A short and simple way to get people to reply to your email marketing efforts.
Liz’s Email Marketing Membership
Liz’s Free Welcome Sequence
The Email Sound Booth Facebook Group
Liz’s Kit [Convertkit] Affiliate Link
Transcript
What’s up, Liz Wilcox here. You’re listening to episode 61 of the email sound booth podcast. If I could spit that name out, uh, how to get people to reply to your newsletters. This is going to be a short episode. I think, uh, hopefully it will be a simple episode and it’s going to be an episode where you can walk away with some like.
Super action steps. I’m really excited. Uh, so let’s, let’s get to it. Uh, you know, time is precious and I thank you for spending some of your time with me. So the simple way is just asking yes or no questions. Seriously. That is it. A lot of people I’ve seen, especially in my membership, when we do our once a month Q and A’s, uh, you know, nobody replies, Liz, nobody replies.
But when I ask them, well, what are you asking them? They’re asking really complicated questions. Remember, we are following something called the email staircase around here at, you know, inside the email sound booth, follower, friend, customer. Most of the people on our list are not our friends yet. They’re not going to answer complicated, complicated questions like, what do you want to see next?
Right. But they will answer simple questions like. Do you send a weekly newsletter hit reply? Yes or no, right? It has to be when I say a yes or no question it has to be like very front of brain like they know the answer to this as Easily as they can answer their name, right? So there’s a few places. Well, of course Of course, you can put this anywhere, right?
Your welcome sequence, your newsletters, your pre launch, your sales. Well, scratch that. In sales, we’re answering questions. We’re not asking them, but the rest of our emails should be opening conversations. I think Mike Kim said it best. It’s not about closing a sale. It’s about opening a conversation. And so yes or no questions are going to allow you to.
To open up conversations very easily to move people from that follower stage into the friend stage. So where are we putting these yes or no questions? Well, first I already mentioned your welcome sequence. In the very first email, you should be putting a yes or no, uh, question in there in the PS, right? So you, you send out whatever you promise to send out and then, you know, PS yes or no question here.
So back in the day, I used to have an RV travel blog. And so I could ask, you know, PS, where are you in your RV travels or your RV journey? Again, they’re, they’re just followers. They’re not friends. They don’t really want to have a conversation with a stranger yet. Right. So instead of that, I would ask PS, do you currently own a rig?
Hit reply. Yes or no. Then based on what they would tell me. I knew where the conversation was going. I knew who was on my list, uh, and I knew how to take the conversation. So if they replied, no, Liz, I don’t, I would say, oh, uh, you know, I hope one day you can, I recommend shopping at this, that, and the other.
Also, here’s my buying guide. So you can see, you know, maybe what kind of rig. Uh, you would like if you’re still in that decision making, uh, process, right? So I’m appearing incredibly helpful, but I also know, you know, if I get a bunch of people that say no, no, no, no, no, that helps me guide what my products might be or how to position my products, right?
If I get a bunch of people that say yes. Then I know they’re at a different stage and I know I need to create or talk about other products, right? So that’s why we want replies in the first place. I didn’t even mention that. We want replies to open up conversations, right? So again, if they say no, oh, here’s my buying guide.
Here’s some recommendations for you. If they say yes. Oh my gosh, great Are you on the road full time yet? So then I can start asking other questions. Are you on the road full time yet? Is that the goal to be full time? And then just, you know, I can’t wait to hear more about you. And then again, if going back to, if they say no, you can say that same thing.
I can’t wait to hear about, you know, when you finally get your rig. Okay. And yes, this totally works in moving them from the follower to the friend. Y’all, this worked. There was a guy. Uh, I won’t, uh, his name was Johnny Lightning, right? Or that’s what he went by, anyway. I don’t think that’s his real name. Uh, but he was one of Uh, the first people to hit reply to this question of mine.
And he said, Oh, Liz, if I ever buy a rig, you’ll be the first to know. Cause his wife was kind of iffy about it and he stayed on my list for years. And once I sold the blog, I got this random text message. Um, And it was, it was Johnny and it was a picture of his rig. And he’s like, I finally, I finally got it.
Or it wasn’t a text. It was a DM and I knew exactly who it was. I was like, Oh my gosh, I’m so excited for you. Um, you know, and it all started with that DM. Yes or no question. So then again, put it in your newsletters, right? Uh, you know, if you write something, you know, five facts or, you know, five tips at the end, was this helpful to you or, or even better than that?
Was this new information? Hit reply. Yes or no. Some people are going to say yes. Some people will say no, but it was a good reminder. And here’s the thing about yes or no questions. Most people will answer more. So rather than saying like, Oh, you know, where are you at on your RV journey? You know, they’re, I don’t, I don’t know lady, that’s a weird question, right?
Or, you know, if I could wave a magic wand and fix one thing for you, what would it be? I hate that question. That’s, uh, that’s just. Like who’s going to answer that right? I don’t know lady. Um, but if you can ask these yes or no questions, again, you’re going to open up those conversations and you’re going to be able to kind of tell where they’re at in their journey and how you can help them.
So in the newsletters, you know, was this it? Info helpful if somebody says yes, you know, then, you know, you’re on the right track with your content if a lot of people say no Uh, you know, this wasn’t new information to me Then you know, you have more advanced people you can go deeper, right? And honestly, you can use these use this strategy tactic, whatever you want to call it on social media as well now a bonus tip, uh Forgetting replies is to just ask people to type something in directly.
So for example, in my welcome sequence in the third email, I say, Hey, around here, we do XYZ. Uh, this is for you if you are ABC type of person. And then I say, if this is you hit reply to legit to quit. So I know you’re in. I cannot tell you how many people actually hit reply. Every day we get these. Too legit to quit, Liz.
Too legit to quit. And again, it’s just a way of opening the conversation. And I say, Oh my gosh, so fun. Can’t wait to get to know you. Um, you know, I, like, for example, I’m, Recording this at the end of 2024. So I might say, you know, I can’t wait to see what we do together with email in 2025, right? So normally I say something like that and you know, it starts the conversation from there and they start replying.
They start clicking that, that, that, that, that. So we want replies because they open up conversations. They also help with deliverability, right? If I reply to your email. The internet gods are going to put your next email in my inbox. So good, good, the good, the strategy or the tactic, whatever we’re calling it.
Yes or no questions, put them everywhere. Welcome sequence, newsletter, prelaunch, all of that, all your emails. Um, and then. A bonus tip, get them to type something directly, especially in the welcome sequence, uh, when you’re telling them, Hey, this is what it’s about. When you’re setting expectations, you can have them type even in like type I’m in.
So I know you’re in, it can be really, really simple. All right. That was episode 61. Uh, I hope you got something out of it. If you did, I’d love for you to leave a review of the pod. On the podcast of the podcast, whatever the preposition is there. Uh, and let me know how this helped you. I can’t wait to see you succeed.
As always, if you need help with this stuff, you need help figuring out yes or no questions, how to weave them in. I do all of that for you in my 9 a month email marketing membership. I’m going to link to that in the show notes. Um, as always I’m Liz Wilcox. You’re awesome. And I’ll see you on the next episode of the email soundbooth podcast.
Thanks for listening.