Write Things that Sell: Sharpen Your Email Copywriting Misty RHN
In today’s episode of Just the Tips, Dean and I talk with someone who has helped me out tremendously with my business, Misty Mozejko, aka Misty RHN. Misty is a born writer, who grew up writing 17-page letters to her friends and studying it in college. But when Misty started her first business doing personal training, she started an email newsletter for clients providing wellness and health tips. And it was then that she saw the power of writing for a business, and in particular email marketing. So she shifted her attention to helping people, as she puts it, write in a way that sells and clearly gets out “what’s in people’s heads.” As a professional copywriter who also helps others, she has more advice on this topic than you thought you needed. But trust us, you need it.
Even if you’re British, you have to get used to asking people for things
But her natural love of writing didn’t just propel Misty into the world of email marketing. About ten years ago her business coach set a 30-day email challenge for her, where she had to send an email to her clients every day. That one experiment convinced her of the power of email marketing, but it also got her over her hangups about selling, asking people to click on links, etc. As she says, that transition from writing for pleasure or writing simply to communicate with someone, to writing to provoke an action, is difficult for a lot of people to make. And if you’re interested in upping your copywriting game and learning how to apply your writing skills to help your business, you’ll want to listen to this episode of Just the Tips.
The two obstacles to effective email marketing
From that 30-day challenge, Misty immediately identified what one of the big obstacles to anyone effectively leveraging email marketing is simply discipline. Entrepreneurs and business owners are often juggling too much, running around putting out fires, and aren’t disciplined, or in the habit, of emailing clients every day. If you don’t prioritize it, you let it slip.The other obstacle is, to put it bluntly, patience. As Misty says, it takes time to build an audience and to get that audience engaged. As much as entrepreneurs don’t like to hear this, it’s a slow-and-steady-wins-the-race type of growth. But of course there are early indicators about how you’re doing, and Misty dives into those in this week’s Just the Tips.
Train your audience
We all know that email campaigns are all about getting your audience to click links, but that takes time. You need to train them to click the links you’re providing, and a big part of that is looking at the feedback. One of the things that Misty says in this episode of Just the Tips that I absolutely love is that there’s no such thing as bad feedback in the beginning. Even if it’s complaints, then you know people are reading your emails and reacting to them, and you can use that feedback to improve your messaging. After that, you ensure you’re tracking links properly. If people are clicking links, then you start seeing whether people are doing the thing you’re asking them to do. And you’ll want weeks to collect the right information, not days.
What makes a good, converting email?
Misty provides so much insight and inspiration in this week’s episode of Just the Tips, but you’re especially going to want to hear her talk about her experience crafting emails that convert. Her number one bit of advice? The ever-elusive directive to be authentic. People don’t want to feel like they’re being sold something, so if you’re sending out emails as a salesperson, it’s not going to do well. You have to be authentic, and you have to be entertaining, to make it fun for your audience to read your email. And of course, Misty dives deep into the vital call to action, and if you want to improve your email conversions, you’re going to want to hear this.
Outline of This Episode
- [3:29] How Misty became a writer
- [8:04] What she learned from her 30-day email challenge
- [13:13] Obstacles to better communication
- [15:42] How to wait for the ROI
- [19:49] What makes a great email campaign
- [21:34] Writing a solid call to action
- [27:15] Should you always be selling?
Resources & People Mentioned
Music for “Just The Tips” is titled, “Happy Happy Game Show” by Kevin MacLeod (http://incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
