Okay, First name / friend,  let's play 2 truths and a lie.

 

 

Think really hard about it, because there will be prizes involved.

 

Well…mainly just the prize of knowing you were right. And the prize of now knowing that there is an actual job out there where kids walk through cornfields wearing trash bags at 5 AM picking tassels out of the corn.

 

And that I did it.

 

If I had a cell phone back then, I'd be showing you proof. But unfortunately you'll just have to imagine young me emerging from the corn to collect my $8/hr paycheck. (Instead there's another great photo of “Drive your Tractor to School” Day for your enjoyment below)

 

 

#2 is also true. I was a huuuge HP fan🧙‍♂️ . Until Dumbledore died (spoiler alert, although if you haven't seen Harry Potter yet, I'm inclined to believe you never will), and I had to reevaluate my relationship with the series.

 

So yes, number #3 is the lie, and although I love marketing, I still don't enjoy getting emails from most brands. My inbox is my digital kitchen. I feel the same way about clutter there as I do my actual kitchen - meaning I don't tolerate it well. (Someone please let me husband know😅)

 

About 75% of all emails go ignored, and if an email gets opened - 50% of the time people find it useless. 

 

When I saw this stat, I took a second and thought about my behavior with emails. I thought about the ones I religiously open and why, and I tried to see if there were any common threads (outside of the best practices we already know, like personalization and using people's first names, and yada yada).

These were some of the newsletters that came to mind first  -

Each of these each sells different things. They have different formats, lengths, style of copy, and design.

 

 

General advice says share value, but no one says what's actually valuable. Many of us are natural teachers, so we think that giving people information MUST be how we give value. But that's not true. Lots of newsletters give me information…so why do I read some but not others🤔?

 

 

Reflect on what you love consuming + sharing to find out what your values are. If you value research, simplicity, freedom, structure, or accountability, build those values into your emails. I care about storytelling, snackable insights, and things that will make me better at my job. So that's what I try to do for you.

 

Make it relevant to the people you want opening. Once you lay the foundation with your values, think about what's relevant for your audience. Think about their experience, what's currently on their hearts and minds, and what's going on in the world.

 

 

Want to have me in your business for 60 minutes? I'm doing a giveaway to one lucky human as a thank you for filling out this survey. I want to make my content count, and for that to happen, I want to learn a little bit more about you!

 

It's only 12 questions and half are multiple choice, I promise. I'm picking a winner at the end of today🎉 .