating for Dean, so not only is he teaching me the process of how to do it, but he provides me with a selection of lead magnets and a ton of offers that help people at different stages of their journey and have different price points depending on the level of service, from you watching and learning on your own to someone coaching you and holding your hand through it all. 

 

So, without further ado, let’s dive into what I learned so that if you follow along, you can start formulating your email sequence!!! 

Core Skill #3 The Follow-up

 

Your customer is getting on your email list for exchange of a lead magnet. 

 

So your very first email will simply be one that, thanks them for joining your list, gives them their free gift – lead magnet, tells them what to expect as far as frequency of emails they should expect to receive, you who you are, and how you can help, it’s the start of building trust and letting them get to know you. 

 

Then, you follow with a series of emails. Sophie referred to them as her “welcome sequence.”

 

In these emails, she focuses on introducing the topic of affiliate marketing and herself, and telling her audience the story of how she got started and how affiliate marketing has changed her life. 

 

Now, at this moment, I think to myself, although I have made a few sales, I am not about to tell people since I joined affiliate marketing. Now look at me I quit my 9 to 5, and I am traveling the world, bought my dream house and car, etc. 

 

I am still on the journey from rookie to riches. And that’s where Dean gave some great advice. 

 

Start becoming aware of the things happening in your day-to-day life. We often struggle when we sit down, trying to “create” something. Taking things that have already happened and sharing them, documenting rather than creating, is a great way to approach emails. With this mentality, you can get all the content you need for your emails just by being awake.0You don’t have to be the world’s best writer. You just have to \be you! If you are taking action daily in your business, it is easy to share what you did. When you attend live events, share…

 

Turn your mess-ups into emails: For example, I have to confess this last week, I committed to myself to do ABC, but instead, I did DEF. I am sharing this because I am going to share the lessons learned and mistakes I am making. Clearly, I am not perfect, but that’s part of the journey, how are things going for you? Click reply and let me know!

 

Then Sophie sends another set of emails In these she followers a similar pattern addressing the subscriber’s desirees, telling them a short story about how she has been abot to accomplish this desire and shares the solution this desire. She repeats this same thing many times in different ways. 

 

Both Dean and Sophie mentioned and this is critical is to never lie and say you are doing better than you are. I am incredibly doubtful that everyone online claiming to be making 10,000 a month is telling the truth. 

 

You shouldn’t fake it to you make it, you should share where you are at on this journey, you are taking action, and all you need to be is one step ahead to help someone else. 

 

After they go through the above 2 parts of the “welcome sequence” of emails, Sophie then has the automated sequence stop, and she continues to send broadcast emails 3- 5 times per week. 

 

Tell your story, nobody is you, nobody has done the exact same things, your emails will reflect your unique self, and sharing your experience, will resonate with your people, thus resulting in building a ist of superfans.

 

You might be thinking, what do I have to offer, but you have a ton. Just be you, my friend lauren shared an expecitional video on TikTok about gardening and had nothing to do with AS and got 1000s fo likes/views. Because she is just being herself. 

So now we get what a typical flow looks like, let’s break an email down into its parts: 

 

Email Subject Line 

Curiosity is a big driver in terms of getting someone to open your email. Human psychology is fascinating, and we can use human behaviors to help us get our emails opened! If you can make your email subject line’s spark curiosity they will get open – strange, odd, or intriguing. 

 

Hook

 

An email starts with a hook. Something that sparks curiosity that makes the reader want to read the email. Something like: “Have you ever experienced a day that felt like a carefully scripted movie plot? Prepare to be captivated as I unveil the extraordinary events that unfolded in my day.” 

Dean said you can also start with something he referred to as “Open Loops.” 

 

This is a tactic used sometimes to create intrigue and peak a reader’s curiosity. 

 

This is done by starting an email off by sharing something but then stopping before completely revealing it and mentioning you’ll come back to it.

 

Example: OMG, you won’t believe what I just saw coming out of the store. I have never seen anything like this, but I’ll get to that later

 

Body of the email (Story)

 

Another tactic you can use is to end your email on a cliffhanger. This is sometimes referred to as a soap opera sequence of emails.

 

You won’t use this in every email, but it can be a great tactic for building excitement. Like a soap opera or any Netflix series, it leaves each episode on an omg, what just happened? I need to know more, makes you want to know more, and intrigues your curiosity; this is a great way to get people to look for future emails. Usually, at the end of the email. Can use open loop and cliffhanger together. Cliff hanger could be a reminder of the loop opened.

 

Call to Action (CTA)

 

Every email doesn’t have to sell something but every email should have a call to action. One that is very simple and straight forward like check out my Youtube vide by clicking here! 

 

PS

 

Oftentimes, people just scroll down to the bottom. PS can be an incredible tactical to leverage.

 

Lastly I’ll leave you with some best practices from Dean:

 

1. Never buy email lists ever
2. Only email people who have opted into your ist
3. Email daily (or whatever frequency you decide to stick with it consistently)
4. Always have their best interest at heart
5. Perform regular list hygiene by removing people from your list who have never opened any of your emails in a defined period of  time.
6. Repeat daily…

 

So I leave you with this, start writing your emails, practice, practice, practice. Respond to any emails you get back.Treat your customers like gold, nturure your list, send things often and of value. 

 

So that is my plan: to work on my email sequences!!!!!

 

I will keep you posted, and don’t forget to subscribe to my newsletter by clicking here so you don’t miss a thing. 

Let’s ride from rookie to riches together.

To Our Success,

Alison Blaire