#51: Take the Fear Out of Selling in Your Emails with Copy Coach Monica Badiu

Speaker A: Paris.

Speaker B: Hello. Hello, my beautiful friends. Welcome to another episode of the free happy and thriving podcast. I could not be more excited for today's guest and for today's topic and you're going to see why. So we are here with Monica Badiu. Welcome, Monica, how are you?

Speaker A: Welcome, Geor. And welcome to your audience as well. I'm super happy. This was a very nice surprise. We should let them in about this.

Speaker B: Yes. So first of all, first of all, Monica and I are both, uh, from Romania and we recognize each other from the name. So we're super excited. Even though I embarrassed myself by forgetting my unconscious map. Monica, forgive me, it happens. Geography. I was, I was, I was not in geography classes. I have to admit that I was in history. I'm so excited because Monica. Okay, first of all, like, I've got like, I'm got to tell you about Monica. So Monica Badu is an experienced conversion copywriter and copy coach with 25,000 hours devoted to helping top course creators achieve exceptional results. She's joining us today, you guys. You're going to know why I'm so excited to share her five email copywriting secrets. You know how much I love an email list. So Monica is going to show us techniques for creating a human tone, overcoming self promotion concerns, finding inspiration, understanding the audience and ensuring consistent execution. Monica, if I'm right, from what I've been reading on your website, is really just about like taking the block out of selling on, on email, right?

Speaker A: Yeah, that's kind of it. And uh, this approach works just because it's so different from what everybody else is doing. And at the same time it's not some mystery, it's just human conversation, supernatural flow. The same as if you would have a chat or coffee with some of your students. So it's not, I know, record breaking rocket science. It's just going back to the basics of respecting your customers and having a regular, normal conversation where you focus on what's in it for your customer rather than what's in it for you.

Speaker B: I love that. I love that because once you start scripting yourself. But before we get into that, wait. I want to know your story. I want to know your story. Tell us your story. We have your bio. But tell us about Monica. Your.

Speaker A: Well, I've been in digital marketing since I was like 20ish. I'm 36 now and I've done everything possible in digital marketing and brick and mortar marketing for businesses. So I've learned how to do Google AdWords, how to write blog posts, how to do a Content marketing strategy, how to build social media communities, how to create videos, how to create offline, um, advertisements and so many things that at some point it was just hard to be really good or to stay on top of everything. So maybe I think it was four, four or five years ago I decided to niche down something. And before that I've tried like doing Pinterest. I was good at that, but it was not my, my calling sort of speak. So uh, I found an agency who was doing what they wanted to do and I started working with them. And over years I was able to niche down on doing just email marketing and sales pages for course creators. And it's the email promos like the sales emails, everybody hates to do that I love doing and I find super interesting. Um, and in my real life I'm a mom, I have a toddler, she's three, she just started kindergarten and she caught her first cold. So that was fun for the last few nights. Um, I'm a paper artist and I actually want to show you something that they've been. I just finished yesterday because. Yes. And apart from that, Wow. I love consumer behavior and psychology.

Speaker B: That is so cool. I love that. And Yvonne made it right. Yeah, I love that. That is so beautiful. Look at that detail. Oh, wow, that's beautiful.

Speaker A: So my passion for marketing started with like my first business, which is, this is why I actually showed you the head crown, because that's what I started doing, uh, handmade stuff and tried to sell it online, try to go to trade shows. And I had to learn how to do marketing for myself. So for a while I focused on SEO and um, ranked first for a few really big keywords in my niche, uh, for a few years. And then it kind of just opened this whole new area of like, this is how people are doing business, but you can do it better. And because, um, half of the experience I have is with Romanian business leaders, I always looked for an alternative. Is there a better way? More correct, more ethics, more consumer oriented way of doing marketing, you know, is not, not creating sales messages that make people feel bad about themselves so they can buy your stuff. Like going the other way around.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So early in my, um, career, let's call it that, in my, in my journey, I started doing remote work for companies based in the US and in the Western world. And it just opened my eyes to see that, you know, you could have a business and it could be profitable and instead of charging high prices for a shitty product, so you could have 50, 80%, uh, profit, you could go by with like 25% profit and still have enough to pay your employees a good wage, still have enough to invest in your business. So that was mind blowing to me and um, it kind of ruined me for life because now all I do is work with people in the West. Um, because our values and mindset are really a good match. Um, I do bring some of that in the entrepreneurial world in Romania for who wants to Listen. But that's a different discussion. So over the years I know things just kind of um, came together because I love consumer behavior, I love marketing and I also love the idea that we can do business and we can do marketing in a way that feels good for ourselves as business leaders as well as good for the consumer. And that's how I ended up here.

Speaker B: Oh my. I couldn't relate more to your journey because I've had such a similar everything in the marketing journey and I like a hundred percent understand what you're saying. That kind of led you here because you've tried SEO and you looked at what that means. You've seen sales and aggressive sell techniques. You, you've seen all the size, the ads, the all the things. And I understand 100% what you mean when you just kind of like. And it does all end with email marketing because that's that one stream of communication you have with your audience. And if you choose to be genuine, if you choose to be yourself. First of all, it gets so easy, isn't it?

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: When you just, when you just say I'm just, I'm just going to speak like here you and I, I'm sure that when we come off and we email our list, we still come across as this, what they hearing here. Right. And if they do, then, then we're real. We're just like genuine. I love your story so much and I can, I can just see and for everyone in the audience, just how much a journey across especially for anyone in the audience because we have moms predominantly in my audience, but from all type of fields. So not everything is marketing for some business owner like you are at the beginning, right with your crafts, right with your handmade products. You, you, you don't do marketing as the thing now we do marketing as the thing. We're so lucky because we do marketing as a service, marketing as a business, marketing our business. But a lot of the times, a lot of business owners, marketing is, that's not their business. What they want to focus is in their craft, whatever they do the offer, which is completely different. And they have to market for it as well. Right. So specifically to um, those listening in, in, in that field. I just kind of want to story in the sense of I felt the same like I've done a very similar journey and it just when you've done this whole like360 tour of marketing, you know you get like, oh, okay and some things just start falling and, and you start seeing that it's not that. I don't want to say it's not strategic and I'm gonna like hear to your view on that. But like it's strategic but it's also so natural, isn't it?

Speaker A: So I think um, the big problem we have not just with marketing or you know, entrepreneurship is that we have social media and before we had TV and magazines and we're always in comparison mode thinking what we do is not good enough. So we read about somebody else's results with TikTok and YouTube and email marketing and ads and we're thinking, okay, so I want to do that. How do I get there thinking that that's what you need. You need to have those four channels to grow your business and you do, you need to do things exactly like that person is doing it. So for instance, regarding with the email stuff, if you go to your inbox and you look at your emails and most of them will be screaming 24 hour reminder, last chance to get your whatever. If you don't get this, your business will die or do you need clients? So if you look at your inbox and you see that that's what people are doing, then you're going to think that I need to do the same thing and if I don't do the same thing, it's not going to work. So that kind of comparison at the same time and needing to do what other is others is others are doing just because you think that's the normal. That's a major misconception and it applies to everything in our personal lives as well. Because we always want to be better. There's always somebody who's doing it better. And that's part of how we were raised. And you know when you get so

Speaker B: many especially, especially I'm just, I have. We have to say that especially in Romania, people are watching. Who are these people?

Speaker A: Yeah, I tell all my friends who want to do something with their business. Why do you care? Yeah, yeah, yeah, you don't, you don't, you shouldn't care about that. But that's the idea. So if you keep comparing yourself and thinking that's the normal, that's what they need to do. You're never gonna feel good about your business and your marketing because, let's face it, especially with small businesses, your business is you.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And if you don't feel good about what you wanna do, if you don't see the purpose, if you don't see the why behind, you know, sending an email or running the bigger picture, I'm not just saying I'm running ads because I want traffic and leads so I can make money. No. What's the why behind all of that? You want to make money? What are you going to do with that money?

Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker A: So it's. It's very interesting. I've had to go through these things as well, both as a professional for my clients and both for my own business. And it's hard. It's very, very, very hard. Especially when marketing isn't something you love doing or you don't have time to train. You don't really know, okay, where do I turn to for advice? And you, you know, search something on Google.

Speaker B: There's so much now. Um, exactly.

Speaker A: You click the first result or you go to TikTok or whatever, and you have these people that claim, well, what I do is going to work for everybody. And you try that, and then it doesn't work. And that's because each business is unique, because each business is formed of people, and those people are unique. And we live in an age where we can finally be ourselves.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: We have so many platforms. We can finally be authentic and use that authenticity, that voice in our messages to not even draw people in, to just show people, look, this is who I am. Um, if you want to work with me, this is the kind of person I am.

Speaker B: And I feel like a lot of people are changing. Personally, I, and I say this all the time in the podcast, have realized that if I buy a strategy from someone, the main reason I should buy it is because I relate. Like. So of course, a strategy, like a course or coaching or something. Right. The main reason is because I relate to them in the sense of the way you do business is how I want to do business. The way you are makes me think or feel that. So if you're gonna give me, like, a content strategy for social media, but you do something on social media that I never see myself doing. And I, Whether I like it or not, and then I just feel worse about it because now I'm like, oh, but I can't take out, uh, three reels a day and create all this transition stuff because I don't have time. I have two children. Right, you said uh, right. A toddler. I have a toddler. A two year old toddler I think is three years. Yes. You, you have to a, ah, three year old. Right. I have a three year old and a four year old. Four year old is not. No, it's not toddler anymore. It's risk. Cooler. You know why? It's like they're so little, they're so fast. They want our attention and we want to give it to them. So that, not to say that you can't be a content creator with children or that you can be anything you want to be. Anybody can be that. But if you like, for me, I, I don't feel I can pull uh, push out that kind of content now in my. Right, in my life as a mom, as you are too, Monica and most of our listeners. So if I buy one of those strategies of I've gone viral in 30 days, it doesn't mean it doesn't work. It can work for a lot of people. It won't work for me. So what will I do? I will just leave. I will just end up feeling like I'm doing something wrong. I must not know marketing, I must not know this when really, in fact what I'm saying is that's not me right now and I'm not related to that. So maybe let me look at email marketing or ads or you know, other stuff. It's like as you said, there's, there's enough platforms and if you, in my

Speaker A: experience, so there's plenty of ways you can go about building traffic but you need to be very clear about your standards. Like what do you expect to happen and how fast do you expect it to happen? Because just as you said, if you uh, go all in, in a strategy that implies you'll be viral in 30 days, that's not going to be something that's happening. Easy with just like I'm going to publish one post. Yeah, right. So there's a lot of effort. If somebody else is doing it, it doesn't mean that you have to do it. In terms of like words have.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: In terms of like ecosystems for you know, I want, I want to build something long term. Because that's the idea with business. You want to build something long term. In my experience over these many years I have found that organic search, like people go to Google, they look for the problem, they look for a solution, they find you. That's a really good kind of traffic to have. Now with YouTube, you can get the same Quality of traffic just because they go to YouTube to educate themselves about the problem. If you have content there, they're going to come to you. Right? So you need a lead magnet and then the email marketing. And I have heard this for, from so many people. But why should I focus on email when everybody's on TikTok? Why should I focus on, uh, building my website when everybody says, well, you don't need a website to sell or whatever. So obviously it all goes back to your choices in business and where you want to see yourself long term. In my experience as a professional, this combination of organic traffic plus email marketing is a super, super powerful asset that you can use over the years. So let's say you're gonna sell your business, but having 1,000 people, 10,000 people on your email list, that's gonna make the difference between how much money you can get when you're actually gonna sell your business. It's also gonna help you, you know, when you have um, a cash flow situation, you don't have any cash. Maybe your clients decided, know, whatever something happens. Having that email list presume, presuming you nurtured it a little bit, talk to them a little bit, show yourself like, this is who I am, this is what I do and this is why it's beneficial to you. Then it could be just like you have your own bank.

Speaker B: Absolutely, absolutely. And it that when you have 10,000 people on your email list, that's what, uh, even 1,000, even 500. Even 100. That's when you can say, I'm going to send an email about a cell and I expect that there'll be a result. It might be on the first email, on the second email. Like I got to the point where I knew that by my third email, like if he was, if he wasn't making sales on the first or second email, it always makes sales on the third email. Like, and that was guaranteed. And I could guarantee that. I cannot guarantee that on my third post. M. I can't even guarantee who Instagram is going to show it to.

Speaker A: Exactly. You don't control Instagram, Facebook, you don't control YouTube. The algorithms change a lot. Even with like SEO and organic, organic traffic, that also changes. So that's why it's important to start building an email, um, list as soon as you start your business. And over time things will change. Your business will change, what you want in business will change. But you still have those people. And it's, it doesn't mean like you, oh my God, I have to keep these people for life. No, they're gonna leave, they're gonna lose interest. That, that happens.

Speaker B: Come back.

Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. That's life. But having that email list, that's something a lot of people don't think it's worth having. And I'm um. Even if you have 100 people on your email list, that's the beginning. If one of them converts, you have a new client. And when your email list is smaller, that's actually easier to convert just because the conversation really feels like it's one on one, you know, and you have a lot more time. You can reply to their emails. You can even send like one on one messages and just ask them, hey Monica, how's. How is it going today? So a few months ago you signed up for this lead magnet. I'm really curious, have you used it? Where are you in your business? Do you have any questions or you can even send a survey. Hey guys. So I'm thinking about doing this. I know lots of people in our community are struggling with this. What's your take? Can you help me fill this out? Fill this survey out and you can actually get really good market research. So you don't necessarily have to use your email list to sell because I know lots of people struggle with the whole concept. Things like uh, but selling is icky and whatever. That's a whole other conversation. But you can still use your email, um, marketing to build your brand, to do market research, to get ideas for new products, for new courses. You can even sell affiliate products to your, to your audience. So there. And affiliate marketing is kind of selling, but since you're not selling yourself, it's a lot easier. Yeah.

Speaker B: To promote it. I just want to add here because I'm going to get into asking more because what you just shared about that, we're going to like circle back on that because I want everyone to hear it. I tried it for a bit and it worked so well. Like when you said that, I was like, I want to hear more your thoughts, but I just want to add something before I ask you the next question. A lot of people think that if we have social media or TikTok, why do we need an email list? And I want to see what you think about this, Monica. But one way I view it is I have this, this thing that I always say is all for me in my business, all roads lead to the email list.

Speaker A: Hm.

Speaker B: So having TikTok doesn't need to be a completely different strategy to the email list. Those TikTok followers that are most interested in you join the email list. So actually if TikTok is the place that, for, for you or any other platform that you want to build, you can uh, the email list is just like adjacent to it, but should be like, it's like the warmest place close to you. The inner, uh, the. Right, the inner tribe. The place where you're like, okay, this is where we're going to have the conversation. So you can continue building on TikTok, but just putting a lead magnet in your bio, in your stories, in your like highlights where you offer them something. Now you're saying, okay, so those of you that enjoy this content and want to come and have more of a one on one conversation with me, because in many ways it is for them.

Speaker A: It is.

Speaker B: When you receive emails from people, they're one on one. Right? To some extent. Um, that's that. So that's, it's just basically saying this pool of followers, yes, they may be interested in all my content, but when I have more to say, more to share, whether it's a survey, whether it's a one on one question, whether it's a sale, nothing wrong with the cell, right? Whether it's all of this. Now we can have conversations here. So it is your warmest, most engaged TikTok followers. Actually it's not one or the other. Um, and it certainly would not damage any social media following. Quite the opposite. Because often from your email they come back to your social media. If they forgot about your social media, they will see the email and be like, oh, oh yeah, of course I like what you say and come back and it just, it just. Yeah. What do you think, Monica?

Speaker A: I'm nodding my head because, yeah, you're, what you're saying is 100 accurate. Uh, Georgiana, so this is basically a funnel, right? So picture the funnel, right? You have at the top, you're gonna have like the widest audience possible and all these channels that bring in traffic as people proceed through your funnel, they're gonna have multiple interactions. Because the whole thing with marketing and running a business, and that's something that a lot of people don't really know and it's not their fault, is that you need multiple interactions for someone to become a buyer. And when you start at the top of the funnel, which is like super wide, you could have TikTok, you could have, I don't know, organic traffic if you want, you could have social media, whatever. They're not necessarily ready to buy. A very small percentage of people are ready to convert at that point because you can't have I know, 100,000 people in, um, the same problem, similarly aware to the same solution and ready to buy. Right. So you have that funnel and let's say you're using TikTok. What's the next step you can do? A lot of people, they just go like, uh, um, linear. They focus more on creating content for that platform so they can talk to more of the people on that platform. And they don't really push people through the funnel. Some of them, they're just going to push them straight to a sales page. And that's not necessarily going to work because again, people need more information to buy and you're going to need to put them lower. You can send them to your blog post, you can send them to a lead magnet. Those are other buyer interactions. Right. And through each interaction with your brand, they learn something new. They answer a question they have. With email marketing, I agree. That's where they can be super engaged and focused on what you have to say about the problem they have and the solution you are offering to them. And because social media is such a crowded place and we have so many interruptions and distractions, you know, just watch your TikTok and then scroll. That's done.

Speaker B: Scroll myself. Yeah, exactly. What was I watching?

Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. Sometimes it's really hard to even go back and find it. Right. So with email, you're. It's there, it's in your face. And even that has its own distractions because, you know, you have your phone, you have your kid, you have the UPS guy, whatever. But at least with the email, you kind of have a direct communication channel with your leads and you can walk them through, really, like take them by the hand and create a journey that they can follow in a much easier, more efficient way than, you know, doing really good on TikTok. That's awesome. But they're not going to see all your TikToks.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: Plus, consider the competition. And I keep saying this to all the course creators I met. So the E learning industry is now huge and it's going to attract even more players, players that have more money to invest in marketing. So if right now you're putting all your efforts into YouTube or TikTok and you've grown it and you have, I know, 1 million, 10 million followers. If you're not doing anything to move those people into an email list, somebody else is going to come and this has actually happened. They're going to run ads on your YouTube videos and they're going to bring those leads to them just because they have, you know, the next point in their journey. If you don't give them the next point in their journey, they're just going to continue enjoying your free content. They're not going to necessarily take action towards achieving what they want. And you're gonna have to go back into creating even more content. So you can stay, let's say, top of the mind. And I'm using air codes here because that's gonna, you know, go down as soon as the competitor, uh, sees that there's money in that market and they're

Speaker B: gonna come and invest, the algorithm changes. And now we're not showing these long videos anymore, or we're not showing this anymore. And all that good content that was bringing you leads, it's gone. And this is not, like, to scare, you know, it's not too scary.

Speaker A: No, this is the, uh, reality is

Speaker B: your email list, it's yours, it's yours, it's your baby, it's yours. Like, nobody can take that away from you.

Speaker A: Exactly. And you can use it to bring back to social media. So let's say you're gonna do a, uh, social media challenge. And that's really good for engagement and. Right. Making it more visible, increasing, you know, engagement, whatever. Playing the algorithm by its own rules. Right?

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So if you have 5,000 people on your email list, you can. You're not gonna have 5,000 people who are gonna go to your sales, to your, um, challenge, but you're gonna have a good percentage of that going there.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And it's gonna be a direct engagement, which gives a really good signal that the person who's doing this is actually committed and at some point might even become a customer. You can't really do that that easily with, you know, TikTok or Instagram or whatever. Even with, like, running ads, you can have your ad account banned or hacked. And this has happened.

Speaker B: I'm an ads manager, and I literally just had it blocked. Like, I just had it blocked three weeks ago, Monica. And I had to make it my fault. I missed the email. It was on my old email address. I don't see it. I missed the email to verify. And I had a little bit of a balance. It was a whole thing. The major m. The main problem was it was my fault. I was like, oh, I'll go back to it and deal with it when I'm, uh, filming my tutorial for my paid ads membership. And I got to it and I was like. It said, they're like, sorry, you didn't take action early enough. So now I Said, well, I've got to start a new Facebook profile.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So then I thought I couldn't disconnect my Instagram account to the ads manager. And yeah, I could have taken a chance, but I was like, because ads are, uh, the backbone of my business business and what I offer as a service. And I get my main leads into my email list from dads. That's the thing. Ads, ads, ads, ads. If you run ads, you know this, if you listen to me, do not run them to anything else than your email list like the initial ads. Right. You can retarget your email list. So they go in there. I had to make a decision and I made one of those 12 hour, 24 hour decisions of my Instagram account is not engaged enough. It makes sales, but not enough compared to what I get from ads into my email list. And I make, um, it was an old account, it had low engagement because like, I think I came back to it after two years. So a good 800 followers, probably 700 were not even active and I had 900. So then 200 active sweeper switch accounts. It did not affect my bottom line. One second. You know why? Because everything is in my email list. Everything, my conversations. I still did my summits, I still did my flat sales, I still did all my things. I still made my sales in my email list. Literally. Not one effect. And I'm slowly carrying my followers over, dming them like that. That is the truth. You can get yourself banned. You can get yourself on social media. You can't get yourself banned of your own email list. That is your list of contacts. People can unsubscribe. Can you, Monica? Can you?

Speaker A: You can if you do it, uh, wrong. It's not necessarily banned. But, uh, you're not going to be visible or you're going to be reported as spam. We can talk about that a little bit. But, um, yeah, that's completely true. I have seen businesses that were always, always on the verge of burning just because if something changes with Facebook ads, they're done, they're gonna close their doors. So we had to actually build a system, uh, data driven marketing that the agency where we've done this, where we could get those Facebook leads, nurture them, like, get them into an email list, nurture them, have some micro commitments, like small, uh, small price, small price products so that eventually they could have an ecosystem that was not always reliable on Facebook. And you could see it like when the Facebook targeting was off, going down, money not coming on, leads not coming in. It's very Scary. Like it's so scary. And for people who are starting, uh, yeah, that's fine. You can have one or two, uh, traffic channels at some point, but as you grow, you need to have backup. And this goes for people who are only like focused on SEO traffic, because I've seen that as well. And going from a few million views per month to half, that's gonna cut into your revenue from ads. So you start to build a second traffic channel. What can you do? Should you work on Pinterest, should you create content for YouTube? But the email marketing stuff, that needs to be in place from day one. Even if right now you have like zero visitors on your website, that doesn't matter. Build it from the beginning, it's gonna reap the benefits long term.

Speaker B: Because when you're high, what you just said there, when you're high here, right, like you start and you're high here and you're, you're getting whether it's views on your videos or that, and you're attracting people into your email list. You store that, that's your audience, that's in your email list. That's people that said yes. Of course they can unsubscribe, but they're uh, still, let's say you've gotten, I don't know, um, 10,000 views on your, on your reel, but Somehow you've attracted 50 people to say, oh yeah, I said yes to your lead magnet, that's 50 in your email list. I bet you that if you finish in two months and you might have, let's say, I don't know, something went down and your reels now instead of 10,000, they're getting 500 views. And yeah, but every time you got 10,000, you got 15. Your email is now, you're ending in two months with maybe 500 or 1,000 people in your email. Is now not only you are reaching those people or other new people there, but now you have your own people that you're having a one on one conversation, 500 people. I said I want to know more. And I just think is Monica, it's of service if I'm like, if I'm interested in a company, I'm like, please, like in a coach, in a course creator, please let me speak to you one on one. I don't, I don't want to have to go and have all this distraction on social media to find out about your content. Please email me. Like it's like of service, isn't it? Like let me know if you have a sale on that Product I wanted or let me know your tips. Uh, it's of service. It's not nurturing. An email list means serving an email list. Right. Monica, I do understand. I know time is going, so we're not going to have a copyright coach on the code and I'm not going to ask the questions. I do want to shift our conversation of give us what to say.

Speaker A: We need a few, a few more episodes. But, um, I talk about this a lot on, on LinkedIn. For instance, I do weekly email reviews. So I go in my inbox, I just select a victim with air coats. Um, I just look at it. Okay, so what is it saying? How can this be better? And I'm doing this because I know that a lot of people, you know, I tell them, sell without selling. Focus on value. Have a human, um, human connection. What does that actually mean? Um, I'm all about, you know, when I teach people, I teach the why. Like, why are you doing what you're doing? The how and the what matter less if you understand why. So why should you talk about the problem in your emails? Why should you lead with that instead of with a discount? Right? That's the first thing to consider. And for a few like, tips, um, be regular with your emails. So if you're sending one email this month and another one three months from now, people are going to unsubscribe because they don't know who you are. You need to decide on a regular schedule. If you can do one email per week, do one email per week. You don't have to go into selling mode right now. But if you have social media content, if you have a blog post going, send that. That's still enough for when you're going to be ready to do more. The other thing is, if you're getting people on your email list right now, focus on automation. So for other people who don't have time, automation is a really good way of hitting all the big important buttons. First of all is you signed up for something. Well, I'm not going to just forget about you for months. You get an email saying, hey, welcome, this is what you got. Here's how to use it. By the way, I'm going to send you a few more emails in the days to come. So we're going to get to know each other the day after or two days after you tell them. So. Hi, I'm Monica. I'm an email marketing copywriter and copy coach and I teach course creators how to understand what to understand about email marketing. Why it's Important and how to do it in a way that feels good. What does that actually mean? Well, this is what it actually means. And if you want to have the longer version, click this button and it'll take you to a video or to one of my blog posts, the next email. So what we're doing right now is important. You talk about like the bigger mission, right? Why do you do what you do? What's your purpose with your business? How do you want to help people? Well, I'm an email marketing coach and I teach people this customer focused approach because we've, we have enough consumerism and there's enough chase for profit. But when you started your course business, you probably started because you have something to say and you care about the people you want to help. What's that problem you're helping people with? What do you want them to achieve? So you talk about the mission and then you can have a few more, um, emails. You can even have towards the end of that automated sequence, you can have, um, a sales email if you want. But the whole idea is that the automated sequence does the heavy work for you. Because if I signed up for your email list, I got one email and then I have to wait one week to get your newsletter. That's not enough. Plus, it also hurts your people will unsubscribe, but they will also mark you as spam. Because if they don't have any brand recognition because you haven't emailed them frequently enough. Who's this person in my inbox? This happens to me all the time. Like I, uh, go into my inbox and I see some name like, who the hell is this guy? I don't know. I open the email, I scan it. It doesn't sound familiar because obviously they haven't emailed me enough to introduce me to what they do and why they're doing. So there's no brand recognition and there's the email maybe doesn't even say what's in it for me. Unsubscribe or even report the spam if it looks weird. So all these things can help you have a good relationship with your audience.

Speaker B: The fourth one, pause there and I just, just, just highlight that what you just said. If you didn't email me enough in the places I'm in, a lot of the place I'm hanging out with and I know with my audience and a lot of the people in my world I collaborate with are afraid of emailing their list too much. But why you just explained there, like that is so powerful that just I I want to stop and really emphasize that. The fact that if you don't email enough, especially at the beginning, you're just going to be a name that looks spammy in the inbox because they can't know you. So that fear of, oh, I call a lead magnet. Let me not. Let, Let me not like, let me not like. I'm, um, in a lot of places, I do a lot of bundle collaborations and in some of these groups, everyone is like, no, no, no, don't email, don't email because you're gonna spam people. Well, in a month, they're not gonna remember who you are, like, completely. Absolutely. And people will unsubscribe, and you have to be good with that. Unsubscribe is not a bad thing. Unsubscrib, I'm not actually interested, but guaranteed, you're not going to get 100% unsubscribe rate. You're probably going to get more like, um, 5, 10%. That makes you even less. Right. And that means you're left with 95 or more of people in your list that are actually engaging. Yeah.

Speaker A: The idea is that you don't have to email them daily. Like, it doesn't have to be like that. You don't have to send three emails per day. That's not, that's not the case. But with email marketing and with these automated sequences, you can create journeys. So let's say you are a coach and your goal is to help, um, help a small business owner, um, post reels over the next seven days and you have a topic for each reel. And the objective of this is to have them be seen on social media, break through their imposter syndrome, make them actually see the value in what they're doing. If you're going to do that on social media, they're not going to see everything. However, if, uh, you take them on a journey in their email and you focus each email on one specific action, one specific problem, and it's all about the value you are giving them, not what you're getting out of their interaction with you. Then you can send emails frequently because people are going to say, okay, so this brand, this is all about giving me valuable information that actually helps me grow my business or master my mindset or overcome my limitations. So I know that If I invest 30 seconds into scanning this email, because people don't read anymore, into scanning this email, I'm going to get an idea that's going to help me navigate this problem I'm having. So that's how you write emails that people care about because what we're getting right now, most of the emails are shit. They're all about, oh, I've done this and I went to the store and I bought 10, whatever, I have a Lamborghini. That doesn't really matter. You need to change that story into something that talks about the audience. So what's the audience's problem? What keeps them stuck from achieving what they want? What have they done before and they have failed at miserably? You talk about all those things and your email becomes a, uh, sort of like coaching conversation. And I think that's the best way to explain how I look at marketing. And it works better for course creators and consultants and um, you know, infopreneurs because they have this, uh, component for education and kind of guiding you towards achieving your goal. So most emails, they're just like, well, here's a discount, enroll today. Yeah, mhm. That's not enough anymore. You're not the only person who's giving out discounts, so why should I actually buy and work with you? That's where your email starts to come in. And you can tell them about your own story in one email and explain how. Well, if this sounds like you, that was exactly me 10 years ago recording the same video 10 times and then deciding I suck and I'm not, uh, video material and my voice is horrible and I have pimples. But then this is what I've done. And you know, it's not just me. Open my next email, I'm gonna tell you more about the people who just like you, thought they're not gonna be good enough for this. So you go beyond the, you know, the surface level of save, uh, me money, save me time. Go beyond that. Yeah, exactly. If you would be coaching a client, what's keeping them stuck? Because time and money, they're surface level objections. Go deeper. That's why I say consumer behavior and psychology are amazing things to have for me as a copywriter, but even for the business owner. So go beyond the surface level objections and desires because everybody talks about that. A really good place, like to learn more is like Abraham Maslow's pyramid of needs. So you start from the bottom and then you ascend towards like, status and reputation and meaningfulness. So you can look at your emails and your message and think, okay, what's the need that I'm addressing with this email? What does my audience actually want? Do they want more time just because they want to, I know, hang out on the couch? Or do they want more Time because they want to have more time to help in the community or spend more time with their family.

Speaker B: Damn.

Speaker A: Each are, uh, two different needs. The first one is about reputation and belonging. The second one is about belonging and the safety of having a family. So go beyond all those things and coach people. That's the whole thing. You just coach. You don't judge, you don't threat, you don't tell them, I'm gonna change your life. Those are bullshit affirmations. That's why people think email marketing sucks. And it's awful because they're so, so many people that says if you don't get in this product, in this course by midnight, the doors will close and you will lose the chance of a lifetime to fix every problem in your life. You know, that's how it sounds.

Speaker B: Only so they open again next month. Yes. Yes, yes, yes. Oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness. I hope everyone is hearing this. You have literally what you just said there about coaching. Like, I'm, I'm all for natural. Like, I've, I've dropped the script. I've, uh, dropped the scripts. And even in what I, I give my students, I don't, I, I give guidance because I know sometimes you're stuck and you want to see what someone else did. But not script scripts. Scripts are gonna make you sound like a robot. So I'm all about being very like me, genuine. Like, if you're gonna see me real life, like, better. My email sound the same and they're gonna have emojis and show energy and show me. So I'm, I've been very, like, honest in my email list, and I think it's really worked. But why you just said there. Why you just said there about the coaching, and it just, it helped me think instantly about the emails I open regularly, all the time. They're the emails that I don't want to miss what they said because I just know that they're going to give an idea. Like, I'm in my business right now at this stage of my business, because I'm really about connecting with people. Like, I feel like I've been around the block with all the strategies. I know the strategies. Sometimes they're more. I like to see, like, a good bts, you know, like, show me what you've done. Especially if I know that I'm connecting with you as a business owner. Like, we do business similarly. So I love to open those. And it's just like I would. And everyone's a different stage. Somebody will be like, give me, um, real Tips, give me subject lines, give me this. But as long as you are like what you just said, they're like what you just said about having a coaching conversation in your email list and how to approach that of actually just going beyond just time, just, just money, just urgency. But actually because you create the need, isn't it? It's like we're talking right now, right? And you're sharing all the steps. You cannot possibly share all your tips on this podcast. You cannot share it on your email. Now, naturally, any of us who have been like, oh my goodness, what Monica had to say, change my view is gonna really help my email list. Naturally we're gonna be like, okay, where's more? Now, do you have an email list? Because I want to keep in touch with you. Then from the email list you'd be like, yeah, but I want more. Maybe you have a service, maybe you can help me write them. Maybe you have a course, maybe you have templates. Maybe like, you know what I mean? Like, it becomes like an. People want to buy from you when you give them that. Right. Like, they just, they just naturally want more of the good that you've given them because it's convenient and it's extra helpful.

Speaker A: Yeah. And it goes beyond this, this consumerism, because that's a personal mission of mine. Another story. But we buy too much stuff that we don't need and we don't use. And we do it because all, um, the majority of marketing campaign are built on fear mongering. So they're exploiting the fear within us. The fear I'm not good enough. They fear that I'm not going to be successful. The fear that I am different, the fear that my competitors are gonna earn more. But that's the whole thing. They just focus on those things. That's it.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: There is nothing else. Okay, so you have this fear. But this fear is not gonna be here forever. You can talk about the same thing in two different, you know, tones. The one is like, oh my God, this fear is gonna ruin your life. You need my course now and it will solve you. Or look, you have this fear. I have had it as well. A lot of people have it. We, we talk about that every time during our group coaching calls. The fear stays. It's what you do about the fear that matters.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And there are 10 different solutions out there because we are all humans and everyone is different and we all want something different from our lives. And you could try 10,000 of them and maybe none of them work. Maybe you will be the one who invents a new solution.

Speaker B: Give the power. Actually empower.

Speaker A: Yeah, you.

Speaker B: You empower them. Not tell them that you're the guru. Come in here.

Speaker A: Exactly, exactly. You empower them and you can end up saying, look, whether that's you or not, this is what other 10,000 people have used to achieve this goal. Give it a look, see what's inside. And then if you're, if this sounds like you, we are healed, we are here and we're Rooting for you. P.S. this week we are running a special deal. You can get in and save 50% off the regular price. That's a lot different than saying you have this problem and this fear is going to ruin your life. Get in right now and change your life. You'll also save 50% of the regular price and lots of emails. They don't even start with that. They start with safety. 50% of the regular price. Get in right now and save your life. So that's the difference. You can have respect for your consumers rather than try to kind of trick them in and push them aggressively push them into joining something. Because fear works in, in making the commitment like, I'm gonna buy this because I am afraid, but that doesn't mean they're gonna use it. It.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And what do you want? Do you want people who just buy your stuff and they don't use it or do you want people who buy your stuff, they have results with it and then they come back and they also talk about how good your course was.

Speaker B: Yeah. Because the cell is nice but oh, how good is when you get a message, when you get a testimonial, when you see that people are completing your stuff and then they share that and then you share that and the next cell is easier because people are like, oh, there's social proof and oh, wow, that person that just like me or did. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Wow. Monica, that some um, that is next level. That is truly. I feel like whether it was in your bio you said at the beginning that is truly a different way to look at it. Like I'm so grateful for you sharing this because it is truly a different way to look at it and just to really still feel for, for our listeners in. And I'm feeling it having a conversation with you to just feel like all this power is within. So as, ah, as you listen to this to all our listeners know that you can just. It's not like in the first email that's gonna come across like that, but as long as you email and you think about it and Think about what Monica shared, about just being genuine and helpful and coaching helping. Like, really, like, connection sells connections, that people can make their own decision to buy more from you because they, like, we don't need to convince people to buy from us. I'm a firm believer and for myself as well, when I buy and for my students, like, you will buy when the right time for you. If I've convinced you something is going to. The payment plan is going to default, the coaching plan is going to. To, like, stop halfway. Like, it's just not going to work because I can't make this decision for you. Like, and if you come empowered, like, you come empowered to get what you want to get, you're gonna find, because you are empowered, you're gonna find your solution amongst my content and my calls and my things. Right?

Speaker A: That's what you do with your emails. You figure out what's keeping them stuck. And early in your, let's call them, email promotions. Early in your email promotions, you're not going to talk about why they're not buying your stuff. That's not the problem. The problems are, okay, what do they think about themselves, them not being able to achieve the desire they want, the outcome they want? What do they think about the industry as a whole? What do they think about this type of solution? Whether it's a course, the coaching, you break those false beliefs first, but you don't do it in, uh, an aggressive way. You do it in a very empathetic way. Sort of like you are talking with a coach and you're asking, so, Monica, last week you said you were gonna figure out email marketing. What happened? Where did you get stuck? Oh, there. That's super normal. And that happens to a lot of people. So let's talk about it. I, uh, even have, like, a fun exercise for you to figure this out on your own, because I can give you the guidance. But if you don't commit to taking the action yourself for yourself, I can give you the course for free. You're still not gonna do anything for it with it.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So obviously this whole conversation is a lot bigger. And again, it's not about what we write even. It's not about even how we write, like, the frameworks. It's about why. Why do we have a business? Why are we selling what we are selling? Why do we want this audience? Why are we using email? So go back to the why. And a lot of people think they're just kind of victims to the marketing world. Right? So if I want to sell, I have to do things like they're teaching me.

Speaker B: Yeah, no, no.

Speaker A: We have access, uh, to so many platforms and we can run our businesses on our own like we want them to.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: So you can take the strategies, but you can adapt them. You can take the script because obviously somebody needs to teach you what to do first, how to do it. What's the process to get you unstuck. Yeah, yeah, but adapt the process and if there's any part in that process where you show resistance. Why am I showing resistance to this? How does this not match my values or my brand? What's the worst that can happen? Should I at least give it a try first and see what happens? So nothing is cookie cutter and nothing is fixed. Right. You have the ability to transform what you're getting, that knowledge and make it yours. And that's what entrepreneurship is.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Monica, before we talk a little bit about where to find you, I'd want to touch on something that we kind of diverted. I diverted you from the conversation. So I want to end with that based on what you just said, you know, when you said talk about those, um, what, where they stack those pain points. There are people, and I know there are people in our listeners that are brand new that may have one student, two students, one person. That email is no email list. If you feel you don't know like the pain points yet, there's a bunch of things you can do. First of all, if you are your own target audience, you can go back to you in the past and that. But you shared something, Monica. That I've done and I've stopped doing and I'm going to start doing it again. Because the way you put it, I just, it's like I did it not fully understanding the power in what. Which you said. Especially when you have an email, a small email list, when you get your lead magnet right, message them and ask them how that went. So one of my biggest, fastest growing lead magnets with ads alone that I, I give this example, pretty much all my ads, courses and things of that funnel was I had this like service offer kind of um, PDF guide and they downloaded it, I promoted to that. They downloaded it and then I would actually email in personally. No, no, no. I feel like I've had a, I've had a welcome system. I had an automatic. Because I didn't work, I didn't like how it worked. But um, either I was personally emailing it or it was in my first email or second email when I was asking the question, I was basically saying something like respond to this email and tell me if you are able to come up with this, with this offer I told you how to do in this, this thing. And I will, I promise you I will respond to you and answer your question.

Speaker A: The.

Speaker B: And I'm not even gonna say like I had hundreds and hundreds go through that. I'm not even gonna say the hundreds answered only maybe like 20 or something. The amount of information m connection and understanding I got from my audience through that question, again, I can't quite remember was either. But you can do both, right? It was either in the automated, well, welcome sit sequence or that first email that goes out with the link where you send it that any email provider will do. Or I was like following up, like now I'm like, I'm gonna follow up like after what you said, Monica, that's

Speaker A: a really good tactic. Um, I usually have, um, so six hours after somebody signs up for the lead magnet, you can send them an automated message that's text based, like no image, nothing similar like you would send from your own inbox. Just saying, hey, Monica, you, you signed up for this lead magnet earlier. Did you get it? Please respond yes or no. I really want to make sure you got it. So that's an even easier commitment and it does really good for your, your deliverability which is basically, um, the chances of your emails actually getting in their inbox rather than the promotion or a spam folder. And with someone who just signed up for your email list, that micro commitment, it, it's gold. And you can lead from there in your, in your own, um, voice. You can have a one on one and ask them more about stuff. You can invite them to. Hey, would you like to join this week's, uh, group coaching or hey, I'm doing live. Would you like to come in? It's happening there. Whatever. I'm here. If you always have, if you have questions, I'm always here. So yeah, don't, um, don't think that just because it's an email, people are not gonna interact with it. Lots of people, they actually need help and we are not trained to ask for help. So when the occasion comes, we do get it. And not everybody's gonna be ready for that. But those who are ready, those can become customers. Maybe not now, this week, but in one year from now, nurture them and you're gonna get really good customers. That has happened for me as well and for other clients. So it's not like something that just randomly put out there that actually works.

Speaker B: It works. And the thing is and like I get messages all the time. I personally, I get, I get dmstuba person. Sorry. My son is. I can't even see. You might just like. Is it. Has he gone? What. What time is it? Have we. It's. It was 8am here. Don't tell me we've gone to midday. No, it's nice.

Speaker A: It's.

Speaker B: It's 11, right?

Speaker A: For you. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker B: I thought it's not gonna midday, right? We haven't been. I, I could talk to you forever. That. Wow. I hope like I'm. I'm um, not even gonna say. I hope everyone heard this because this episode is going to be promoted constantly. I want everyone to hear this. There is so every. Especially new entrepreneurs. Especially new entrepreneurs. Those first people on the email list and having that conversation. You can be a year on social media. And I love social media. I. It's so good. It's not like that. It's not good. It's good for a million things but you could be a year on social media. I feel like you've got an hour with your business and quit you. There is no way. There is no version in this world. I, I refuse to believe it. I will be just ignorant. Monica, tell me what you think. There's no way you can have an email list for a year and communicate with that email list. Even if you do it wrong, like just get better at it and feel like you haven't progressed in your business.

Speaker A: It's impossible. The feedback you're gonna get from people, it's insane. And the only way you're not gonna get feedback is. Is if you're not gonna ask for it.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So something I do with my clients, um, before we start the promotion, I have a series of three emails that focus on one problem and then explain how that problem is impacting other areas of their life or the industry or whatever. So bigger picture. And then the third one is a solution. Sort of like quick tip for a quick relief that kind of teases what's coming next. And in each email I have a micro commitment for the reader. Sometimes it's about like, hey, reply to this email and let me know what you think. Which of these four things you're going to implement today. Reply to this email with a number. And I recently wrote something for a client who was very concerned about the selling element of this and sending promotions, sending multiple emails. And we sent the first warm up emails and he got hundreds of replies saying this is so valuable. I love this email. Send me more. And if you don't ask for it, Some people will reply, but that's the human nature we need to see, not the command, but we need to have that invitation that it is okay to start a conversation. Because even though like we have social media and all these many ways of connecting, we don't. There is even like the isolation is insane. And that's actually an even bigger reason for you to do email marketing. Plus there are people like me who don't have any social media on their phone. And I go to Facebook half an hour a day and I have half an hour of LinkedIn per week. So I hate social media. I think it's a black hole. Yes, it is very useful for marketing purposes, but personally for me, it drains my energy and it kind of, you know, it's a black void and like one hour has passed. I'm like, what the hell am I doing here? I could have used this time for something else. So there are people who could be your ideal client who are not using social media.

Speaker B: I quit social media at least once every three months because of that reason. It's so good for marketing. But personally. Mhm.

Speaker A: And I have another like.

Speaker B: Because you're like, what am I doing in my life? You don't realize you're there.

Speaker A: I have another insight to, to mention. So lots of people in their businesses, they do keep the marketing aspect of social media, but they don't check it themselves. So other people create posts and manages the content and community for themselves. Meaning if you're using Facebook to uh, talk to, I know business owners of a specific level, you're, they're not going to see your content, they don't hang out there. So that's again an um, open loop for another conversation. But really try to think where is your audience? And to the person who's just starting and doesn't have lots of clients yet read what they would be reading. So what's the problem you have? Look at who else is talking about the same problem. What are they saying? Do they have courses? Uh, take their course, learn about that. Are there industry reports for the audience or for the market you're targeting? Learn everything you can because that allows you to make your message not just like shallow stuff. It's very specific, it's on point, it's relevant and helpful because there's so many people talking about everything and there's fluff and nothing helps. So if your audience decides to invest their time reading your content, make sure it is helpful to them, not to you, to them.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, 100% Monica. I, I think everyone listening to this is going to want to know more this you have the freshest perspective to email marketing and what to say that I've ever heard. And I do a live marketing and I love email marketing. Like I live for everything to do with the email list. Tell us um, how do we know more about you? Is there any way to join your email list? Because I think we're all dying to know what you say in your emails when we have a good person on the call. I always say to everyone listening, join the email list for the offer that our guest is going to make. But also remember that you're going to get to interact and see the experts like you know you can learn from someone emails just by reading their emails. So like I, I'm, I'm totally joining your email list because because value you

Speaker A: can reply to to my email so you can go to my website monicabadi.com and yeah you're gonna get a pop up that gives you a chance to sign up for 93 subject uh lines for email promos and you can get that. It's a PDF. I update it twice a year. So next year it's going to be longer. Um, and each week you're gonna get one email from me, sometimes more but it's usually one email because I post a lot on my blog and I post about email marketing, copywriting, consumer behavior, marketing strategy because that's something a lot of business owners don't have. I try to make it as uh, approachable as possible, so easy to understand because I think those are some big puzzle pieces that can run or break a business. Uh, and you can also find me on LinkedIn and on YouTube where I publish once a week an email review. I talked about that earlier and if you have questions, if you need help, send me a message. I love to help. It's one of the reasons I'm a coach and one of the reasons I am an entrepreneur. So reach out and I would love to help with an advice with. I know if you want resources like what books should I read, what courses should I take to improve my email marketing or copywriting or all of that, just email me and I will happily answer.

Speaker B: I love that so much. So all these links are in the show notes. Wherever you are finding out about this episode, whether it's under the episode, whether it's in the email, whether it's in the post, you will find those links as well. Um, thank you so much Monica. Honestly it was, was such an amazing conversation. I am so grateful for your time, for your knowledge. Um, honestly, you have a very, very, very empowering, fresh and perspective that I, I know it works like. It's. It's amazing. It's amazing. And you don't find many people that take this approach to, to marketing, so I really, really love. I've loved having the conversation with you. Thank you for being here.

Speaker A: Thank you, Georgiana. It was amazing. And I love, uh, having the opportunity to share this message. I think lots more entrepreneurs need to hear that they can do things differently.

Speaker B: Yes, absolutely. Thank you. And again, remember to connect with Monica on all the links shared. Thank you for everyone listening in and see you on the next episode of the free happy and thriving podcast.