Britney Gardner 0:03

All right, well, this is pretty fun. I don't think I've ever had to Britney's on the show at the same time before. So Brittany, welcome to the no like control show.

Brittany Long 0:13

Thanks. I'm excited to be here.

Britney Gardner 0:15

Yeah, so I'm actually really excited i i was someone who had the opportunity to attend one of your workshops as a program, as a part of a program, I should say that I was in last fall. And it just gave so much value. I don't know that I've attended a, like 45 minute long talk that had that much value packed into it, but not in a firehose, you kind of way. So that's like a huge credit to to you as the creator of that.

Brittany Long 0:41

Thank you. I appreciate that. That makes me so happy. I love I love hearing things like that. So you totally made my day.

Britney Gardner 0:47

Well, good. Happy to start on Monday off. Right, right. I'm really happy to talk to you about email. I mean, I know email is everything that you you do you call yourself the queen of evergreen, and I can see why it is a title, you know, well deserved. But I'm really excited to talk about how we can all all of us use email in a better way. And and really think about it as a way that we can build up that know, like and trust factor with our audiences in a way that that might not necessarily be so easy on, you know, your average social media platform. So with that, why don't you take it away?

Brittany Long 1:24

Yeah, so I think one of the best things that you can do when you're figuring out what to email your people and how to get the most out of that while providing value to them, and all of those things that are wrapped up in email, is to begin with the end in mind. And the way that we do that is we actually look at our customer journey, I say, Okay, here's all the different ways that people are coming into my list potentially. And we realize from doing that, because we serve so many different people, because I do a lot of podcasts episodes and presentations, we have a lot of people at a lot of different levels coming in to get help from us. And so if I just have one path for them, I'm excluding a lot of people that need our help, but maybe they're not quite far along, or as far along as somebody else. And so what we do is we actually begin with, here's where everybody's coming in, here's where we think that they probably will be based on where they're coming in from. And then we have a sequence that actually reaches them where they are, instead of having them fit to what we know, and fit to what we've always done, we actually put it to where we believe that they are right now in their journey. And so we have multiple sequences, one goes to new beginners who are like, I don't even have an email list yet. I don't know how to start it. Like, how do I even get a domain? Like we start with those. We also have people, though, that have been earning millions of dollars from their emails, and they're like, Alright, how do I level up? How do I take this to that next level? How do I edit it? And so we have those people, we have everyone in between? And we think how can we take them from where they are right now where they're starting to where they ultimately want to be where they're making a bigger impact and increasing their revenue? on autopilot? Ideally, how can we take them from point A to point B, and that has been incredibly helpful in reaching our people at a deeper level.

Britney Gardner 3:05

So I love how you right from the get go. You're already segmenting people. And obviously, an email segment is a very, you know, more technical term, but but you're talking about it just from a people perspective, which I love, because that is very true. You know, a lot of times I hop on, and at the very beginning of an interview before I start recording with a guest. They're like, So tell me, you know, where are your audience at? And I'm like, Well, I know from at least some of the people who told me that they're listening, that they've been in business for, you know, two or three years. But they also know that people have been in business for like six or seven years and are listening to the show. And I can't unilaterally say this is exactly where the listener of the show is in their business. So I love that you're just acknowledging that right up front that you do have paths created for people who need a little bit more of that early hand holding, and then people who are like, Okay, I've got the basics, I want something more.

Brittany Long 3:59

Yeah. And I think when we, when we start from a place of like, this is a human that I'm talking to you, this is somebody that I can make an incredible impact on their life. It really shifts from, I'm just going to send a blanket email to everybody, because here's best practices, or here's what people are buying with right now. And instead, we sit back and say, what do they actually need right now? And how can I help not just from a paid seem plan, but also resources? And a lot of us that have been around for a while we have a lot of resources, whether it's YouTube videos, podcasts, episodes, blog posts, even emails and social posts that you've sent out? How can we repurpose those things so that we're reaching those people where they are. And I love that you talked about segmenting. So we do two things. We just started doing this. We segment where we think that they are but then we also give them the opportunity to self identify. And I'm a former middle school science teacher. So there's a lot of things that I know about a lot of random things with with signs and stuff. But one thing I know from being in the classroom is that if people have the opportunity to self identify self identify where they're at, they are more likely to Take responsibility and have a deeper ownership of where they're at as well, which means I can help them more fully. And it means that it's much easier to have that know like and trust factor, because they're part of they're part of it. It's like a partnership. It's not just me telling them, Hey, here's all the stuff you need to do. It's us being in this relationship, this partnership.

Britney Gardner 5:19

But wonder wonderful. And yeah, you're right. You know, when people say, you know, this is what I want from you, there is a lot more ownership there. Yeah. And, you know, I know that there's a how do I even say this? A lot of people I am in and around whether they are in this audience or not, have a love hate relationship with with email, you know, it's like the Why don't want to bother people and giving them that opportunity to say, no, no, this is what I'm asking of you. This is what I'm expecting from you. Yeah, it gives them that opportunity to say, I don't know I, I asked for that, like, now you do need to show up and give it to me.

Brittany Long 5:57

Mm hmm. Yep. Which can be a little bit terrifying at times, because you're really kind of baring your soul to people on the internet that may or may not agree with you. And one thing I've noticed, though, is for every person that's reached out and has been like, How dare you email me, which doesn't happen often, but every once in a while, I'll catch somebody on a bad day, they kind of take it out on you. There's a few things I've noticed about that. One is usually that happens if you again, meet them where they're at, and see them as that human say, Hey, I'm so sorry that this upset you, you can unsubscribe here. But if something's going on, and you need to talk, I'm here. Like even just connecting, like that makes a huge difference in every single time, somebody has like responded and had been mean or something. If I respond in a way that is kind, every time like nine times out, I'm not gonna wait 10 times out of 10, I don't know, I'm saying nine times out of nine times out of 10, they respond back and they actually apologize about it. And I had that happen. A few years ago, I was writing. And they said I can't believe this person is, you know, trying to charge us for this and blah, blah, blah. And so I had the opportunity to say, actually, here's all the free resources that I provide for you, you're welcome to take advantage of those at any time, I do make occasional offers, because I think I should be paid for the work that I put into this. But if you want to take advantage of these free offers, here you go. And we actually have developed a long term friendship now where like I know about her, her family, her kids. And it's just really interesting when you meet people that human level, and it deepens that know, like, and trust factor. And then you also mentioned, giving them the option of segwaying. Going back to that for a second, we also give them the option to opt out. So if we're doing a launch, I know that what I'm putting out there is going to be for a lot of people, but it's not going to be for everyone. And so I give them the option to opt out of launch emails. So that if they're like, You know what, this isn't the right time for me, because I'm too busy. I'm too whatever, I don't want to slam something down somebody's throat and say no, you have to get it now. Because urgency, urgency urgency, like I would rather them not buy now and buy later on when is the right time for them. And so I give them the chance to opt out of those launch emails, while still getting our normal emails as well. And they make that really clear. And we've seen people take advantage of that and then buy from us later, which is really cool. I wasn't sure if it would work. At first, I was really nervous about that. But it does it works. From a

Britney Gardner 8:15

technical this is probably way too granular. But from a technical point of view, how do you kind of pause people from that launch sequence that you are doing? Right? And obviously, there's going to be plot email platform specific, they're all going to have different ways. But like I know, you also run your your long evergreen sequence. And you tend to pause that while you do launches as well. So is there a good general rule of thumb here that we can share?

Brittany Long 8:41

Yeah, so I use a lot of tagging pretty much any email service provider, you'll be able to do this. But what I do is I'll have in the link I put is basically a conditional link or a link with an automated rule to it. So if they click that link, then it's going to tag them as wanting to opt out. And I always name the tag, opt out, and then whatever they're opting out to. And so then the next time I send or anytime I send emails after that it's I'm sending everybody on my list or to this segment. And people who do not have this opt out tag, if they have the opt out tag that way, they don't get it in certain email service providers. CRMs. Like kartra, for example, which is what we use, we actually have them click on it, it takes them to a page that says something along the lines of hey, no worries, we totally understand no hard feelings. If you have questions about email, or you would like to learn more about how we can help you with your emails, click here. So they still have an option to buy something else or mess. It might be a better fit for them, but just also opt out of the thing that they don't want to hear about right now.

Britney Gardner 9:41

Awesome. Thanks for that was definitely a little bit a little little, not so much high level and definitely detailed. But I think knowing that these options are available for people, helps them kind of get an idea of how they can apply the strategies in general to their business because I know I've sat in my car listening to podcasts on On occasion, I've been like, oh, that sounds awesome. But I have no clue how I could implement that. Like I should, I could. And I get the, you know, philosophical strategical benefit of it. But but not so much the actual how to so thanks. So I know that you mentioned earlier, you know that when people come into your system, you give them the opportunity to kind of self identify, this is where I'm at. And then you have different email sequences that you might put them in based on those answers. So in terms of building up your K LT factor, are there any specific sequences that you're like, Oh, everybody must go through this one. This one's kind of optional. And how do you how do you determine that?

Brittany Long 10:42

Oh, I'm so sorry. To froze for a second. Um, you were saying? So what sequences are optional? And which sequences are must haves for the know, like, and trust factor? Is that correct? It is, yeah. Okay, perfect. So the ones that are optional, would be client sequences, buyer affiliate. And they're optional, because if you don't have an affiliate program, obviously you don't need them. If you don't have maybe clients, you don't need a client sequence, if you don't have a course you don't need a student sequence. But really, with all of those, the goal is to help your person at a deeper level. And so one sequence that we think is absolutely necessary is your evergreen sequence, we call it a nurture and sell sequence. This is a long standing sequence that not only nurtures your audience, but also sells to them. And we think that it's necessary, because it builds, it builds up who you are, it gives them it gives them that personal touch without you having to sit down and write a broadcast email every week, because while writing broadcasts and most live is fantastic, not everybody has time for that. Or you might not even enjoy doing that. And so a lot of people I see trying to kind of like stuck themselves into a box that they don't fit into. And you just don't need to do that. And so we suggest doing a year long seek we do a year long nurture and sell sequence that gives them resources and tips and how to, and really helps them see them out of value that you can bring into their life. And then we also make those offers too, because we know that not everybody's going to be ready to purchase from you at a launch, but they might be ready in a month or two months or three months. And so consistently letting them know, here's the different ways that we can help you and giving them the option to buy, even if it's not during a live launch, we found not only helpful to our clients and our customers, but also of course, helpful to our bottom line as well.

Britney Gardner 12:22

So I love that idea. And I probably wouldn't have loved it as much a few months ago. So like briefly, I'll explain right, so I do a regular weekly broadcast, it usually is related to this podcast, I announce, you know, whether it's a guest or solo episode, leave the reader with a story as to why, you know, it might be relevant, relevant and relevant, excuse me to them right now. And that is something that that I have done regularly for years at this point. And I will be honest, I have been looking at what the bottlenecks in my business are. And one of them is that weekly broadcasts email. And I wouldn't have acknowledged this a few months ago, but a couple months ago, I experienced a whole bunch of things like lifewise happen. It was on the heels of my husband and I buying a new house and moving and doing all the house projects. So we were already, you know, a little under the gun, right? I had a friend who died, I had my little one get COVID I went on an actual legitimate vacation. While there, my grandfather died and had to go to another state to go deal with that. And I got home and I was like holy buckets. I have all this stuff to do. And that weekly broadcast email, I had, like a couple of them pre written they were ready to go. But then I still had weeks, you know, to get scheduled out. And you know, my beloved Podcast Producer was kind of bearing the brunt of this because it was like, I need to schedule this, Brittany, you know, and that was fine. You know, I was able to catch up. But it made me take a hard, hard look at my business at something that had always been easy for me something that was always something I could do. I mean, one email a week, how hard is it right? Until until it got hard. So you know, it's real, like we all have life. And most of us are running very small teams, if a team at all for some people. And I had to acknowledge that one of the bottlenecks in my business was me making that weekly broadcast. So yeah, you

Brittany Long 14:23

are not the only one to say that. In fact, the reason we started offering the done for you service is because I worked with so many amazing business owners who are often great writers. And I've seen things come up in their life that have been very, very difficult. And it's not just like something's happening. It's like the after effects of it too. Like it's emotionally and mentally draining just some of the stuff that happens in life. And like not to be a Debbie Downer or anything but like things happen, unexpected things happen and to be able to have emails that are running automatically for you. It's like that peace of mind that you know, I'm going to be helping people I'm going to be getting this out there no matter What even when, you know, unexpected stuff happens, whether it's, I have worked with somebody whose parent went from being able to function by themselves to literally not being able to walk the next day, and that there's some medical thing happening. And so she went from running her own business to being a caretaker for her parent overnight. And like those kinds of things, we always think, oh, it's never gonna happen to me. But like, the only thing I think that we can probably expect in life is that the unexpected at some point is going to happen. And so that's one of the best one of the reasons we're so passionate about having like this, this safety net, is because we think what you have a say is important and meaningful. And if you can get it out without you being the bottleneck, then even better.

Britney Gardner 15:43

Well, yeah, and you know, I plan on continue doing my weekly broadcast email, but I really love that you called it a safety net, right? So you put in the work ahead of time, you have this running in the background, and you are both nurturing and selling, hopefully still making money, even if you have, you know, a solid six weeks where you didn't get a whole lot done as I just kind of went through myself. Right. So I like having that safety net. And it's really not all that different from actual content planning in general. Right? It's, it's just another avenue, another channel of your content that is working for you in the background, so long as you put some work into it ahead of time.

Brittany Long 16:20

Right. Yeah. And one thing that's great for us is that we get to see the data, what's working, what's not working. So we love sharing that so that people can actually get it done, and have it running for them. But yeah, absolutely.

Britney Gardner 16:32

I also full disclosure, I have your templates for the you know, your long evergreen, nurture and sell right, and I'm about four and a half months so far. Yeah, I'm getting there. You know, obviously, I didn't do a whole lot these last six weeks, but But it's, it's really nice knowing that I have at least that going on, right? So like four months, that's a third of the year. So if you look at what could be accomplished by you working hard in your business for four months, and then look at what maybe would, you know, go by the wayside a little bit. And those four months at least I've got that. And that's a huge peace of mind thing. And for me, peace of mind is like one of my number one competence boosters, if I don't have to worry about something, if I know that I've got at least a few of those ducks, you know, in line and ready to be all rolled up. I feel much more competent, and all the other things that I'm doing in my life.

Brittany Long 17:27

Yeah, I totally agree.

Britney Gardner 17:29

Alright, so any thing that we can look at to know whether we are actually accomplishing the goal of building up that K LT factor, specifically from our emails?

Brittany Long 17:41

Yeah. So if you want to know if your emails are resonating with your people in your building that Kilty factor, the best thing that you can do is ask for responses. If you're not getting any responses, when you ask for a client, there's a few things that are probably happening. One, it's probably the call to action that you're making, it might be confusing, or you might have too many calls to action. That's one of the biggest issues I see is people have like, hey, replying, let me know this, and this and this, and then nobody does anything, because it's just too much. And so that could be happening. But if you have a really great call to action, reply, call to action, and nobody's responding to you, that lets you know that something you're doing or saying is not resonating with this audience. And that's one of the best indicators of whether or not what you're saying is resonating, what you're saying is building that know, like, and trust factor.

Britney Gardner 18:25

So in terms of balance of calls to action, you know, obviously, we're nurturing and we're selling, and, you know, sometimes you're asking for a reply call to action, right? What is the general balance that you aim for in these kinds of emails.

Brittany Long 18:38

So typically, what I try to do is at the beginning, I like to have a lot of replies not only because it helps the deliverability, but also because it lets me it gives me that immediate feedback loop. So I really like that. So I try to do replies in the beginning of any evergreen sequence, or fulfillment sequence or welcome sequence. And then after that, in the Evergreen sequence, specifically, we usually do a offer every third email. So they're getting consistent offers, and they're not, it's not like, you know, we're jamming down somebody's face, when we're making the offers. It's a very soft, gentle sales email, but it does really well also. So we do 30 email as an offer email, usually, the fourth email is going to be the the call to action is going to be the PS and it's going to take them back to the offer. And then the first two emails of the month usually are either reply or going to some kind of resource. We do like to do replies and resources as often as possible to get them in the habit of taking action in a way that's very non committal. Because we're not asking them to buy anything at that point, very non committal and helps them consume more of our content as well.

Britney Gardner 19:42

I love that. And you know, I've been doing a lot of talking with people who talk about balancing your asks and your gives. Yeah, and I think you didn't use those words in particular, but it's a really great reminder to offer resources and those resources don't have to have anything to do with your Well, they have should it have something to do with your world, obviously, but they don't have to have anything to do with your actual offers. I like giving people resources that I just kind of happened upon. And you know, maybe there's no other good way to share them and emails, they're really great way. So as part of a nurture sequence that just feels really, really good.

Brittany Long 20:16

Yeah, some of the some of the resources we like to give. So I'll do a video sometimes I really enjoy doing those because it feels very personal to me. It's not like I put it on a landing page or anything like that. It's just literally Hey, me this video for you. I think it'd be helpful. I've been getting this question a lot. Here's the answer. I like doing that blog posts, podcasts, YouTube videos, pretty much anything written that you've had Facebook posts even and something that a group that you're in, any of those usually do really well. One of the other things that we see, sometimes it will do really well is just having the resource, actually in the email, and saying, Hey, we're gonna be talking about this is a question I'm getting here are three of the ways that you can do X, Y, and Z. And then sometimes I'll send them to a blog post or podcast episode. And I say, Hey, if you want to hear the other four tips, or whatever it is, you can go here to see the rest of them. Not only does that give them some help right then, but it also kind of teases something else they might get and helps them consume more content.

Britney Gardner 21:13

Love it. Well, that's awesome. Brittany, thank you so much. Is there anything you'd like to close with and then please let people know how they can get in touch with you if this is something that they actually want to be working in their business.

Brittany Long 21:23

My pleasure, my best advice is just to get started. And I know that probably seems really simple, but so many people will tell me oh, I'll I'll do it. When I have time. I'll do it when this I'll do that. So if you can get to the point where you're like, I'm just going to do it. I'm going to spend five minutes today, making this happen. Just start there, start with five minutes or 10 minutes. You don't have to write a million emails today just write one or even part of one. And then the other thing I would say to you is don't expect it to be perfect. I go into writing my emails expecting it to be weird and awkward at first, knowing that if I go into it expecting it to be perfect, it's never going to get done if I go into it expecting that it's not going to be perfect. I can get it done and get something written and then I can go back and edit and within five minutes I'm done. So don't expect perfect perfection don't don't even aim for it aim for it being done right now when you're just starting out. And then how people can find me so you can reach me at Britney br itt a NY at when we systems calm. And actually if it's alright with you, I have something that I'd love to give it some templates. And they are welcome sequence templates. So it's totally free for your audience if they want it. And if not, that's okay too. But if you need a welcome sequence, I'd love to I'd love to be able to give your audience said

Britney Gardner 22:37

Yeah, please, please do. Perfect. Is there a link for that? Or do you want me?

Brittany Long 22:44

I can't Yeah, I'll send it over. I'll send it over. If you have shown us maybe who put it in? Yeah, okay, cuz it's just a long, it's a long link. So Oh, yeah,

Britney Gardner 22:55

no problem, no problem. That's very generous. Thank you. I've actually seen those welcome sequence templates. And they're very helpful. And if if like Brittany said, you know, the feeling of getting started is difficult for you like this is a really great way to get started and creating really valuable emails for your people. You got the templates already there to go for you and you can kind of just take that feeling and keep moving into other emails as well. Alright, thank you so much. Thank you

Transcribed by https://otter.ai