To share or not to share

Nikki Elbaz: She’s a nurse, so she uses the following analogy. Imagine I came to treat a burn victim and I started freaking out on them. Oh my gosh, it looks so bad. Oh, it’s so awful. I can’t handle this. That would be completely inappropriate. She needs to be completely stoic while treating the patient. Sure, she needs to process the trauma of working with a disfigured patient, but not with the patient. That’s what the staff room is for.

Nikki Elbaz: Welcome to email swipes, where we peek behind the scenes at the emails that catch your attention and earn their place in your swipe file. Every other week, we’ll talk to an email expert about an experiment they ran and in the following episode. In this episode, well, dive into the strategies and methods used in the email so you can inform and inspire your own email work. I’m Nikki Elvas, the copywriter behind winning emails for eight and nine figure sass and ecommerce brands like Shopify, four, Sigmatic, and sprout social. And I know that hearing the background stories to these emails will help you turn pie in the sky insights into plug and play actions. Ready to make inspiration tactical? Let’s go. First, a quick recap of the email. We discussed last week that we’ll be digging into today.

Nikki Elbaz: Last month, I ran a free class on how to get leads to buy in on, um, customer research. 65 people signed up. 25 people showed up live. 50 people watched the recording. That was up for 72 hours. For context, my email list at the time was 107 people. Talk about tiny. Still, my conversions for this class were way above standard. Why? Because the topic m of my free class struck a chord. See, the copywriters and marketers and strategists who come to the workshop have been around the block. They felt the resistance to research from leads and clients, and they know it well. Which is a problem when research is also your gateway to conversions. Want to know an even bigger problem? Despite how important research is to conversions, no one really tells you how to sell or position it to get company buy in. Until now. If you’re in my orbit, it’s to help sharpen your customer research skills in some way. Right? This is where it starts. There is no research if leads don’t buy in. Even if clients agree to doing research, are you able to charge more for it? Do they see you as the authority because of it? Do they get excited about doing research and take your lead?

Nikki Elbaz: Your answer answer to all of those three should be a big, fat yes. If it’s not, come to my free 30 minutes class on March 17, I’ll be sharing the exact strategies I use to close 20k plus research packages consistently and get leads excited and trusting my expertise. Here’s what conversion copywriter Sinead Arnold had to say about it. I’ve been honing my research skills because I know that’s where the conversion magic comes from. But I’ve noticed fellow copywriters, leads or clients have resistance M towards VoC and that problem has been at the back of my mind as I get ready to relaunch my service offering. When your masterclass popped up, I figured why not bypass years of resistance and see what works for an expert who sells research for figures? I can only dream of invoicing and you did not disappoint. I’ll be making an offer at the end of the class, but leave before that. If you’re not game, you’ll still get what you came for. Here’s the signup link again. Hope you come M Hannah P’s. Know any copywriter or marketer friends who might like the class? Have them sign up here.

Nikki Elbaz: As usual, we are going to dive right into the juicy pits. And there are lots of juicy bits because the medium of a thought leadership email list is a whole lot different than an ecommerce email list or a SaaS email list or any other industry. Theres a lot more that ties into who you are as a person and what you stand for and want to share. Its a lot more human than selling design software or oven mitts, even if theres a face behind the design software or oven mitt brand. And even though business to business is always human to human, this email is a great email. It has a great narrative, it’s got a great hook, it’s chock full of persuasion principles. And yet it would be a terrible email for any other industry other than for a course launch. Think about this kind of email as a chainsaw. Lots of power, awesome for hacking down trees in seconds. But would you use a chainsaw to create an intricate wood carving? Of course not. And this, by the way, is the number one reason I created email mastery, my all inclusive accelerator on email strategy. I’ve noticed that many marketers will either use one type of email across all industries. They just chainsaw everything, or they’re confused when they see something that they’re told is a bad practice. When it’s actually a great practice for that specific industry. It’s only a bad practice for the industry they are used to working with. They’re scared of chainsaws because they’re usually working with sculptors, but then when they need to tackle the rotting tree in their front yard, they’re wondering why the chisel isn’t doing much. Anyway, I said we were gonna dive right in and then I didn’t. M so check out the show notes for the link to the email mastery waitlist and let’s get to our takeaways.

The most interesting insight I took from last week’s episode is the fact that three out of the four stats that Hannah listed in her email were exceptional. Almost her entire list watched her free class. That is really not something to sneeze at. And she even built the email around this point. In order to build her pitch, she transitioned from the stats into why the class topic resonated so well with people she knew. It did a good job. If I had seen this email without talking to her, I would have zero clue that she was so scared to send it to me. It read like the biggest strength, like shes the most amazing expert and yet her experience was so incredibly different. She was petrified of that one tiny number that for me completely faded into the background. While she thought she was showcasing a weakness, her list wasnt quote unquote big enough. To me. She was showcasing a strength even just coming out of the gate when she had a small list. Shes helping her subscribers with such perfect fit offers. So takeaway number one, its really easy to get sucked into vanity metrics. Its really easy to get dissuaded that were not good enough because its really hard to be good at everything, especially if youre not working with a full stack marketing team. Heres a reminder to take a step back and applaud your successes. A little fluffy, but hey its true. It also transitions really nicely into takeaway number two. Hannah originally started an email list a while before this iteration and then shut it down. Side point that was insane for me to see. How on earth do you just delete an email list? But I digress. She felt comfortable building a list up again when she realized that she could do things differently, that she didnt have to follow best practices. Or as she put it, my list, my rules. This is relevant in so many ways. There are a lot of people who are so hesitant to promote themselves because they dont want to be salesy. The answer to this hesitation is not to just give up and not promote yourself, it’s to figure out how to promote yourself in a way that feels comfortable to you. That’s just one example, but it applies to so many of our other hesitations, to steps that can really propel us, or even in just ways that can be helpful. Maybe you don’t want to work with a certain client, but maybe you just don’t want to do a custom package for them and a day rate would be a perfect fit. Point is, and this is takeaway number two. Anytime you say no to doing something that could lead to growth or opportunity, dig into the why you’re saying no. Is there a way to work around that reason? You might surprise yourself back to the whole not wanting to promote because you’re scared of being a salesy thing. Hannah said that instead of trying to sell, she would just try to talk. And I laughed when she said that. She doesn’t capitalize subject lines because that has always driven me crazy about her list. I love her emails and I love how she looks at things and how she breaks things down so clearly, but it drives the daughter of a proofreader part of me absolutely bonkers. But that’s the beauty of it. This is her. This is how she builds her community. This is how she expresses her friendship and leadership.

And this is takeaway number three. We all know that we don’t have to resonate with everyone, that it’s impossible even to please everyone. But one thing that I don’t think we realize is that we even won’t 100% please the people we normally please 100% of the time. Sometimes we’ll say something they will disagree with. Sometimes we’ll make a mistake, that they’ll fume over. And that’s just part of building a human relationship. One of the things that makes building an email list more thoughtful than building a social media audience is that we have the tiniest bit more space between our email and the next on social. The next person is a tiny scroll flick away in email. It’s an arrow click. That space can give us a little bit more room to be human, to build a relationship that isn’t 100% same.

Nikki Elbaz: Same. I agree with everything you say, and that’S why I like you. And that takes us right into takeaway number four, which is the entire crux of Hannah’s experience with this email and how it shaped her entire personal brand.

Nikki Elbaz: Hannah talked about how she’s always digging for the truth, how she always feels like there’s a missing piece, like people aren’t being genuinely helpful when they share struggles that they’ve already moved past. And on the flip side, there’s the idea that parading our weaknesses will undermine our authority, that it will hurt our brand value, that people won’t trust us to do a good job. Hannah’s barometer was would she feel comfortable sharing this with a friend if it was helpful to their growth? And I think that last part, if it’s helpful to their growth, is really critical. I think where things get too personal is when it doesn’t feel helpful to.

Nikki Elbaz: The audience, where it just feels like.

Nikki Elbaz: They’Re showing off or they need support. If you’re feeling like you need to share something for support, your audience is likely not the right address. Your real life friends are your mastermind validation channel maybe one of my parenting mentors is always telling us how we need to show up strong and competent for our children. Trust her. Sometimes, especially if we’re working in a coaching industry, sharing vulnerabilities is actually what creates that trust. So those are the two parameters that I find helpful. Number one, is this helpful for my audience? Will it teach them something? Will it help them on their journey? And number two, is sharing this appropriate for my audience? Will this build trust? Will it undermine the core of the relationship? Whew. This is getting way deeper than I thought wed ever get on email swipes. Lets leave off with something like Hannah said she measured this email by conversions, not by replies because she didnt get many replies. And to me thats just a reminder reply to the people who send you emails. If you liked an email or gained from it, let them know theres a human on the other end waiting for your feedback. Be generous with it.

Nikki Elbaz: Thanks for geeking out with me about that email story. If you enjoyed either of these episodes youll probably enjoy getting my emails. Plus youll never miss another episode. Sign up@nikkilbuzz.com subscribe and yes, that link is in the show notes. Up next on email swipes.

Speaker D: Yeah and like what kids didn’t want their toys to come to life. Like, find me one kid who was not like, yes, if my teddy bear or toy or whatever, like, Barbie came to life.