Liam Austin recently interviewed 40 of the top email marketers in the world for his Email Success Summit. In today's interview Liam will share the top strategies being used by top marketers. Email is still one of the most powerful marketing tools despite the it's overuse by some marketers.

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Ted:
Welcome, everybody! It's Ted Prodromou and this is episode eleven of Social Selling Television. If you don't know what Social Selling Television is, it's my Apple TV channel. It's an iOS app. I interview experts every week about marketing and selling and social selling and especially LinkedIn since I've written two books on LinkedIn. Today we have a very special guest and his name is Liam Austin. I met Liam through a LinkedIn summit. You've all seen these summits where they get thirty or forty experts on and they broadcast lots of great information. Liam is our special guest today, so welcome Liam!
Liam:
Yeah, thanks very much Ted. It's good to be here. Yeah, I ran a summit around LinkedIn and obviously yeah, you're an expert in LinkedIn. I think we met through a couple of the speakers, we got introduced through, 'cause I know that you're working with a couple of those speakers, even as we speak.
Ted:
Yep!
Liam:
It's good to be on your show.
Ted:
Today we're going to talk about e-mail, and really how to build an e-mail list and how to monetize it. We were just talking before we started the show, it's about how you get people to engage through e-mail. I teach the same with LinkedIn it's about engaging with people, starting conversations, then getting that conversation offline so you can close the deals. Tell us a little bit about how you got started. How did you get interested in e-mail?
Liam:
Well, e-mail, as you always hear, the money's in the list. My perception of that has changed a little bit now. The money's in the relationship. What you just talked about there with LinkedIn, it is all about the relationship in business and it transfers across all the channels, all the platforms. Whether it's LinkedIn, whether it's e-mail, whether it's any other social media, or it's face-to-face, you want to build a relationship, that know-I-can-trust factor with your audience or whoever your prospect is you might be talking to.

How did I get into it? Sorry. I ran, as you mentioned this LinkedIn Success Summit in December of 2015, so just a few months ago. The experts that we had in were having loads of success using LinkedIn to generate leads, set appointments, you know, generate more sales for their business. A lot of the experts were using just purely LinkedIn to grow their business. They were growing their business really rapidly. At the end, most of the expert speakers at the summit were saying, “Look, LinkedIn is fantastic for that targeted approach of advanced search of finding the right prospects and connecting with them and starting a relationship.”

It's good to have those touch points as you go along the journey with them. One of the main things you want to do, if you want to be setting appointments, having them purchase from you, you want to try to get them off LinkedIn. Get their e-mail address, you know, like you talked about. Having a lead magnet, or a call-to-action in the summary. At the end of your Pulse posts, the call-to-action is to get the person to visit your blog, your website, a form so they can download whatever your free gift is, whether it's a guide or an eBook. They enter in their e-mail address. You get their e-mail address and you start, again, that process of building the relationship with them. Why am I interested in e-mails? ‘Cause all the speakers were saying, “Yes! You need to get people off LinkedIn onto e-mail.”

Now, I'm running the E-mail Success Summit with starts in a couple of days time. That's all about, okay, now you've got that person's e-mail address, whether it's from LinkedIn or somewhere else. How do you then nurture that relationship? How do you set sequences in place to build your credibility and trust with that audience? It's ultimately, set that appointment or get that sale.
Ted:
Yeah, it's a lot. E-mail, I'm finding, is a lot like meeting people in person. I teach people, on LinkedIn you don't sell to people, you build relationships. I started my career way back in 1980, back way before the internet. We actually met. We went to networking events, shook people's hands, exchanged business cards, and started a relationship. I tell people, “Use that same approach on social media.” Then, when you get them on the e-mail list, treat them like you're talking, like we're talking, face-to-face right now. Is that similar to the approach you take?
Liam:
Yeah, absolutely. Over the last few months I've been interviewing, talking, diving deep into the minds of some of the world's leading e-mail marketers that I've invited up to the E-mail Success Summit. They're all saying the same thing. It is about that relationship. It is about … You know, you're talking about business cards. You've got a list already, you've got an audience already, you don't need to go out and start building a list. Get someone to, you know, there's apps out their on your mobile phone, scans your business card straight to your CRM system so you can start e-mailing them.

There's a couple of guests that talk about, well what is that first e-mail that you send these people to re-engage them? You might have met them two or three, four years ago. How do you re-engage that relationship? These people that you've met offline or LinkedIn or wherever it is; you've started a relationship. It's not pure, cold where, you know, someone might be just jumping in and downloading a checklist or a guide from you. These are people that have met you on LinkedIn. They probably checked out your profile. They know who you are a lot more than if it was just a cold call and you get them on the phone. It's a really interesting way of … Yeah, it can definitely sell off e-mail, especially if you're an online business, and it's a great way to set appointments if you're in the [be-to-be 00:06:36] space as well.
Ted:
What are some of … I can kind of guess what some of the mistakes are, so a lot of beginners on the call probably. They're just starting their e-mail list. One of the things that's one of my pet peeves is I'll download a free report or some checklist and they follow-up with an e-mail that has nothing to do with the checklist. Do you see that a lot?
Liam:
Yeah, well. I mean, if someone's doing that I think they're doing it wrong. I mean, it's about the relationship, right? If you want to build that credibility and trust and you've said, “Okay, click here. Enter in your e-mail address to get this specific checklist,” give them that specific checklist, right? That trust, right away. If they enter their details, they're getting an email from you, first thing you should give them is, “Here it is. Here's the link to it. It's attached,” probably just linked to it.

Then, maybe talk a little bit about what is going to happen next if you're going to be continuously sending them an e-mail. It's very important to set expectations up front as well so that you don't burn that trust. First impressions count. If you can, on the phone, set expectations that you'll get the gift or the lead magnet immediately by e-mail, so to check their e-mail in five to ten minutes time, and that they will be receiving regular e-mails from you after that.

Even better, if you can go to the length of saying, “Rather than download this one of PDF or eBook, this is a series of e-mails.” It might be positioned as, “Okay, this e-mail costs so you're going to get that other three to five e-mails.” Plan some other kind of other series that they're opting in for. It might be a four part guide, all right? Or it might be a weekly webinar that they're signing up to. It might be a four part webinar that they're signing in. The expectation is that they're going to keep receiving e-mails and correspondence from Ted. Let's make sure that expectation is set and then you deliver on that expectation.

If you do say, for instance, “I'm going to send you an e-mail every single day,” send it every day. If you say you're going to send an e-mail two to three times a week, make sure you do that. Make sure that that credibility and trust, early on, is super important.
Ted:
That's a brilliant part, and everybody, what he just said, because I didn't do that for the first few years I was building my list. I just would send a PDF and then I would follow-up with a few messages later, but I didn't really set the expectations. I can't remember who I learn it from, but oh yeah. First e-mail I would say, “Over the next seven days you're going to receive these e-mails and here's the subject lines.” I can't remember who taught me this. It's probably one of the extras, probably Perry Marshall or somebody. It said, “Day one you're going to get this with this subjects on it so keep an eye out for it.”

I literally would take the eBook and send them in a few paragraphs each day. Because nine times out of ten, people don't even open the eBooks. I have a whole hard drive full of eBooks I've never opened. The follow-up e-mails is what built the relationship. Everybody, take note on that. If you have questions for Liam, go ahead and type in chat and we'll answer them as we go along here. That's a huge point there. Really, that first e-mail sets the tone.
Liam:
Yeah, absolutely. I think that's a good point as well, when you brought up the fact that you can say, “These are the four subject lines you're going to be getting over the next four days or eight days.” Let them know when it's coming, right? You should be expecting this very soon, like, in the next, on Wednesday or Thursday. If you can set up your e-mail provider to send out a schedule at certain times and dates, let them know that it's coming at that time.

Even on the landing page you see, you know, the product launch, where you get a series of three videos. On that landing page that they get, if you're looking at the screen, maybe the video's up here and then down this side of the screen there's … This is the video you're watching and this is the next video and then this is the third video and then the fourth thing is, this is the promotion of the prize, you know, the next thing about what's going to happen.

The whole idea of that is that it sets expectations. People know that it's coming. It almost leaves that open loop as well. Some of the experts that came on to the summit we're talking about … Telling stories! You know, you said it yourself right at the very beginning, you know, try to be yourself, be honest, be real, because you are building a relation just like you would be offline. Talk as if you were talking to someone through your e-mails. Be really personal in your e-mails.

I think that's something that is missing that probably, you know, to go back to, you know, mistakes people are making. They're maybe sending out a newsletter with loads of images and series of links and blog posts, when really there should be just one specific story line or topic with one call-to-action, one link at the bottom, so it's very clear what you want people to do next. You make the mistake of putting multiple links in there and then people get confused. The story line doesn't flow quite so well either. Then, when you get to the bottom and there is that link or whatever, you want to kind of keep it open that, “Hey, this is also coming up.” Or, tell a story so that there's a cliff hanger.

The typical hanger, if you watch any of the series, television series, that are on during the week and it's maybe on each Wednesday, and the episode finishes and then at the end of the episode there's this cliff hanger where someone's just about to drive off a cliff and then the TV kind of cuts off and you have to wait 'til next week. That's how you want people to feel with their e-mails as well.
Ted:
That's a great point. That's another thing I learned, I forgot to mention that. After I send the e-mail every day, the seven in a row, I say over the seven days, “You're going to get these e-mails at the end of it,” I say, “In tomorrow's e-mail, you're going to learn about this.” It's setting the tone for them to be waiting for that. That's a great tip.
Liam:
Yeah. I think it's … Get people interested and waiting and if they're waiting and they're anticipating, you know what? They're going to be really a attentive person in your audience or in your e-mail list and they're probably very close to being a purchaser as well. Definitely something that you should be doing, building that anticipation.
Ted:
The first internet marketing course that I ever took was like, twelve years ago or fourteen years ago. They taught me to build an e-mail list and then send four or five e-mails a day to these people and sell them something on every e-mail, and they're different affiliate type products. They said, “Just blast 'em 'til they buy or die, and unsubscribe them from your list.” I was like, “That's such horrible advice these days.”
Liam:
Yeah, well. You know, you hear some advice from some experts that might say, well e-mail marketers, they might say, “There's all these people that have not engaged in your e-mail list for six months, twelve months. What do you do with them?” Maybe there is that, throw them down the gauntlet. Keep sending them e-mails until they just unsubscribe or they purchase something, right? A couple of the experts that we've got at the e-mail conference next week, they talk about … I lost my train of thought there with what I wanted to say.

It's interesting that all the speakers have a very similar attitude in terms of what you should be doing and … Oh, that's right. It's about, you don't necessarily want someone that's just mediocre that's sitting in the middle of sitting on the fence, not making a decision. You either want a super hot lead or a cold lead. You know, they're cold, get rid of them, unsubscribe them, just don't send them as often. That's another thing. If they're hot, send more often. There's a lot of data that we go through at the online conference next week, which talks about your top … It's the eighty-twenty rule.

You know, spend eighty percent of your time on the twenty percent that's going to make you the most money because they're making eighty percent of the money for you, right? Focus on that twenty percent, or even less, the four percent. Send them more e-mails because they're going to be spending more money with you. The data shows that every time you do send them more e-mails they spend more and you make more money. Which is really interesting. It's almost counter-intuitive. You're thinking, “Okay, I really want to build a trustful relationship with someone. I don't want to, maybe, pester them and send too many e-mails.” There's definitely a fine line where you want to make sure that you aren't pissing people off. You know, maybe they're in the cold basket, right? You get rid of them.

There's a lot of differing opinions and it definitely depends on industry as well. You can look at the stock market where you want to be sent maybe three e-mails a day to be kept up-to-date with your stock, these hot stocks that you're watching, versus fruit, because you go shopping once a week kind of thing. There's definite testing that needs to go on, but at the same time that testing that you're doing, there's a lot of testing that can be done that just makes, you know, if you're going along this line it might move you up and down a little bit like this. Then there's ones that can make these huge jumps as well. It can make a huge difference to your e-mail marketing, to you leads, to your appointments, and to your sales as well. That's the ones that you want to make sure you're doing and testing.
Ted:
You really want to test and see some critical factors to look at in your e-mail stats, for the beginners on the call here today … Open, right? That's a huge one, obviously, right? How many e-mails are opening? You send a thousand e-mails, if two hundred open them, that's a twenty percent open rate.
Liam:
Yeah, and you know, most of the e-mail service providers out there will tell you open click through rates. One of things that I've taken away from speaking with these experts is that you want to start with the end goal in mind. What's the end goal? Is your end goal to get as many clicks as possible? Probably not. It might be that you want to get sales, right? You want to make money from these people. Track that. Base your decision on whether this was a successful e-mail on whether you made money.

‘Cause you look at, you might be looking at opens 'cause you've got a fantastic subject line, but you forgot to put a link in the e-mail. You just didn't put a link in the e-mail. What did that provide directly in terms of your bottom line? Probably nothing because there was no link for anyone to go through and view to … Maybe someone went off and just typed it all in but it's probably a low chance of that. The problem is, with that is, you can't track it as well. Why wouldn't you want to be tracking it?

Then, there's also the fact of, okay well, if that e-mail doesn't have a link in it, maybe you're just building a relationship with them, you're getting closer to the sell. Because maybe, you know, your sells funnel is five weeks or five months as opposed to a five day sales time frame. There's some interesting discussions around what works. The great thing about it is, these e-mail marketers, you know we've got Perry Marshall for instance, doing e-mail marketing for twenty odd years talking about the tactics that he uses in his business. The ones that have been the most successful for him. The ones that have gotten the biggest results. He talks about how you can actually implement them into your business and replicate that success as well.
Ted:
Yeah, so, measuring is critical. Just like, with your website you've got to measure your traffic. Who's coming from where. What traffic patterns work. Same with e-mail. Who's opening your e-mails? Who's clicking in your e-mails? If you start seeing more unsubscribes then maybe you're sending too many e-mails to that list, or you're not providing value. You really have to watch all this.
Liam:
Yeah. There's kind of a lot to take in as well. At the same time, there are those things that make the small movements and the ones that make the big jumps, the really big jumps. They're the ones that you want to be paying the most attention to and making sure you're doing those, and what are they? For instance, every time you got an e-mail from, you know, you see your mom e-mail you and you've got an e-mail from your mom in your inbox, that's going to get read, opened, a hundred percent all the time, right? Why is that?

It's not the fact that it's a great subject line or you're expecting something, it's because who it's from. It's from your mom. Same thing, right? If someone tells you you've won a million dollars in the lottery, there's no boring way to say that, right? You're going to open that e-mail because you've got to claim that prize. You're going to open it a hundred percent of the time, right? Doesn't matter how boring that subject line is or the content or the copies. That, in terms of, that's not necessarily who it's from. In this case, this is like, having a product or a service that people really, really want.

Give them value, give them an e-mail, or just whether it's on LinkedIn as well, give people, let them know that you're solving a problem for them, a major problem, and that your solution, your product service, does this for them super simply and can make a huge difference for their business. I think that's what it comes down to. That's the ones that are going to make the huge jump, the huge leaps. ‘Cause if you have a crappy product, it doesn't matter how fantastic your subject line is. You know what? People are going to go, “Oh, I opened that guy's e-mail last week and the week before and he was selling that product. I'm not interested in it. It wasn't relevant for me at all. That sounds like an interesting subject line, but, you know, delete.”

It's all about the foundation stuff. We were talking about, right at the very beginning, the foundational stuff which is the relationship they have with you, your audience has with you, is the most important thing. It's the thing that's going to make those big leaps that are going to make people click more and … Ugh, sorry. Hold on. My um … it's really late here at night. Oh, sorry, early in the morning here in Sydney so we have very power conscious … Very green in my office. The lights go off whenever there's not movement for a little while.
Ted:
Oh, okay.
Liam:
The foundation stuff, the relationship stuff, is super important. I think that's the thing that people forget sometimes. They should be paying a lot of attention to it.
Ted:
Yeah. I get hundreds of e-mails every day, but there's certain people, when I see the e-mail from them, I know it's going to be a good e-mail to read. Entertaining. I may not want to buy the product or the service. Like, when Perry Marshall sends e-mails, he tells great stories. Lots of marketers have developed that over the years. Other people, they're just trying to sell you, and it's really obvious. The subject line, you said, is huge.

When I learned how to do Google ads, from Perry Marshall by the way, this is the Perry show, but he said, “Your ad. What's the purpose of your ad?” People see your ad on Google. The ad isn't to sell your product. Your ad is to get them to click on that ad. Then they'll go to a landing page to learn more about your product. You're selling the click, he calls it. The subject line of your e-mail is the same thing. If they don't open the e-mail … You could write the best e-mail in history and they would never open it.
Liam:
Yeah, absolutely. It almost starts with … Okay, you could start from the product, right? Then, okay, you've got to have a fantastic product. To get people to the product, you have to have a fantastic landing page to get them to try to purchase from you. How do you get them to that landing page? You have to have a fantastic e-mail copy. How do you get them to that fantastic, to read your fantastic e-mail copy that you've spent hours and hours writing? You have to have a great subject line. If you don't have a great subject line, people don't even see your e-mail, right? How do I get people to see my subject line? Well, they need to opt into my e-mail list to even see my subject line. They need to make sure that they're not unsubscribing.

Then, you know, even before that it's like, deliverability. What if your e-mail has been flagged as spam or is being put into the promotions tab in Gmail, right? It's not even going to get seen, so people aren't even going to see the subject line. There's a lot of things that kind of get you down the path of making the sell. Make sure that, number one, your e-mail's getting delivered. Number two, the subject line's enticing enough for them to open your e-mail. Then again, don't forget, it's your relationship, so they're looking at who it's from, even more importantly, who it's from, what relationship they have with you. Then, you know, work your way down towards the product from there. Make sure you tick all those boxes.
Ted:
For a brand new subscriber, let's just make up a story here. Somebody subscribes to your e-mail list. How long do you spend nurturing them before you try to sell them something?
Liam:
This is the thing, right? Everyone has their different opinion on this. I've come to an idea that I think it's a bit different for everyone and based on the sale cycle. If you're selling two, three million dollar IT system to some corporate, then you're trying to target the IT manager or the head of IT in this corporation. It's going to be a sale cycle of six months, a year, maybe longer, right? In that case, you're not going to sell to them straight away. Then again, if you've got some kind of online business or if there's a lot of, possibly, web developers or designers or other types of freelancers who are selling services that you can get people to purchase from you straight away.

Or, for instance, help build your credibility by offering a thirty minute, free consultation. That works really well. We've seen that time and time again over thousands of consultants. You can even shorten that thirty minute call by giving them … ‘Cause there's a lot of things you repeat over and over in that consultation just about your brand and who you are, that they can understand and get to know you by just recording a video and having them watch that before you jump on the call. You can cut the call down into fifteen minutes and you can double the amount of appointments or leads that you can talk to in a day.

That can happen really, really, early on when they've opted in as kind of a gift. It's all about positioning it right. If you try to sell them something that's going to cost something you want to have built a relationship with them. They want to know who you are, I think, before they're willing to, okay, pull out their credit card and start typing it in into the internet. Maybe it's only after two, or three. Maybe it's, the first one you've delivered the gift, whatever they've opted into. Let them know that more is coming. Then the second one is a video, which is, you're telling a story and you're giving them loads and loads of value. They're getting to know you and know, like, and trust you. You're building your credibility and relationship with this person. They're getting to understand a little bit more about who you are what you've got to offer. Then the third one is, like, “Hey! There's even more here. If you loved that value pack session, purchase this.”

Maybe it's, you know, some people try the whole trigger based purchase where you want just a small purchase. Which is maybe seven dollars, twenty-seven dollars, whatever it might be just to filter and segment people. Then, you know, we're going down a whole other track here, now. It's about being personal and if you can segment people based on their behavior and their interests, they're gonna know that … You know, you were talking before about this, an e-mail that comes in all the time that you love, you love to read, and it's because it's funny stories and it's really interesting for you. You want to try to build that based on what the person's interested in and send them e-mails that's going to be super, super relevant for them so that whenever they see an e-mail coming from you, they're like, “Yes! This is the first thing I'm going to be reading.”
Ted:
Yeah. That's why I like to provide value. Teach them something in the e-mails and then get them on webinars like this to give them … Other experts give different opinions. What I do is after they … I have a strategy guide, LinkedIn Strategy Guide, they download. Then I offer my LinkedIn book for free plus five dollar shipping. Then I take them through the ascension ladder, basically. Just like you said. A little bit higher, take up prices, and then get them into consulting eventually.
Liam:
Yeah, and there's so many different ways to go about that as well. If they don't open that first e-mail, they don't engage with it, they don't click on it, they don't download the lead magnet, send them a reminder. Like, “Hey! You didn't check out the gift I sent you. Why not?” kind of thing. You can get a lot more advanced and smart about it, too. I think it's the basic things, just actually put those e-mails together. Put the sequence together. Put it out there to your best of your ability, but just make sure you're doing it. Then start seeing the results and then adding extra e-mails, extra segmentation, personalization, to your e-mails so that you can really build that relationship. You talked about Perry Marshall. He's got people on his e-mail list that have been on his e-mail list for fifteen years.
Ted:
Uh-huh. That's me!
Liam:
Why is that? Because he's built a relationship with you guys. If you've been on there for fifteen years … You know, he was telling a story, I think that was like, he had someone that purchased from him that after nine years had finally decided to invest and pay some money after listening and watching and following him for nine years. It can be a really long sales process, too, but at the end of the day it's about the relationship that you've got. That will be the deciding factor of, “Okay, this sounds like a good product, but do I really trust Ted? Do I believe in what he's saying?”

What you're doing here today, what we're doing now, is a great trust building exercise for your audience to get to know you, what you're all about, and connect with you on a deeper level than they could, maybe, just looking at your LinkedIn profile or reading an e-mail from you. It says a lot to be able to look into someones eyes and check them out. See if they're the type of person that you resonate, you get along with, you'd like to hear from. What you're doing here is a fantastic way of building that relationship and building that trust. All these things, LinkedIn, live video and, which is getting more and more popular now, and e-mail, they all can tie in together very, very nicely.
Ted:
Yeah. All the webinars I do, they're not the big sales pitches. It's experts, interviews, I'm giving them quality information and building relationships. Then people … I have offers out there at different times, but this is what works for me. I'm authentic. I don't try to fool people. I don't try to have a smoke screen and be someone I'm not. I'm dressed very casually, here. It's just me. That's the way I've always been. That's what I've learned from these experts, following them for twelve to fifteen years online. The ones that are still around are the authentic ones and they're being themselves telling the stories. Just like you mentioned.
Liam:
Let me ask you, what's the kind of number one thing that you're doing with your e-mail that seems to work really well for you? That maybe takes your audience to the next level or makes them purchase from you, what kind of trick, maybe, can you share with everyone?
Ted:
That's a great question! With my e-mail list, I've got that initial sequence. I tell them, “This is what you're going to learn from me over the next few days.” Then I'll send … I e-mail them about three or four times a week providing value. I'll say, “Hey, I'm doing a session. A live session. Would you like to join me?” I've been testing those nine word e-mails from Dean Jackson. You know, “I'm doing a small gathering, a master mind, do you want to join me?” Those get great response. Peaking their interest. I don't really go into hard sales in the e-mails, it's more about continuing the conversation. They'll reply to that and then I'll reply back to them. The Dean Jackson nine word e-mails are fabulous. I don't know if you've done those. It's just nine words, asking a question, and they hit reply and they answer the question. Then you answer them back and then we get on the phone eventually. That works really, really well.
Liam:
I think we were talking a little bit about that before we jumped on this call, which is what I've started doing as well. Doing a really simple kind of one-line question which is really personal. It might stand out from the others 'cause all the other e-mails that you're doing, you know, the other five, ten, a hundred e-mails they've got from you have been fifty to two hundred words in length or whatever it might be. Suddenly they've only got, like, this really short e-mail from you. Hey, what's going on here?

People pay attention to it 'cause it's different, right? It stands out. It's like that purple cow. Wow, what's this purple cow doing in my inbox, right? It's a super short question and if you make it easy for people to reply to it, like if it's a simple kind of yes/no question, for instance, it's not going to take too much effort or time out of someone's day to say, “Reply, yes, send,” and then move on with their day. You'll get a lot more responses there than if you would if you ask them more of a deeper question, like, “What are you struggling with now?” To see if you can help solve their problem, if your product or service can help solve their issue.

There's two different reasons why you might want to do either of those and I want to talk about that. Obviously the struggle, the long form one, you're getting to know the person a lot more, especially if you've got a big ticket item. You can form that relationship by understanding the audience a lot better that specific prospect, that individual, I should say, a lot better. Then, you know, you can carry on the conversation and get deep into that. The other method would be, you know, just a yes/no.

Might be because the one thing that getting someone to reply to an e-mail, a newsletter, or blast, or if it isn't in a sequence or campaign, but these mass emails that are going out is that Gmail is kind of the predominant service provider out there that we see on most e-mail lists. They filter e-mails based on the engagement of the user, so the receiver. If I'm getting an e-mail from my mom all the time, Gmail understands, like, okay, Liam always, always opens and responds to this e-mail. I know that it's one of the most important e-mails he gets from this sender. I'm going to make sure it's prioritized, it's always in the main inbox. Whereas, e-mail that he's been getting for the last three or four months and he's only opened it once or twice and never clicked, that's not as much of an interest so let's put it over here in the promotions tab for a little while and see whether he misses it or not.

If you can get people to reply to your e-mail, it's sending a signal to Gmail and all the other e-mail providers that you've found that e-mail interesting, right? Then, if it's only just one response, it could be someone typing in, “Unsubscribe, reply,” and sending it to that person. It's better if you're getting two replies from people. Then it's automatically added to their contacts list. Your e-mail's in their contacts list. Gmail see that e-mail's in the contacts list so it must be an important e-mail and it's prioritized again. It helps you not land in those hidden filters and boxes that hide way down below [cross talk 00:38:01] where they never see it.
Ted:
[cross talk 00:38:01] Where they never see it. Let me repeat that for everybody 'cause that is critical. You want to get people to reply twice to your e-mails by, whatever, ask a question at the end of it or send a short e-mail that's going to provoke a response. Then Gmail and all of the other e-mail providers will put that into the main inbox.
Liam:
Yeah, and the really cool thing about this is you don't need everyone, a hundred percent of your hundred people that maybe you've e-mailed, to respond. You only need a small subsection of that. Gmail or whoever it is will see, okay, this e-mail, this X amount of percent of people are finding this really interesting compared to all these other newsletters that are going out. Let's prioritize this above all the others that are out there.

Make sure it's being delivered into the inbox. Make sure it's always delivered so it's in the main area for the recipient because we've found that generally a lot of people find this e-mail from this sender, I should say, so again, it's about the sender. It's about that relationship that the people have with the sender. Gmail and all the rest kind of knows that as well. They'll prioritize that and make sure it's in the inbox.

Google is smart! Gmail's owned by Google and Google knows what you're searching for and what to prioritize and put at the very top of the search results, right? Based on all these user interactions and not one hundred percent of everyone clicks on that first ad, right? Or the first result. The one at the very top is 'cause most people do engage and find that content relevant for their search that they did. Which is why Google said, “Okay, this is the most relevant result. Let's make sure we put it at the top.” They're using a very similar approach with Gmail, with your e-mail, with your inbox.

Definitely there's some tactics. My mind's absolutely been blown by how deep you can go with these tactics and some of these experts doing all that, you know, thousands of e-mails and sequences and, you know, the tactics that they use. There's some very smart takeaways that you can implement into your business today. Like, the one, send a nine word e-mail, like you said, right? With a question and get someone to respond and then bang. How long is that going to take you? You can do that today.
Ted:
Right. I usually send it to people who have only opened an e-mail from me in the last seven days so I know they're very familiar with me. That increases the response rate. I tested, like, thirty days, fourteen days, seven days, and seven days gets the most response. You've got to keep testing with your list. There's no one answer for everybody. You have to test.
Liam:
No, no. That's right. It's good, interesting, like you saying that to the audience 'cause I think people might be thinking, “Okay, where do I start? Do I start testing at three or four?” If it's working Ted at seven, let's start at seven and then maybe test eight and six and work your way from there. That's a really cool share, I think.
Ted:
Well that's why I can't wait to watch the e-mail summit and watch all these experts give us their stories. Tell us more about the e-mail summit. Who are some of the people going to be there? We talked about Perry Marshall.
Liam:
Yeah! We've got forty of the planet's best e-mail marketers all together in one place and I tell you what, it wasn't easy. I had to organize all of this. I've worked super hard, myself and my team, over the last few months to bring together all these. They're authors, best-selling authors, industry influences. They're leaders. They're sales people. They're proven entrepreneurs, people who are, you know, some of them have lists in the millions.

They've got some really interesting data to share with you about what's working, what's not working. Best time of day to send. How many words is the best performing in your subject line. What kind of length of e-mail is the best type of e-mail. Even the type of language you should be using in your e-mail, right? It's incredible this data that's being shown by some of these experts. Because they've got so many e-mails, 'cause they're sending billions of e-mails every year and they've got the data to show for it.

Then there's guys who have very small lists but they've got a super strong relationship with their audience. They might have a hundred on their list but whenever they send something out, they're getting, I'm not going to say a hundred of them buying, but you get the point. That these people providing such a relevant product that's so, so super specific to their audience that they're solving that real problem for them. They've got that strong bond, that strong tie, that when they do offer something, their audience is buying from them.

We've got guys who are pure e-mail marketers. Ben Settle, Doberman Dan, who are e-mailing every day. The guys that have learnt from Gary Halbert and you've got Perry Marshall, obviously, that we've talked about. Joanna Wiebe, who's a copywriter, like, amazing. She's got a fantastic relationship with her audience. She's someone that after speaking and talking with her and deep diving into her brain, you know … We've got forty minutes with every one of these experts so there's forty experts times by forty minutes across eight days. There's a lot to take in starting from March 14th through to March 23.

Joanna's someone that I really want to … I signed up to her newsletter and I have signed up to all the speakers newsletters, but she's ones that I always open and I think that maybe exemplifies what I was saying before. It's about who it's coming from, the relationship you've got with that person. When it comes from her, I'm always making sure that I open it 'cause I know that she's got a fantastic relationship with her audience. I want to learn from what she's doing, what she's doing great. She's a copywriter and she teaches copywriting. She's got a blog about copywriting and it's, you know… There's so much to learn in that space about how do you craft an e-mail that gets results for you and what is a result going to look like for you?

We talk about, we've got people there who talk about traffic, about the lead generation side of things, so how do you set up the lead magnet? How do you deliver that? How do you set up the form? What's the optimum number of fields? How do you gather extra data from those opt ins so you can target them, segment them, and be more relevant, right? That's the whole point of it. Be more relevant to these people.

Then how do you nurture that relationship? What's the opening sequences? What's the welcome sequence? A couple of them share their actual welcome sequence. Their secret welcome sequence, they share it on their screen with everyone which is really, really cool. Then all the other types of sequences like, what's the most important sequence for you, Doberman Dan? And he'll talk us through that sequence. It might be the cart abandonment sequence. It could be the, you know, the … this is interesting, right?

Drew Sanocki, who's an E-commerce expert, e-mail marketing expert, he talks about looking at the people who have the biggest item that you sell in your E-commerce store, he's talking about people with maybe hundreds of products. This person that goes and puts in this ten thousand dollar giant product of yours and they've got it in their cart, this person is a super important prospect for you. They're about to buy. How do you make sure that they don't abandon their cart and make sure that they buy it. Or, you add, you up-sell, you cross sell. How do you do that in the cart? Do you do that in the follow-up e-mail after they've purchased? Maybe you do both. Maybe you do …

There's more options. How do you look after and nurture that whale as opposed to the minnows that you might have that might have just browsed and they might buy on Valentine's day once a year as opposed to that person who buys flowers every single week for their office, right? Make sure that you're segmenting, targeting, your audience based on that. Then that person that is buying more regularly, that is that whale that spends the most money, will you send them more e-mails because they're going to buy more from you. I talked about that a little bit earlier, but wow, like yeah. I've been blown away by these forty entrepreneurs speaking at the event. These guys that-
Ted:
The generosity of these guys is amazing!
Liam:
Yeah, yeah it is. You know, they realize that they're building a relationship with a new audience by being part of the summit. By going and talking like we are today and sharing a lot of value to build that relationship. Similar to what I'm trying to do, I'm trying to give as much value … This is, like, almost a summary. I mean, I can't fit everything in because I've learnt so much from these forty experts. You're just going to have to come to the summit, right?
Ted:
Yeah.
Liam:
It's free, by the way, for anyone that was wondering. You can go to emailsuccesssummit.com, register your name and e-mail address, and then we deliver the sessions via e-mail to you on each morning of the summit. You can attend it for free and learn from all these experts for free. Yeah, I think these experts, right, are doing it because they realize the value of the relationship. Each of them talks about that in their own way. There's some foundational things that you just can't miss, that you can't not do, because it'll be a fatal error and you won't get anywhere.

That's another point, right? Like, the reason that we talk to experts and we try to get experts on, the best experts we possibly can on to our show to share with our audience, because we realize, and I realize definitely, that these experts, they've got so much value and experience to share. Like, “These are the mistakes you need to avoid! Avoid these mistakes! I lost, you know, hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars making these mistakes. Don't make these mistakes!” Right? Similar with LinkedIn. People could be using LinkedIn for forever and commenting on stuff and sharing stuff and not actually getting a result because they're making some fatal mistakes or they're not following up or whatever it is that … You know, they can learn from you, Ted, right? You want to be learning from the experts and follow in their footsteps. Learn what's working from the experts to fast-track your own results. To making, setting more appointments and making more sales.
Ted:
Yeah. We've talked about a lot of advanced strategies and if you're a beginner, like you said, you can save hundreds of hours of learning time 'cause these people are going to tell you the mistakes they made and here's the quickest way to get to the money. The bottom line is, we're all doing this to make money. We'll be honest! You don't send out e-mails to people just for fun. You're in business to make money.
Liam:
Yeah, and the thing about e-mail is it's one of the best direct response channels out there available right now. I mean, maybe direct mail. I think there's some stats out there that show direct mail gets twenty times more purchases than an e-mail. Then again, it's a lot more expensive, a lot more difficult to make that happen. I mean, I'm talking about a very personalized, right, personalized direct mail, personalized e-mail and comparing that to the brochures on the spam that you get in either of those channels.

There is some just basic stuff, as you said. The beginners can learn to do right from learning, just learning, from experts. Pick whoever, you know, your favorite expert is whether it's Perry Marshall or Joanna Wiebe or anyone else. Rob Rowling has some fantastic, he has a fantastic podcast that he runs and he runs an e-mail service provider himself, like a drip, that's fantastic and really making some headway and growing really fast in the UX and design and use abilities, really, really good. There's some fantastic people that you, you know, whoever that is, you know, sign up through e-mail address, sign up through e-mail newsletter, and start learning from them.
Ted:
Yeah.
Liam:
Biggest tip, that's my biggest tip.
Ted:
Yeah. Crawl before you walk. Walk before you run. Just keep taking action and learning and then I subscribed to lots of e-mail lists. Like, I unsubscribed for a lot this morning 'cause I just didn't find the value. I'm always watching to see what other people are doing and learning from what they're doing. Now you're putting all these people together for free in one place. How do they sign up for this, again?
Liam:
Yeah, go to emailsuccesssummit.com Ted might have a link somewhere, you know, in the replies-
Ted:
Yeah, I put one in the chat box. It's at podromou.com/emailsummit. I'll be adding some bonuses to that, too, for people that join. I'm going to be, obviously, watching it. I want to learn more!
Liam:
Yeah, fantastic!
Ted:
Never stop learning!
Liam:
Go to that URL. Get the bonus through Ted. Get the free ticket. Most of all, turn up, watch these people, and the great thing about it is I'm in Australia, right? You can probably tell from my accent and the light going off here earlier. It's sometimes difficult for me based on times to make sure that I turn up to webinars that are on at only specific times during the day that's just, you know, it's difficult for me to turn up and other people in the world. What I've done is, we have set the agenda, so it starts at nine A. M. Pacific Time from March 14th and there's six sessions, sometimes seven, every day, for eight days. Just over a week.

The session, each individual session has a specific time that we go live with, but then we actually keep a replay up for everyone for free for forty-eight hours. Make sure you do, you know, sign up through that link that Ted just shared. Come to the E-mail Success Summit. Grab your free ticket. We've got ten thousand people who are already signed up to attend. It's going to be a huge event. There's some really cool stuff going on, big things being shared. Actually little gifts from the speakers to fast track your success with e-mail. Share some of their secrets, some of their major foundational points to make those big jumps so that we can help you be more successful.

I ran the LinkedIn Success Summit before this and e-mail flows so well and connects so well with LinkedIn. There's even a session in the summit that talks about what you can be in LinkedIn connections. I think some of might know you can extract them, you can have their e-mail address, but then how do you, I talked about re-engage them before, how do you re-engage them and bring them in through your final, build that relationship with them through e-mail. Talked about how we hopefully get an appointment with them, get that meeting, or get that sale.
Ted:
Yeah. It's critical to get people off LinkedIn, as we wrap up here. ‘Cause LinkedIn has limited the number of messages we can send to people now. They're really, really cracking down on messaging your connections and your group members. Getting them on your e-mail list is critical. This summit's going to help us get there.
Liam:
Yeah. One big thing I really want to share with everyone is you've hit the nail on the head there that LinkedIn changes, right? They change things all the time, make it more difficult to contact people, 'cause they want you to be spending money without the targeting platform or whatever it might be, right? You don't own that. They can change it at any time. That's the point. Get their email address. Get them off LinkedIn. Own that relationship, you know? Doesn't matter what happens, you'll always have their e-mail address. You'll always be able to contact them. Hundred percent, ninety-nine percent, delivery of those e-mails every time to hundreds on your list, you have thousands, whatever it might be. It doesn't have to be a big list. You can be super successful with a small list. Get the e-mail address of that prospect, off LinkedIn, as soon as possible.
Ted:
That's awesome. Hey, Liam, thanks for your time. I know you've been up all night and that's really early morning for you, so, I really appreciate you doing this for me.
Liam:
No worries, Ted. No I've, we've connected over a few months now and it's good to share what I've learned with your audience and obviously talk with you and be on your show.
Ted:
Great. Well thanks a lot! You can go to tedprodromou.com, e-mail summit. I'll send that link with the replay and we'll see you all at the E-mail Summit! Thanks, Liam.
Liam:
Thanks very much, Ted.

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About the author 

Ted Prodromou

Would you like me to help you?

I'm the #1 best-selling author of Ultimate Guide to LinkedIn for Business and Ultimate Guide to Twitter for Business. People call me America's Leading LinkedIn Coach.

I'm the founder of Search Marketing Simplified, LLC, a full service online marketing agency. The SMS team designs and implements advanced LinkedIn and social media lead-generation strategies for small to medium-sized businesses. SMS will set up and manage your marketing funnels using organic, social and paid traffic.

Did you know I've been working with the internet since 1991, long before Al Gore invented it?

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