434: Liz Wilcox – How to write unsucky emails to book photography clients

434: Liz Wilcox - How to write unsucky emails to book photography clients

Andrew Hellmich: Today's guest could be described as an email marketing strategist, but that sounds way too stuffy for who she is. Interact with her just once, and you get a big blast of fun personality, whether that's on her website, joining her email list, seeing photos of her, or joining one of her programs. This girl is great fun, and she knows business too. Now, she helps business owners package up their personality and their brand and then turn it into emails that people want to read and, more importantly, purchase from. And that's why I've asked her onto the podcast today. She started out in the business of email after selling her blog based on RV Life. Now I'll have her fill in the gaps around this, but I stumbled across her while searching out an email professional to interview for the podcast. I immediately signed up for her $9 a month membership. Yeah, $9 a month, which is a total steal, and I've been experimenting with her email framework since then, and there's a good chance you've seen examples of what she's been teaching me in the recent emails I've been sending you, if you're on my email list. Now I'm talking about the wonderful and colorful Liz Wilcox, I'm rapt to have her with us now. Liz, welcome.

Liz Wilcox: Oh my gosh, thank you for that beautiful intro. If you haven't left a review for Andrew yet, like, go do it now and just say, like, I know what I'm gonna write. I'm gonna say "Whoa. Intros are awesome. Like, holy crap." Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here.

Andrew Hellmich: That's great to have you here. Look, I know the listener can't see you right now, but I mean, you are a 90s fan girl, aren't you? Can you describe what you're wearing for us right now?

Liz Wilcox: Yeah, sure. So I've got a pink headband on. I've kind of got the side bang going on. I've got a little, like, frumpy tie dye thing, and normally I record in my office. I'm in my sister's bedroom right now, actually, but I have, like, NSYNC posters in the background. Will Smith. I've got some Seinfeld stuff, usually on my desk. I'm really big into the pop culture. And you know, part of that is just my personality, but also part of it is branding, because if you see that, you're like, "Oh yeah, I know Liz Wilcox." And also my glasses are rainbow, and that's so people pay attention on Zoom calls, right? We've all got Zoom burnout. I was like, I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to get some glasses that people can't stop looking at. Thanks for noticing, darling. Thanks for noticing.

Andrew Hellmich: I love it. I love it. I guess, look, I want to get into the emails in a second and talk a little bit about how you got there, but I know, like, the very first I guess, impression I have, and I'm sure the listener is getting this too, is like, wow, like you are a big personality. Do I need to be that way to be successful with emails and with business?

Liz Wilcox: No, but I do think you need a personality, which we all have, right? We all have our uniqueness, our one thing about us that people, you know, they kind of resonate with. It strikes a chord. And when you're able to lean into that, whether it's, "Hey, I'm an introvert and I don't leave my house." Or, you know, I like to take these types of pictures, because it makes me feel X when you're able to lean into that, the same way I lean into, you know, the 90s pop culture, the fun colors, that's when you're able to attract the right kinds of folks.

Andrew Hellmich: Right. So with you and your personality and your brand. Do you tone that down if you're talking to someone more business-ly, or do you just run with it and own it?

Liz Wilcox: I tend to be myself, but this is actually something. So I used to have the RV travel blog. You know, some people call it caravan, depending on where you're at in the world. And I will say I did not ever bring up boy bands or my, you know, obsession with them in that site. Those people were usually men in their 60s. You know, their kids are just off to college. They're really excited to hit the road. So of course, the way that I was sharing with them, what I was sharing those parts of my personality that I said, you know, you can lean into, were different than what I share now in my email marketing.

Andrew Hellmich: Well, that's interesting. Okay, so now that you brought up the RV blog or the caravanning blog, I had the impression, because I didn't go back and see that blog. I don't know what it's called now, but I was of the impression that was like a van life, you know, the hip sort of thing that's going on these days where you go and pack up, live in a van and travel around the country. You're talking about caravanning for older folks.

Liz Wilcox: Yeah, basically, what I realized was, when I started, I started it as a business. And, you know, a lot of blogs start off as passion projects, right? Like, "Oh, I'm doing this van life thing, so I'm just gonna show my life", and for me, it was a business. So I said, "Well, who has the money?" And I knew retired folks had money, and so part of the framework that I teach is follower, friend, customer. I'm sure we'll get into that, but part of turning yourself into a friend is sharing in a relatable way. So you know my ideal avatar, a guy named Jeff, right? You know, he's probably 59, maybe 61 years old. You know, his sons, Chad and Brad, they're off to college. You know, Maureen wants to hit the road, and he's stumbled across Liz Wilcox. And so I was sharing in a relatable way. I was sharing, actually, I was kind of, I was still that loud personality. I was irreverent, which I think attracted that type of folk. I told a lot of poop jokes about, you know, when you're caravaning, you've got something called the black tank underneath. So I talked a lot about the sewer and that really resonated, like, "Oh, wow, here's this young girl making sewage jokes. I like her", and I was able to translate that into education. So of course, yes, I was still myself, but I was sharing in a way that was very relatable to my audience.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, right. So it didn't matter that there was this big age gap, and you still found that your audience, even though they were 20 or 30 years older, I'm guessing they were the age gap, that they were still happy to relate to you, or they could relate to you, or that didn't matter.

Liz Wilcox: Yes, I believe that. Well, I mean, my sales showed that they were relating to me. And I still have people that I'm friends with on Facebook that you know followed me through the RV thing, and they're like, "Oh yeah, it makes sense that you went into email. I've never read anyone's emails as much as I've read yours." And it was just, I think, just the ability to, I don't know, I guess, really, not study, but pick up on what Jeff needed, what his wife Maureen, really wanted to do, and speak to that and be honest about it, not sugar coating it, you know. "Here's five ways we love our life." If you, just like Andrew mentioned, you know, I was thinking the van life and this romantic thing, how awesome it is. But I was like, "Hey, actually, if you're going to do this, you know, let me give you a backdoor peek, because you should really know about this stuff, because it kind of sucks sometimes." And I think for that age group, that was really relatable. Because I don't know about you if you've ever met a boomer, but they will tell you like it is, and I think they love that. I was just even on the internet trying to sell them stuff I wasn't afraid to say, like, "Hey, here are some reasons why you shouldn't get into this lifestyle. Here are some reasons why, you know you might struggle, and you know, here's a solution to try to help you with that it's not going to be perfect." I wasn't trying to paint this imaginary picture. I think we can all romanticize whatever our niche is, whatever we're doing, but at the end of the day, people are people, and they know it's not perfect. And when you call that out in your messaging, you say, "Hey, this isn't perfect. But you know, I'd like to help you move just one two steps closer. Let's work together." I think people, no matter what age, really resonate with that.

Andrew Hellmich: Nice. I know there are some photographers out there, and I guess I was becoming one of these photographers too, where I was starting to get quite a bit older than my clients, particularly if I was photographing weddings, and I was getting to a stage where I was thinking, you know, I'm cracking Seinfeld jokes, and they're like "What Seinfeld?", you know? Like, it was way off task.

Liz Wilcox: Oh, that hurts my heart.

Andrew Hellmich: I know, me too. Me too. So do you think if I'm an older photographer targeting a younger client, do I have to stay up to date with their TV shows, with what they're into, or can I still be myself?

Liz Wilcox: Well, I think you can do both. And you can say, you know, "Hey, you young whipper snappers, right?" I've tried the TikTok. It didn't work for me, but I know what you're talking about. I think as long as you say like, "Hey, I'm aware of that it might not be for me", and just calling it out, like I said, people are people, they're going to understand. And if you show that genuine side of yourself, the authenticity, where you just call it out, "Hey, I'm going to make a Seinfeld joke right now, you're probably not going to get it, but I really want to tell you", they're going to laugh, even if they don't know who George Costanza is, right? They're going to laugh. But, yeah, just showing up as your authentic self. But also, like Andrew mentioned, being aware of what is going on in their world. What the modern you know, if you're doing weddings, what the modern wedding industry is like, what problems they're coming? "Oh my gosh, yes, the price has raised." "Yes, it is hard post COVID to find a booking right now", etc., etc. Those are the pain points that you can relate to without an age boundary.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, so with your RV blog, if you're talking to someone who's in their 60s or potentially their 70s or even their 80s, you know one of the things I know that older people worry about, because I'm thinking about my parents here, they want to know where the nice toilets are around the place, let's say, and obviously, that's not a concern for you at your age. So are you talking about those things? Because, you know, they're going to be interested in that, even though it wouldn't matter to you.

Liz Wilcox: Yes. So one of the things that I noticed is, within my community, as far as the age thing goes, they have more money to pay for repairs, whereas the younger part of my audience, they are digital nomads, maybe just living off a limited income, which you would think old people do, but the ones that RV, they tend to have savings where young people don't. And so I found I needed to talk less about DIY. I still talked about DIY. I had a DIY course, but I also gave the option of, "If you just want to get this done, you don't want to be under your RV, you don't want to touch electricity. Here's how I suggest you go about finding the right mechanic." And so just being aware of those little idiosyncrasies can make sure your content is relevant.

Andrew Hellmich: Got it. Got it. And you talked about, Liz, I'm gonna get to email in a second for everyone. But you talked about, you know, having your blog as a business and, you know, and monetizing that. So how do you monetize a blog?

Liz Wilcox: Sure, so there's lots of different ways. For me, I did it mostly through digital products. I watched webinars, listen to business podcasts like this for bloggers, and everyone said, "The most money you can make is if you just create something yourself." And so within six months of launching my blog, I had created a book. It was actually called Tales From The Black Tank. Remember, that's where the sewage goes. And I made $7,000 in the first 90 days, and it got picked up by an international sponsor to generate leads for them, so they give me cash anytime somebody signed up for the book through them.

Andrew Hellmich: Unreal.

Liz Wilcox: So pretty wild stuff, yeah, but again, that's knowing who you're talking to, right? People, they want to laugh about RVing because all the rest of the content, it makes it look like a utopia, and I'm over here, like, "That's not actually true", like warning, I'm the warning label. And so digital products, creating your own product and selling it online over and over, that's going to be the closest thing you probably could ever get to passive income. Think about it, you write a book, it sells for 100 years, right? And somebody's still making money off of that, so it's the same type of concept there. You can also make money through advertising. You know, Google ads is pretty easy to get set up. It's not very lucrative. You would need a ton of page views, a ton of traffic, to get going. But there's also other parties that give you more money once you hit certain page views. You can also do partnerships with companies. So say you're a photography blogger and you want to work with Canon or some kind of live streaming or web editing thing, they can give you money for advertising on your website, or advertising in your email newsletter. That's going to be the most lucrative email marketing has usually, if you do it right, you can get $40 for every dollar you spend. And so companies know that. They know email marketing is lucrative, but they also know they suck at it, so they will pay pretty big dollars to get in your newsletter. You can also do affiliate income right, like, "If Andrew promotes something of mine, I give him a cut that first digital product that I sold." It was a collection of funny stories, and it was just a bunch of bloggers that put their stories in there, and I said, "Hey, if you contribute a story, you can sell the book, and you can get 50%", and you know, that's how I collected my stories. People still make money off of that book. I don't even own the rights to the book anymore, but people are still selling it, still getting that affiliate income.

Andrew Hellmich: Wow. So there's so many different ways to generate an income for anyone that's listening, not only photography. And this is the time when people are thinking about all these little alternatives. You know, through COVID, when photographers have been struggling, you sound passionate about all this stuff, and I know you obviously loving email. Now, why did you leave the RV blog?

Liz Wilcox: I just didn't want to talk about RVing anymore. I had pigeonholed myself. Honestly, I told you, you know, I wrote a book about poop, and I made a lot of funny jokes, and I had kind of positioned myself as Liz Wilcox. "Oh, she's the RV toilet lady", right? And I said, "Actually, you know what? I've got a master's degree in leadership." I actually, my business does really well. And I, you know, I would got into the digital marketing, online business world, and I'm seeing all this advice, and I'm like, "Oh yeah, I know that. Oh yeah, I do it this way. I don't think that applies." You know, I found my own way. And actually, with my first online course, I had 141 people on the waitlist. So I sent out an email, "Hey, are you interested in a course on RV maintenance? Click here if so." I had 141 people. "Click Yes, I'm interested, Liz", and about 100 days later, I launched the course. It was an open, closed cart type of thing, you know, only for sale for five days. And by the end of that, I had made 141 sales. So I started telling people about it, right? You know, I'm excited. I'm like, "Oh, wow, this is great." People actually bought it. And once I started telling people, they were like, "Holy crap, Liz, that's impossible. There's no way you had 141 people and 141 sales." I said, "Well, yeah, you know, here's the card." I said, "Actually, it was a little disappointed. I thought I was gonna make 300 sales", and they're like, "What?" And I just realized what I was doing was really, really working, and coming from a background of I grew up pretty poor. I always thought I would never get above a certain level in life, and I realized I had unlocked that with email marketing. And I was like, "Oh my gosh, everyone has to know about this." I've tried the other things people are selling, and they work okay. But like, apparently what everyone's telling me is mine works really good, too. And so I sold the blog. Mainly, I didn't want to talk about RVing anymore. I kind of wanted to move on. And I really wanted to talk about email marketing, because that was so fun. Of all the blogging things I just told you about, all the things you can make money from. My main source was creating those digital products and selling them through email. I never did Facebook ads, nothing like that. And so I was like, "Everybody needs to get in on this. This is crazy." I was like, "I can't believe there's not more rich people", like, "I've got to, I've got to spread the news." It was like, "What's that?" 'The Paul Revere's ride the British are coming. The British are coming'. I was like, "The money's in the list. The money's in the list. Come on. Come on."

Andrew Hellmich: Well, it's interesting to hear that you're so passionate about email, and I know that that's your business, and you've been sort of utilizing email for so long. Interestingly, I had a conversation with a PhotoBizX Premium Member recently, and he basically, or he did, he wrote "Andrew, emails dead like, no one's opening emails anymore, no one's reading them." And I'm like, "Well, you read mine", and I said, "Look, I've got a great open rate", which I think I quoted in 46 or 48% of the email that I sent that week, which I thought was pretty good. Like, what do you say to someone who says, "emails dead"?

Liz Wilcox: I can't speak because I just died. You didn't see me well. When Andrew said, "Emails dead", about fell out my chair. You know what I will say for a lot of companies, it may appear that way, a lot of people suck at email marketing, and everybody is listening to the advice. Luckily, most companies are like, "Yes, emails where it's at." They hear that $40 for every dollar I spend, oh my gosh, I'm pouring it into email, but I feel like they're using outdated strategies. They're not keeping up with the times. And I'll put a little asterisk there to say like marketing is marketing. It doesn't often change, right? The principles are always the same, but the way people react online are different. We're living in a post COVID world. You can't see me right now, but I just picked up my phone. How much in the last 18 months, at the time of this recording have you spent on your phone? Right? We couldn't leave our houses. Some of us, at the time of this recording still are locked up, right? And so what are we doing? We're just we're binging Netflix and scrolling our phones at the same time, somebody else is sitting on the couch with us. "Hey, look at this real quick", right? Like our brains are old computers. They're not meant to process that much information at once. We are not Apple, but we're trying to be. And so when it comes to emails, if people are too I guess, dry without enough personality, those types of emails do get ignored, and it can appear like, "Hey, this is dead." I sent out my actual newsletter, kind of like a newspaper or, you know, if you ever went to like public school, the school would always send out a newsletter, "Here's this week's lunch and, and here's the curriculum", you know, and some people format their emails that way, and that is too boring. It's easy to pass over. Other side of that is advice about telling stories, making human connections, and that's true. I've probably told at least three stories on this podcast. Stories do connect. But the fact of the matter is, while we are natural storytellers, not all of us are good at storytelling, and so we're telling these stories in our newsletters. They're either too long, or you don't get to the point, or you miss the point, it's lost in translation, and people tune them out. "Oh, I know, Andrew just wrote a story. I like him, but not enough to open it. I'll save that for later." And so you're teaching people to not open your emails. So, if you can meet that somewhere in the middle where you're making that personal connection, but you also just give them something of value, right? Like you tell them what's for lunch this week, so they know what to you know whether or not they're buying or packing, right? Then that's, I think, the sweet spot. Because think of it, when you go to your actual mailbox, you haven't checked it in three weeks, right? Because you're like, "Oh, it's just garbage." You do the exact same thing in your Gmail, your Outlook, your Apple, whatever app you use, "Oh, I'll check it later, because it's probably mostly garbage." But when you do go to check it, you check your mail, no bill, bill, coupons, spam. "Oh my gosh, something from Andrew, I can't believe it. I'm going to open that one first." And so what you've got to do with your newsletter, whether you write once a week or you're just doing a once a month, you know, "Hey, this is what's happening in my business. These are the services I'm offering." You've got to figure out a way to be that spam, bill, spam, coupon. "Oh my gosh, Andrew, right," and I think you can do that by just making a quick personal connection, something that they can read while also watching Netflix, while also being distracted by the kids in the house because they haven't been to school in two years or whatever. But then they can continue to scroll and see, "Oh, Andrew released a new podcast." "Oh, Liz has a blog post up", and they can decide, then, "Okay, yes, I want to click, or I'm going to come to that later, or I'm just going to archive it." It's not relevant, but I made that quick personal connection like, "Oh yeah, Liz, she talked about, you know, maybe she was recording", maybe I say something like "I was recording a podcast interview with a guy from Australia. I had to do it late at night in my sister's bedroom. But what I really want you to know is I just wrote you 50 new subject lines." I just wrote my newsletter that took three, maybe four seconds, right? And it'll probably take me a couple minutes to type up, and it'll take less than two minutes for the person to read I've made that personal connection, all that advice. If you continue down this email marketing path, you're going to hear storytelling, storytelling, storytelling. You can do that in two to three sentences. "I did a podcast interview with a guy from Australia." That's a story, that's enough. Nobody else cares. They don't care about the rest. They care about how's she going to help me with email? "It was great. We talked about email. Speaking of here's some subject lines." It can be that simple.

Andrew Hellmich: So Liz, why then do you even need that little one or two, three sentences at the beginning? Why do you need to start with "I recorded a podcast with Andrew from Australia, and we talked about email", why not just say, "Hey guys, I've put together 50 kick ass email headlines for you."

Liz Wilcox: Because what we want to do, the framework for email marketing, and really any type of marketing, is, first, you've got a follower, right? You know, somebody finds you, and then when you get them on your email list, you want to turn them into a friend, because people buy from people they trust. There's a reason why Coca Cola, Nike, all these giant corporations now make commercials about social justice. They want you to trust them. They want to make a personal connection, because stories out like, human connection that builds a lot of trust. And so when you're building just that micro trust each week, when you finally do say, like, "Hey, I just launched this new service, this new package", "I just created my first digital product on how you can take your own pictures because you can't leave your house," or whatever, you've been building that trust you've been telling them like, I'm a real person. Like, "Yes, this is my business, but I'm a real person with real, you know, whatever, responsibilities, thoughts, feelings, etc." It makes it that much easier to buy, just you know, here's a little ding, ding, ding, if you learn nothing else from Liz Wilcox, just always remember people buy from people they trust. Think about Coca Cola. Think about Nike. Why are they spending millions of dollars on campaigns about social justice? It's because they want to make that personal connection? People will buy on emotion and justify with logic, right? So logically or emotionally, if I watch that Nike commercial and I think, "Oh yes, I'm a girl, I can do it too", and I justify on the logic that, you know, the price is right, or whatever, they've got that double whammy I'm buying. So you can do the same. "Oh, you know", "Oh, yeah, Liz, she tells it like it is", like we were talking about with the RV block. "She tells it like it is." "She's straight up honest." "She tells funny jokes." "Hey, do you want to buy my course?" "Yes, yes", a 141 times, right? Does that make sense?

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah, yeah. So even though no one really cares that you're recording a podcast with me in Australia, I'm talking about your email subscribers. It still adds a little bit of context about you and your life. It shows a little piece of you.

Liz Wilcox: Correct. And eventually, you send enough newsletters. If somebody's on your list, they turns out they do care. They will care. I always say follower, friend, customer, they're not your friend at first. They don't care. Once they get on your email list, start spewing stories about you choked on a hot dog, and now you're selling a $2,000 package or something like nobody cares at first. But if you just take those baby steps, "Hey, I did a podcast interview." "Hey, I live at the beach." "Hey, I was really upset because x", like, for me personally, my next newsletter "Today, I had an allergist appointment, and I realized I'm allergic to, like, pretty much all foods except vegetables." So that'll probably be something. I won't go into the whole story, but it'll be like, "Oh snap, that sucks." "Oh awesome, she sent me subject lines." "I really like that girl. I hope she gets better," you know? "I hope she doesn't choke on a hot dog or whatever", right? So you just take those baby steps. You have to think of email as a long term game. Yes, of course, sometimes you can make a sale right away, but in your business, you're probably have a couple different offers. Your offers are going to evolve. You know, the best customer is a repeat customer, and so if you just make that little investment over and over again, it's going to have huge returns.

Andrew Hellmich: Right, okay. So do you look at what you're thinking about sharing and analyze it through your subscribers eyes or through their brains? Or do you like, "Let's say you've got this allergy you can only eat vegetables". Like, "Do you think maybe they're not going to care about that?" Or you don't care? Like, that's something that's happened. It's interesting. They might be able to relate, or they might not be able to. How do you analyze whether that goes into this week's email or not?

Liz Wilcox: Well, I just think of it as, what are the parts of me I want to share? You know, you don't have to share everything. You don't have to get raw, when I say friend. You don't have to think about your best friend that you've known since you were three and you shared a tub together as babies. You know, don't go into all that, but think about what's acceptable for you, and also, like I mentioned at the top of the podcast, about sharing in a relatable way. Everyone knows somebody with allergies. It has nothing to do with email, but I'm sure everyone knows someone with allergies. When I say the word allergies, they're going to think, "Oh yeah, I'm allergic to x", or they're going to think, "I don't have any allergies." They're going to have some sort of thought. And now they've connected allergies to me just for a moment, right? And so that is something so generic, right? It's not super niche. It's not like I said, "I can't even think of anything."

Andrew Hellmich: Well, let me give you an example at the I'm just trying to think of what's happened in my life. So I shared just recently that I'm moving house. The house is an absolute mess. There's boxes everywhere, but something that when I look at my window to my right, we have a turkey that's building a nest in our front yard, and it's just totally decimated our garden beds to build this nest. So no one really cares about that. But is that something that I could share in an email?

Liz Wilcox: Oh, yeah, that's so interesting, because I'm like, I don't have a turkey. I don't even have a garden that he could eat, that is just slightly off the wall, enough that it's awesome. For example, I mentioned earlier, like in my office, I have boy band memorabilia. I've got Seinfeld stuff. I've got, you know, Will Smith, as far as that goes with my old blog, where I'm talking to pre retirees and retirees, I never once brought up my obsession with boy bands. It wouldn't make sense. They would be like, "Oh, that's weird", you know. The Beatles were the original boy band. Nobody's better, or the Jackson Five or whatever, right? And so it wouldn't be as like funny as it is to you know, people probably 40 years and younger, which is who I'm trying to talk to right now. I still do attract some older people, but that, to me, was like, that's not really sharing in a relatable way. Hardly anybody in my audience is probably still going to be in love with Justin Timberlake the way I am, but we can find common ground somewhere else. So instead of saying like, "Hey, I just bought a new NSYNC poster", I try to think, well, what's something they actually can relate to? And honestly, we're all humans living on this planet, there's a lot of things we can actually relate to that we can actually find super interesting about each other, especially if we keep it short and sweet. If you went on and on about the turkey, you know, might be like, "Okay, we'll just get to the point. I signed up for photography business tips. I don't want to hear about your garden", right? Because even the boy band thing, right? I get, "If you sign up for a one on one call with me." The last question is, "NSYNC or Backstreet Boys." And I get lots of answers. I don't know who either one of them are, or Prince, Black Sabbath. You know, some people will send me links to YouTube videos of, you know, bands I've never heard of, but that's because I'm only sharing it very quickly, like, "Oh yeah, I'm still obsessed with boy bands." I'm not going into you know, "Chris is my favorite." And I hate when people say that. I'm not even going to get into it now, because I'll lose you. But when you just give that little blip of yourself, it's just enough living in this world where we're on electronics all day long to make that connection, to feel like, "Okay, yeah, I'm learning more about Andrew." And it's kind of even a subconscious thing. We're not thinking like, "Oh, I know so much about Andrew", but let's say six months on the list, you mentioned your turkey thing again. "Oh yeah, when he was moving", and then they "Oh, wow, I know when you ask to buy", you know, they're like, "Yeah, I trust Andrew. He's been talking to me every month for six months, and I even know he moved recently", you know.

Andrew Hellmich: Sure, sure, I got it. I got it. So I want to make this specific for the listener, who's a photographer in business looking to attract sessions bookings…

 
Sign up to listen to the Premium Version at https://photobizx.com/premium-membership
 

Liz Wilcox: … I really want to know about that turkey", and so think about, I suggest, with subject lines, write out the email first, find the most interesting points. You can pick one, or you can pick two and combine them, but always vary. It don't always be "20% off. This is my package", and don't always be so vague that they forget you're a photographer. I think that's the right balance.

Andrew Hellmich: Love it. I'm gonna leave my last question till after I ask you about your program which I've signed up for. I alluded to that or mentioned that in the intro. I'm on the $9 a month. I guess it's your email plan, where you actually give me email ideas, subject lines and content, and I just basically fill in the blank. So I've been trying it and experimenting with it, and it's really, really cool. Did I do it a disservice describing it like I did?

Liz Wilcox: No, that was perfect. It's called the email marketing membership for SEO purposes, obviously. No, I just call things what they are, and so it's just an email marketing membership all the things I was telling you, if you are thinking, like, "Okay, yeah, but I don't actually know what that looks like Liz", join the membership. It's $9 a month. You know, you can get in, cancel anytime, and inside, basically once a week, I send you a new newsletter that you can take and make your own. So it's got a template. It's got something called swipes in it, which are basically a plus examples of what I mean by the template, and I always write those from different perspectives. So you know, chances are you'll see a service provider once a week. Now that I've done this podcast, I'll probably write one from a photographer's point of view, the next one, right? And so you can really see what email marketing looks like week after week. And even if you're only sending once a month, you'll have all these ideas. "Oh yeah, that's the one I want to send out." And it also comes with live Q and A's once a month, some trainings. You know, I mentioned my framework, follower, friend, customer. That's called the email staircase. I've got a training in there. I mentioned, "Hey, you need new leads to keep selling, right?, the same thing over and over." "You need people coming into your list. I've got a list building training." And yes, it really is only $9 a month. I'm not going to ask you for more money after that, not immediately anyway..

Andrew Hellmich: Ah ha ha

Liz Wilcox: I really wanted to make this affordable and accessible for those people that are like, "Yeah, I heard you on a podcast. That sounds good, but you know, I still need to fill in some gaps so you can get in and see exactly what the heck I'm talking about."

Andrew Hellmich: That's cool. That's cool. And then the ones that I've used so far, I really like the way it's laid out. There's like, an advanced version at the top, an intermediate one at the bottom, and then a beginner one, where you've basically written the whole email, and the middle one sort of got a few blanks, and the other one sort of dot points, the advanced one. So I'm using the intermediate one at the most at the moment.

Liz Wilcox: Nice.

Andrew Hellmich: But it's fun. It's pretty easy, because when I first sat down, I thought, is this going to work? And I didn't have to think about what I was going to write so much, I just thought of a little something I thought might be interesting, and took a photo of all the boxes in the studio, because we're moving soon. Mentioned that, and then talked about the LinkedIn course that we're doing at the moment. It was really cool, really easy, and I could do that for my photography clients too. So check it out. I've set up a link, photobizx.com/liz, l-i-z, so photobizx.com/liz, to check that out. And I think all your programs are there in that one spot anyway, aren't they Liz?

Liz Wilcox: Yep.

Andrew Hellmich: So that link will take you straight to the $9 a month, one which I've signed up for. The last thing I wanted to ask you, Liz. You mentioned something at the very beginning. You said, "We'll get to that later", but we haven't, sort of come around. So you said something "Like, follower, friend or customer", or "Follower, friend slash customer". Do you remember what you're talking about there?

Liz Wilcox: Yeah, yeah. So I was just talking about my framework, the email staircase, follower, friend, customer. So basically, first you've got that follower, and then you want to get them on the list through that welcome sequence where you're telling them about who you are, what you do, why, what your offers are, and that consistent newsletter where you're sharing in a relatable way, you can truly make that friendship connection and then turn them into a customer, because you can basically say like, "Hey, I know this about you." Because you've been emailing, you've been able to see what they really respond to. "I'm going to offer you this package. Do you want it or not?" It doesn't have to be this crazy, convoluted sales funnel. It can literally just be, like I said that PS, "PS, hey, I know you're interested in the photography. Remember, here's the way you can work with me."

Andrew Hellmich: Got it? Got it? Okay, just with the emails that you're sending out, whether it's the welcome sequence or your newsletters. I hear people and I see them trying to get their subscribers to reply. Is that important? Like, do we need to get our potential clients, our future clients, to reply to our emails?

Liz Wilcox: Yeah, so there's two folds to that. Every email has three jobs, first get it seen, then get it opened, and then get, you know, someone to take action on it. So part of getting it seen right where you don't land in the spam folder, you know you're not in the junk, is getting people to reply. If you reply to an email, say you reply back to Andrew, "Oh my gosh, Liz, that was the best podcast ever. Thanks for having her." I can almost guarantee I'd give my pinky finger, not my thumb, ha. ha. ha. That the next time Andrew emails you, it is going to be in your inbox, even if he has landed in the spam folder before. I called the Internet gods that sends out, you know, basically a signal that says, "I like what Andrew is sending. It's very relevant for me. Please put it in my inbox so I can see it." And so if you can get people to reply to you, chances are you're going to get in the inbox instead of the spam, which is what you want. And then the second thing is, when you open up that communication channel, you can talk to your customers. You can see what their actual pain points are, why they signed up. You can ask them questions. "Hey, I see you've been on this email list a while. What do you love the most about me sending emails?" You know, you can ask questions like, "What do you love so much about pet photography?" "Have you ever hired a pet photographer before? Do you have any interest in that?" Or "Do you just love pets so much?" And you know, you get a lot out of my tips, whatever. And you can open up that email is a one to many, right? When I send out my email, I'm not actually just sending it to Andrew, but when they hit reply, it becomes one to one, and that's where you can truly turn things around. You can turn people into friends. You can make that personal connection so that they do care. When you talk about the turkey, they do see your email. "Hey, this one's from Andrew, I'm going to stop scrolling and click on it", and that's the importance of replies.

Andrew Hellmich: I love it. I love it. Liz, you have been amazing. We have gone way over time. I know it's late for you, so look massive. Thanks for coming on, sharing everything you have. I'm looking forward to your next email, and I'll be able to flick that on to my subscribers, and they'll see a little bit more of what you're teaching and what you're sharing. So Liz, and again, massive thanks for coming on.

Liz Wilcox: Thank you so much.