Using email marketing to launch and sell your digital product - Sarah Stiffin

Learn how to build buzz, grow your list, and launch your digital product to a room full of ready-to-buy subscribers using smart, simple email strategy.

Website: www.sarahstiffin.com

Instagram: www.instagram.com/sarahstiffin

Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/sarahstiffin

 [00:00:02]:
Hi there. How many of you have spent weeks, maybe even months, creating a beautiful product only to launch it and hear nothing but crickets? I get it. I know the heartbreak of pouring your soul into something and watching it sit unnoticed. But what if I told you that launching doesn't have to be a moment of anxiety? What if you could launch create a launch where customers are literally waiting to buy. And that's what I'm going to be talking about in this presentation. Using email marketing to launch your digital product without last minute creation and scheduling and crickets. Okay, so what you're going to learn today why you need email marketing Building your pre launch email list strategically creating a pre launch Runway that builds that anticipation. Designing that high converting launch sequence and also maintaining the momentum after launch day.

 [00:01:06]:
Because that is important as well. Quick note About Me hi, I'm Sarah Stiffin. I'm an email marketing strategist. I've been an executive pa. I've been a holistic therapist and actually it was in that role as a therapist that I really learned all about digital training. I embraced it really early on and had other therapists coming to me saying what is this thing called Facebook? And how are you sending emails? So I started training them. I started sending emails back in 2008, so I've been doing it a long time. Nowadays I help e commerce businesses grow and thrive using email marketing.

 [00:01:44]:
I'm an all round email geek. I'm very happy to be one. So email marketing is my top option for providing value to my audience and building trust. You've probably heard a dozen times that it's value for money, but really what you spend on your email marketing provider is really quite small compared to what you might be spending on other parts of your business. You own your list. Can I just remind you of that again? You've probably heard that you can literally download all the details about your subscribers onto your computer and take them off to another email service provider. You can't do that with social media. Now I'm not going to completely dis social media.

 [00:02:26]:
I love social media. You need social media to work with your email marketing. But email doesn't rely on algorithms or going viral. There's no ghosting. You can see who's opening and clicking and engaging. And you can email people directly as well. And a built in list equals a built in income stream. Okay, let's talk about launching three mistakes.

 [00:02:56]:
I see people waiting until launch week to start emailing. You've got to build up that engagement beforehand. If you suddenly start talking about something New, that's when you're going to get crickets. Only sending to your whole list, that is like bad deliverability all over. You've got to segment, segment your list. Now I know you might want to think, well, these people might want it, but if they haven't opened your emails in 180 days, why do you think they're stunning going to open your email and buy something from you when really they've gone completely cold. So it's really bad for deliverability and unsubscribes using the same launch plan for every offer. Every launch will be different and you will learn from every launch.

 [00:03:49]:
There'll be tweaks you can make, you'll be having using different products. You'll get different people on your list. So you've always got to be learning and just making those tweaks as you go on. Okay, your email marketing launch calendar. Now, there are many ways to launch. This is my suggested way. This is what I do with my clients. So four weeks before we're going to begin list building efforts, actually you should always be list building because you will get churned.

[00:04:23]:
People will unsubscribe and don't worry about them. They may not need you anymore. Their life may have taken completely different turn. So don't worry. But you need to be adding to that list two weeks before, start warming the list with some regular content. And I'll come on to why shortly. One week before, begin those specific product teasers and then you're into launch week. So four weeks from launch, this is where you're, you're building your, your foundation, your launch list.

 [00:04:58]:
And kind of this is a reality check that most businesses don't understand. Your list is your most valuable asset. Not your Instagram followers, not your, if you're on a marketplace, your email list. So industry averages show that less than 1 to 3% of your list will purchase. If you've had more than that. Brilliant. This is just kind of industry average. But that's why you need more subscribers and you want quality subscribers and you want to build your list to get fresh eyes on your business.

 [00:05:39]:
Don't forget, people will be coming across the problem where you offer the solution every day and you want to be there to offer that solution. You need an audience that's actually interested in what you teach or offer because passive followers and subscribers don't buy. So building a launch list now you're going to have something called a lead magnet. I'm sure you've heard of it. If not, it's something that you offer for free that literally attracts people to you and you want to see it as giving them a mini win. They need to be able to move forward using that lead magnet and it might give them an insight as well into what their their bigger transformation could be. So here's some lead magnet ideas Templates you could offer 10 summer reels templates that might lead on to your much bigger I know Sick month social media template bundle. You could offer a materials calculator and shopping list template.

 [00:06:51]:
Say you offer sewing lessons by video or free sewing patterns sorry selling sewing patterns Guides, trackers, checklists beginner's guide to using herbs as medicine as a free guide that could lead onto your ebooks where you go much deeper into using herbs as medicine. Summer fitness tracker that could lead onto you selling some videos that go much deeper into the exercises that people can use or an E guide to off the top of My Head 100 Air Fryer Recipes for Better Health Quizzes are really good at the minute. Who doesn't love quiz what's your wardrobe style? So maybe you have a digital product that again it's videos that walks through people what they should be wearing. Or maybe you have a guide for how to look cool and stylish in your 50s. Find out your email marketing personality. Personality quizzes go down really well. People want to know what sort of personality they are and then that can lead into your digital product. And these are what some opt in forms landing pages could look like.

 [00:08:18]:
I'm not going into the technical side of things in this presentation, just kind of the theory behind it. But this is Marie Forleo. She's offering a audio training and that kind of put you on the launch list for B school email marketing personality. And this one was offering 30 days of social media posts that led onto a bigger social media product. So two weeks from launch the goals here are to get your list more interested in what you're doing because some people might open every now and then. So you're really wanting that engagement to increase by providing that valuable interesting content. You want to get subscribers in the habit of opening emails so that when launch week comes around they're going to be opening your emails the sort of content that you're going to be talking about and you will be start to up your emails a little bit more. You know the amount that you are sending relationship building people love behind the scenes content user generated content material sourcing journeys for that business who sells sewing patterns.

 [00:09:48]:
I saw somebody going through Vietnam on the train sourcing material from over there it was fascinating. Educational content, link to blogs, maybe another free resource, content that encourages responses and interaction. Just ask a simple question, do you prefer this or do you prefer that? I saw a really good example recently. All you had to do was respond with a number between 1 and I think 100. And then the business owner replied to you with one of the points in her a hundred ideas for, I think it was social media, which is really cool. Anticipation building as well. So subtle teasers hinting at what's coming one week from launch. I puffed out already.

 [00:10:44]:
This is where you start your email teasers before you go into a little bit more detail about what's coming. So what you're working on, why you're working on it. So this could be a short story from your own journey. Maybe it was something you realized that you needed or maybe a client needed and so you've created this product and maybe you've tried it on a client and they've had a really good result. What's included. You could also ask people what they would like to see. So maybe you've actually pretty much created your product, but people are starting to say, yep, I'd like this and I like this. And you could add that as well and who your offer is for.

[00:11:30]:
Start calling out the people in your audience who you're helping with this new digital product. Because not everyone will buy, Remember again from segmentation. Right message, right time, right people, and then we're into launch week. So what your launch emails are really for, they're not just updates or reminders, they're stepping stones. Each one is building that confidence, removing that doubt, helping your subscriber move from maybe to I'm in. Imagine you're sat across from somebody and you're telling them about the new product and they're going, yeah, yeah. So you give them a bit more information and then they say, yeah, bar. And then so you address some objections and then they say, well, yeah, sounds good.

 [00:12:27]:
I think so, I don't know. And so you can see they're not quite ready. So you give them some more information. If they buy straight away, they don't, you don't need to send them any more emails because they bought. But so let's see that stepping stone of the emails. This is just an example. I've put Monday to Friday for ease. You may be starting your launch on a different day, but so the first day it might be, you've had the summer fitness track and now what? You've had the air fryer, five recipes, now what? Whatever it is.

 [00:13:09]:
This is anyway this is where you offer your offer announcement and your details are in this email. Next one in 3 months time you'll be so this is a before and after transformation. If you've got some case studies, put Those in. Next one. 127 happy students, happy accountants, happy mums, happy sewers. Doesn't have to be 127 obviously. It may be that these are the number of people that have bought before and this product is slightly different or the number of clients you've had in the past still sitting on the fence. This is where you address objections and FAQs.

 [00:14:01]:
Maybe people have actually emailed you or on social media said yes, but think of everything that people might object to. Have they got enough time to do this? Do they need a printer to print out anything? Everything you can possibly think of. Friday and you're probably going to be sending a couple of emails on this day but last chance to buy at this price. This is where you are giving more social proof but also that urgency. It will never be at this price again. You've got to get them to buy and get them over the line. We're not forgetting post launch because that is kind of important as well. Obviously for those people who have bought, you've taken them out of the launch emails and you've sent them post purchase emails as well and celebrate the fact that they've purchased from you.

 [00:15:06]:
But if they haven't, just because someone didn't buy this time doesn't mean to say they never will. I've been in someone's world for about four years. I've only bought from them in the last couple of months and I bought two products from them but I've. I know they keep giving value. It's just never been the right time for me until now. But you could ask what's. What's held you back in a one question survey. Didn't send a great big survey because they won't complete it.

 [00:15:41]:
You could use a survey app like Typeform, Jotform, but most email service providers these days do have that ability for you to send a survey or a quiz. You could share a behind the scenes wrap up. I see lots of people doing this where they've talked about their launch. Denise Duffield Thomas does this every time she sells her big high ticket. Now I know we're not talking high ticket but it doesn't matter. I got an email this week from someone talking about a much lower ticket. It was I think 57 pounds and I didn't buy it. And she was talking about her launch and I think I wish I bought it because it's never going to be that price again.

 [00:16:33]:
I'll just have to wait till next time offer them a downsell. Maybe this product isn't the right time now, but have you got something else that's similar or that they haven't bought from you and see if they might like to buy that. So these are kind of the three emails that you could be sending thank you and behind the scenes wrap up. What held you back? This might be of interest instead. And remember to implement your abandoned cart flow because you could increase purchases by 10% and also review the launch and plan for the next one. Remember I said earlier that every launch is going to be different and you need to kind of learn from this launch so that you can make the tweaks for the next one again. Quick thing about segmentation. Right people, right message, right time.

[00:17:29]:
Segmentation improves deliverability, open rates, click through rates and engagement. Really important. This is not a spray and pray approach. It's really important to get segmentation right. So subscribers who should receive the launch warming sequence, those are on your wait list. In fact you could send the the announcement email a day early because they've clearly wanted to hear from you. And active subscribers, people who have opened or clicked any email in the past 90 days you can send to your whole list. But make it perhaps one email and maybe it's going to be that first email that it's here it's arrived.

 [00:18:14]:
I'm launching today. Here's my new product that that first email. So key takeaways very quickly start building your list at least four weeks before launch. If you're not always building it anyway. Segment your audience for more relevant messaging. Create that pre launch sequence that builds that anticipation. Create a five day launch sequence and plan your post launch strategy before you launch. Wow.

 [00:18:47]:
That was a whistle stop tour. Whistle stop tour. I can't even say it through launching in 20 minutes. There's so much more I could speak about but if you'd like to learn more from me then then subscribe to my email list. You'll get a lot more email marketing tips and I'm offering you a free launch planner which you can get at sarahstiffen.com forward/dps and that's kind of got a checklist of everything that you need to do on on there for your launch. I would love to connect with you on social. There's my social. Come and say hi and thank you very much for listening.