Have you ever wondered what the key to email marketing is?
We’ve all been there: You just published your blog post or put live your latest podcast episode and sent out an email to your whole email list, letting them know about the amazing content you’ve prepared. The response? Crickets.
Bobby Klinck knows that kind of deafening silence all too well. He graduated from Harvard law school, worked in prestigious law firms and for the government. He suited up, but soon realised it wasn’t for him. That’s when he decided to pivot and build up his own online business.
At first he struggled. He made the classic entrepreneurial mistake of thinking he knew exactly what his audience needed. “It was a total flop,” he remembers his first launch, for he only made one sale, and the person who bought asked for a refund the day before the end of his course.
But he didn’t give up. Bobby took the time to get to know other online entrepreneurs and understand what their fears and needs are. Amy Porterfield interviewed him on her podcast as an expert on the new GDPR law, and things started rolling.
He was giving free advice on legal issues and selling legal templates when people started asking him how he managed to get all these raving fans. At the time, Bobby had switched to only doing email launches, and had discovered something very important: People didn’t want a weekly summary of his legal content. They wanted to read his stories.
“Every single week, I send my email list a story of my life.” - Bobby Klinck
In this episode of the Sigrun Show, Bobby shares how he uses storytelling in his email marketing to connect with his audience and turn cold leads into raving fans.
Are you wondering what will make your audience read your weekly emails? If you’re frustrated about your low opening rates, this episode is a must-listen!
What you will get out of this episode:
- From lawyer to online entrepreneur: Bobby’s success story (4:41)
- What Bobby discovered about email that changed everything (16:55)
- Pictures with random women: Bobby’s strategy of storytelling (18:42)
- How personal Bobby gets when telling his stories (23:07)
- How Bobby balances business content and storytelling (27:48)
- What you can do if you think you’re not a good storyteller (29:55)
Want to know more about storytelling, epic content and email marketing?
Read the story behind my biggest email mistake or learn how to make your content stand out in a crowded marketplace.
How to Boost Your Email Marketing with Storytelling
Don’t think you’re a good storyteller? I never thought of myself as a good copywriter. I started to write newsletters and did what I saw everybody else doing. The result? I got no responses to my emails. Even I started to think that my newsletters were boring. I decided to start telling stories instead, and that’s when everything changed.
A story doesn’t have to be grand or epic. Most stories can be something that happened to you in 15 seconds but you still learned a lesson from. It’s about the small things that happen to you throughout the day. There’s nothing like storytelling to create a connection with your audience and boost your email marketing. To help you write great stories, here are some tips:
Keep a story journal
Everything that happens to you is a potential story – special and weird moments, but also when you make a mistake. Start collecting these story ideas in a journal or on a spreadsheet so you can use them for future newsletters. You don’t have to write up the whole story, just write down the topic and what the story is about so it will jog your memory. Put down some bullet points with lessons or themes you could take out of that story that are related to your business. The key here is: Share your story when you feel ready to share the lesson you’ve learned from it.
Write as if you’re talking to a friend
When you’re telling stories, tell them as if you’re talking to a friend, not to an email list of people you might not know. Be yourself, authentic, real and vulnerable. However: Be sure the point of your story comes across. If it doesn’t have a clear message, it’s like telling a joke without revealing its ending. The joke won’t work.
Grab your audience’s attention immediately
It’s important that you start and finish your story strong. Start with a sentence that immediately grabs the attention of your readers, and only then explain the circumstances around it. Choose an exciting subject line to make sure the people on your list want to know more.
Are you inspired to start telling your stories and use them for your email marketing? Let me know if this episode was helpful to you. You can follow and connect with me on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.