You’re now no longer one of these human beings…

The skeptics…

The ones waiting with bated breath for another report that email will

breathe its last …

The ones who claim that email will be completely replaced by

messenger marketing, bots, or the next new fad…

If you were, you’d never have given this book a second glance.

But that doesn’t mean you’re ecstatic about email.

You may even find it a pain…

One more chore on your endless to-do list as an entrepreneur…One

more thing with endless contradictory advice…

Not forgetting your own crippling questions.

What should I send my subscribers?

How do I keep up with an email on top of existing content demands?

How are people making money from their email list while I’m stuck

here with tanking opens, meager clicks, and pathetic engagement?

Email doesn’t get the same hype as social media or content

marketing. Call it the inferior cousin if you will…

But you can’t ignore the results email marketing gets.

Here are some quick stats that show you how effective email is:

For every $1 spent on email marketing, the average return is

$44.25.1 (Note: I find this to be pretty accurate in my own case. Do

the math and see if you meet these numbers.)

Social media is important, but an email subscriber is more valuable

than a social media follower. If you had 1,000 followers, 1,000

organic visitors, and 1,000 email subscribers, and you tried to sell

your offer to all of them, you could expect to convert 5.9 followers,

24.9 searchers, and 42.4 subscribers.2 According to the Data &

Marketing Association,3 when it comes to purchases made as a

result of receiving a marketing message, email has the highest

conversion rate of 66%.

Beyond the stats, here are some factors to consider:

THE CASE FOR EMAIL

1. Email gives you more than one opportunity to sell

At any one point in time, only a tiny sliver of your audience is ready

to buy from you. In his book, Sticky Branding,4 Jeremy Miller calls

this the 3% rule. He states that only 3% of the market is actively

looking to buy at any point in time. But he mentions that there is a

huge opportunity in the lower 90% of the market.

When done right, email lets you capitalize on the mindshare of this

90% of your audience in a non-sleazy way. People aren't always

ready to buy the first time you launch an offer. That doesn't mean

that they’ll never be interested. I have had people who’ve bought

from me when they’ve been on my list for a single day and others

who’ve bought a whole six months to a year later. The buying

process is not always linear or predictable. When you build a

consistent relationship with people even when they’re not actively

looking for your products and services, you become top of mind

when they are indeed in the market to buy.

2. You own your email list

When you embrace email marketing, you’re not building your

community or tribe on someone else’s platform (i.e., Facebook,

Pinterest, or Instagram). You won’t be scrambling whenever these

platforms change their algorithms because you have direct access to

your audience.

3. There’s less competition

You’re not a status update that disappears within minutes and gets

buried within people’s feeds. You are in their inbox and email is what

people check every day. Based on stats from email marketing

company BlueHornet, almost 34% of American consumers say they

check their email “throughout the day.”5

Isn’t everybody’s inbox filled with tons of emails?

Sure!

But if your subscriber associates your name with a positive emotion

or value and you always deliver on your emails, your emails will get

opened and read. You will know exactly how to do that by the end of

this book. You’ll also know how to define the almost mystical word

value and break down what it stands for.

4. Email helps establish trust

At any time, there are one of six people interacting with your brand:

Stranger – Reader – Subscriber – Engaged Subscriber – Customer

– Brand Advocate. It can take several touchpoints before a

customer recognizes your name and is aware of what your business

can do for them. A marketing funnel is a pathway by which

someone goes from Stranger to Brand Advocate. And email

marketing is a crucial component that helps you move your readers

from one stage to the next in your funnel—from having no

awareness to knowing who you are, recognizing what you do, and

knowing how your business can help them.

While email should be an integral aspect of your marketing strategy,

the premise of this book isn’t about growing a big fat email list.

Email marketing does NOT list building alone.

There are several other critical aspects of email marketing. List

building is a small portion of this entire book because the quality of

subscribers is more important than the quantity. If your email list

doesn’t drive sales, or if less than 1% of your subscribers are even

your ideal customers or have any potential of doing business with

you, then it doesn’t matter whether you have one thousand or ten

thousand subscribers.

I’ve seen teeny tiny lists earning $4,000 a month and five-figure lists

of sixteen thousand subscribers earning the same amount of money.

So more does not = better. It’s about the relationship you have with

your list.

THE 5-STEP ACTIVATION PROCESS

The tips, advice, and strategies presented in this book are not

random or ad hoc.

They follow the 5-Step Activation Process below. This process helps

you visualize your email marketing as a whole rather than as a

bunch of random parts.

It gives you what you need to attract your ideal customers and take

them from not knowing who you are to wanting to buy everything you

put out for sale.

1. It starts with the traffic you send to your website or any page with an

incentive or lead magnet (a free resource that you offer in

exchange for an email address).

2. You then capture this traffic via a lead capture system such as an

opt-in form or landing page.

3. You can then present your new subscriber with a one-time offer or

tripwire. This is your first attempt at converting a subscriber into a

buyer.

4. Your new subscriber receives your welcome email.

5. Depending on the end goal and pathway you’ve set out for that

subscriber, you will send a dedicated series of emails or follow-up

email sequence that primes and nudges that subscriber toward

that end goal.

You can have different traffic sources, different entry points for your

subscribers (people subscribing via your messenger bot, Facebook

the page or Instagram), or different offers you’re trying to sell via your

email sequence, but the basic flow stays the same.

Steps 1–5 are all you need to get started. You don’t necessarily need

a bot or to even do ads for that matter. It’s these five steps alone that

took my business full time and to six figures.



WHAT’S A FUNNEL THEN?

A funnel is nothing but the journey a subscriber takes toward the end

goal you’ve set. It’s a strategic, well-thought-out plan that inches the

subscriber toward the products and services you offer. You can have

an automated webinar funnel that pitches your course. You can also

have an evergreen funnel that pitches your e-book or a five-part

video series funnel that pitches your membership site.

For all of these you need

1. An entry point (a way for people to enter your funnel) via a lead

magnet or any kind of opt-in incentive

2. A way to capture that subscriber via a landing page or opt-in form

3. A dedicated series of emails that prime and nudge that subscriber

Think about it. Isn’t this the same as the 5-Step Activation Process

above?

IT IS!

Your video series or webinar is extra touchpoints that you add into

your marketing mix.

A funnel (or lack thereof) has become this magic bullet for everything

that’s likely wrong with a business. So if you’ve been saying “I need

to build more funnels” or “I need a funnel strategist or funnel mentor,”

I’d like to urge you to stop and think about what exactly it is that you

need.

Dig deeper.

Could one of these sentences be more aligned with what’s actually

going on with your business?

I have thirty thousand page views a month but get only forty-two

subscribers for an ENTIRE month. What am I doing wrong? (See

section 3 for the answer.)

My email sequence gets a lot of engagement and opens. Everyone

says they love my stuff, but I still get no sales for my e-book. Why?

(See section 5 for the answer.)

I have a sequence of emails set up in my evergreen funnel, but I’m

not getting any sales. Is my product terrible? Should I just scrap it

altogether? (See section 7 for the answer.)

These statements allow you to break down and analyze what’s

wrong rather than throw the burden on the lack of a funnel.

A funnel isn’t a physical, tangible thing. It’s nothing more than a

pathway or journey and one that you shape and define. It depends

on where you want to lead your subscribers.

If you think email marketing is complicated and something you can’t

do, my goal with this book is to change that opinion.

If you’re struggling with any particular aspect of email marketing, this

books will give you a fresh perspective on how you can tackle it too.

If this is your first time being introduced to these email marketing

terms, it may take some time for all of this to sink in. But I will walk

you through each of these five steps in greater detail in the book.

I’ve deliberately broken down this book into tips and FAQs so that it’s

an easy read.

FAQs will be interspersed right through the chapters, just like this:

FAQ 1: I have a very tiny email list. Why does email marketing

matter to me?

Firstly, a tiny email list is an opportunity. We all start from zero. There

are plenty of case studies of people who have had successful

launches with a small email list. The most popular being John Meese

who generated $10,000 in only 7 days with just 250 subscribers.6

Secondly, do the people on your email list know that they are part of

a small list? They signed up because they came across something

that interested them. Subscribers are the most engaged with your

brand in the first forty-eight hours of subscribing.7 If you follow

through when their excitement is most heightened, think about the

relationship you’ll be building? If you treat your subscribers well,

they’ll become your first 100 true fans or brand advocates. They’ll

spread the word about your business and share your content.

FAQ 2: When should I start my email list?

If you haven’t launched your business and are working on your site,

you should prepare to start your list from the day your site goes live.

If you’ve already launched your business and site, start an email list

immediately. If you’re ambitious, you don’t even have to wait to

launch your site. You could create a lead magnet and a landing page

and start promoting it.

Again, if you’re not familiar with these terms, hang in there because

I’ll tell you exactly what they mean in just a bit.

Whichever topic you struggle with the most, jump ahead to that

section if you must. I don’t cover the tech aspect of email marketing

in this book, but you do need the following:

1. Email service provider

Your email service provider is an integral aspect of your email and

a business strategy, so do some shopping around to ensure you pick

the right one for your business. Free isn’t always the best. I use

ConvertKit for my business and wrote a blog post on why I picked

ConvertKit vs. Mailchimp8 when I started, even though I was making

$0. Ultimately, it’s essential to pick a provider that’s not only within

your budget but one that’s able to grow with your business and that

has features and tools to deliver on what you have in mind for your

business plans.

2. Lead capture systems

You need a landing page tool as well as a tool that helps you create

opt-in forms on your site. I use Thrive Landing Pages and Thrive

Leads because these are inexpensive tools with a one-time fee that

provide me with hundreds of click and tweak templates. Several

email service providers come with these tools built-in as well. I have

a tools list within the Email Jumpstart Pack that you can download

here >>> https://meera.email/300.

As I say in my emails to my subscribers, I’ve got your back and

you’re all set to slay email!