Do you automate your emails? Did you know you could (unknowingly) be making these very common mistakes with your email marketing automation?

We’re Kennedy and Fifi, and today we're going to share what you can do better with your automated email sequences.

Ready?

Let's go.

SOME EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: 

(1:06) Want to carry on with the conversation? Join our FREE Facebook group. 
(1:31) Check out our sponsor - Zerobounce! 
(4:51) Not showing your personality. 
(9:03) Not sending emails out 'live' first. 
(11:55) Not checking the data. 
(13:31) Having too many offers in your automations. 
(17:43) Spending too long creating your automations. 
(18:58) Subject line of the week.

Not showing your personality

The first mistake with automation is that we’ve been conditioned to automate everything! But we shouldn’t. There’s always a place for the human touch, especially in a world of ChatGPT and AI where we’re losing the human element. So it’s important to show your personality in your emails.

Not showing your personality is a mistake. It doesn’t matter what your personality is – it might be serious, funny, sweet, or anything in between. But you need to have a personality! Don't write email marketing automations with no personality in them. Because it makes it more obvious that the emails were automated, and people can see through that.

For example, when writing an email, Fifi will type it the way she thinks first – she’ll use the words that are going through her head and perfect them after that. She finds that’s the easiest way to do it because there’s no filter – you just use the words as they are in your head. It’s like a download on the page – it's simple.

When you’re writing email automation (especially if you’re putting together a whole campaign in one sitting) it’s easy to rush through it and forget to put your personality into it. So slow it all down and make sure your personality shows. You can start with a thought or a question and make it part of the email. See how that works for you.

Not sending emails out ‘live' first

Another huge mistake is to automate sequences without sending them out ‘live' first. If you’re putting together a six-email campaign, for example, instead of writing all the emails at once and automating them straight away, send out those six emails individually and manually first. It’s more effective.

First of all, that allows you to check you haven’t made any mistakes, like forgetting the links or adding a broken one. You also want to make sure that your message is ‘dialled in’. The whole point of automation is that you want it to be refined. Before you put people through an automated sequence, you want to make sure it converts. 

A few years ago, Kennedy noticed that one of the emails inside his Overture campaign (a direct sales sequence) wasn’t getting any clicks. If Kennedy hadn’t looked at the data and made some tweaks, it would have continued underperforming. When he changed the subject line and the call to action, he saw a good uptake in clicks and sales. But if you put emails into an automation without checking how they’re performing and never look back, you won’t know when something isn’t working!

When creating a new campaign, Kennedy writes the emails in a Google document first. He doesn’t worry about the subject line or the segment, for example – the first step is all about the words. Then he sends the emails out ‘live' to his list to see how well they perform, and only once he knows they're good, he'll automate them. Do things this way, and you'll have a chance to automate what works or to make changes to what doesn’t. So send your emails live first and then add them to your automation.

Not checking the data 

Another mistake people make is not checking the data. When you create automated campaigns, you have to periodically look at how they're performing, especially during the first week or so. Watch them pretty closely! You want to make sure people are opening the emails and clicking on the links. Otherwise, your subscribers may be getting lost somewhere along the way, either because of something you did or because of some technology glitch.

You should also check all your automated campaigns every 3-6 months to make sure nothing has changed about your business or the world in general. Sometimes you mention things in your emails that you don't want to be mentioning anymore! Also, review what comes before and after every email in a sequence (i.e. the context) to make sure there are no inconsistencies. Look at the content, the data, and the context of all your emails.  

Having too many offers in your emails

Don't give people too many things to click on! If you include too many things in your emails, you'll have too much information and yet not enough on each of the things you mention. Nothing will stand out. And if your emails are too long, people will get overwhelmed. Emails like that won't work!

Instead, make each email about one offer. Only use one angle within that email. If the angle is about saving time with your programme, then don't talk about anything else in that email, other than saving time.

Because we understand more now about the psychology of email marketing than we ever did before, we know that people buy for different reasons and motivators. So instead of having one automation about product A, one about product B, etc. have multiple automations about product A to offer it from different angles to appeal to different reasons. This helps you persevere with the offer.

Plus, it's cheaper for you to stick to one offer. It means you don’t have to develop a new programme or have a new sales page written and laid out. That all takes a lot of time and effort! But when you’re promoting the same thing from different angles, you don’t have to do all the additional work that goes with creating new products or offers.

Wherever you can, simplify your offering – have one core product or service and focus on that, rather than trying to sell multiple things to different people. When you put your energy into one thing, it makes everything easier. It simplifies your brain as well – not just the business! When all roads lead to that one offer, you get the compound effect of constantly talking about that one thing. And you don’t get overwhelmed by the idea of having to create new offers all the time.

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have more than one product, of course. But think about how you can offer your main, core, flagship offer (which we call your ‘Rome offer’ because ‘all roads lead to Rome') from different angles.

Spending too long creating automations

Being a perfectionist and spending too long creating automations is also a mistake. When you obsess about making every single thing perfect before you launch an email sequence into the world, you can end up spending too long on it.

That’s why our programme, The Email Hero Blueprint exists. Because people come to us asking how we find all these interesting ways of presenting our main product so that more people buy it. That’s why we created all the campaigns we have and teach that are available for people to use inside our programme.

Join The Email Hero Blueprint

If you want all the details (and access to our proven campaigns and processes), check out The Email Hero Blueprint. It'll help you speed things up, so you don't have to spend too long on your email marketing automations. And you'll have all the frameworks and the emails to create them quickly.

Subject line of the week

This week’s subject line is “Breakfast gloop?” The email told the story of when Kennedy was at a mastermind with his mentor Tood Brown, who was preparing for a bodybuilding competition. Todd had made this ‘gloopy' protein-based breakfast, which inspired the subject line of this email.

The reason why it worked so well is that it’s an odd combination of words. The word ‘breakfast’ (much like ‘dinner’ or ‘lunch’) implies a time of day (in this case, the morning) and a location too (probably a kitchen). This instantly creates more of a story in the mind of the reader. The email got great open rates and engagement because people had lots of questions. Whose breakfast gloop is this? What is it? It creates compound curiosity and makes people want to go and open the email so they know what you’re talking about. So check it out!

Useful Episode Resources

Related episodes

How To Use Summits To Get Visible (Even If You’re An Introvert) And Build Your Email List, With Fifi Mason.

Useful Strategies To Stop Procrastinating RIGHT NOW To Get Your Email Marketing Done!

How To Build The Most Impactful Email Marketing Strategy Plan To Make More Sales In Your Business.

FREE list to improve your email marketing

If you want to write better emails, come up with better content, and move your readers to click and buy, here's how. Here's a list of our Top 10 most highly recommended books that will improve all areas of your email marketing (including some underground treasures that we happened upon, which have been game-changing for us). Grab your FREE list here.

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Do you want to chat about how you can maximise the value of your email list and make more money from every subscriber? There's a way! Every business is different, so come and hang out in our FREE Facebook group, the Email Marketing Show Community for Course Creators and Coaches. You'll find a lot of training and resources, and you can talk about what you're up to.

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This content is sponsored by ResponseSuite.com, the survey quiz and application form tool that we created specifically for small businesses like you to integrate with your marketing systems to segment your subscribers and make more sales. Try it out for 14 days for just $1.

Join The Email Hero Blueprint 

Want more? Let's say you're a course creator, membership site owner, coach, author, or expert and want to learn about the ethical psychology-based email marketing that turns 60-80% more of your newsletter subscribers into customers (within 60 days). If that's you, then The Email Hero Blueprint is for you.

This is hands down the most predictable, plug-and-play way to double your earnings per email subscriber. It allows you to generate a consistent sales flow without launching another product, service, or offer. Best news yet? You won't have to rely on copywriting, slimy persuasion, NLP, or ‘better' subject lines.

Want to connect with Fifi?

Fifi is a personal brand and visibility coach who works primarily with introverted coaches and impact makers. She helps quieter people – those who have ideas they want to share with the world but struggle to put them out there. Fifi empowers them to find a way to share in a way that aligns with who they are. You can find Fifi on her website.

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