5 Simple Email Tweaks That Skyrocket Sales - Stefan Pirvu | Why Emails Get Ignored, What Makes Daily Emails Work, What Drives Engagement, How To Fix Email Deliverability, How To Segment Lists, Why Brand Personality Drives Email Marketing Success (#370)

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In this episode, host Claus Lauter speaks with Stefan Pirvu, Email Marketing Coach and Founder of emailsuperstars.com, about breaking sales records through innovative email marketing strategies. 

Drawing from his background in social psychology, Stefan reveals how e-commerce brands can create compelling email campaigns that truly connect with audiences and drive significant revenue.

Topics discussed in this episode:  

• Why getting emails opened is harder: Stand out as inbox filters tighten.
• How brand personality drives success: Build an authentic connection with a unique avatar. 
• What makes daily emails work: Keep subscribers engaged with entertainment-driven content. 
• How to properly segment lists: Target based on behaviors and preferences.
• Why most newsletter strategies fail: Avoid the key "value-based" content mistake. 
• What drives real engagement: Boost deliverability by encouraging replies. 
• How to repair poor deliverability: Improve domain reputation for primary inbox placement. 
• What makes SMS and email work: Use AI-driven conversations for personalization. 
• How one brand grew revenue from $15k to $65k: Learn the winning strategies. 
• What successful email marketing costs: $7k-15k pricing and ROI factors. 

Links & Resources

Website: https://emailsuperstars.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stefan-pirvu-388aa8222/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stefpirvu/ 

Get access to more free resources by visiting the show notes at
https://tinyurl.com/24ztw6sb 

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Hey there, this is Claus Lauter and you're listening to the eCommerce Coffee Break Podcast. The show that helps you become a smarter online [00:00:10] seller. In this episode we discuss how to break sales records in your store with highly effective email marketing strategies. Joining me on the show is Stefan Pirvu, Email Marketing Coach and Founder of [00:00:20] emailsuperstars.com.

. So let's dive right into it. Hello and welcome to another episode of the eCommerce Coffee Break podcast. Today we want to find out how to break sales records with [00:00:30] email marketing. Now listeners of the eCommerce Coffee Break podcast know that I'm a big fan of email marketing and we want to dive into some specifics a little bit more today and For [00:00:40] that, I have with me Stefan Pirvu.

He's an email marketing coach and founder of email superstars. Stefan started out running social psychology experience, but switched to email marketing [00:00:50] to escape the red tape and low pay he has managed lists. So up to 1. 5 million for big brands and now runs his own agencies, email superstars. com using his skills to [00:01:00] have business growth.

So let's welcome him to the show. Hi, Stefan. How are you today? Hey, Claus. I'm doing great. Thanks for having me. And, uh, hello to all of our listeners today. Stefan, email [00:01:10] marketing is around for 25 years, 30 years, a very, very long time, but I'm also surprised how bad emails can be that I get every day into my inbox.

[00:01:20] So let's talk about what you see. What are the biggest problems that brands have or the biggest issues that you see in your day to day life when it comes to emails? [00:01:30] Yeah, so I'd say one of the biggest problems that a lot of brands are having that's kind of getting worse and worse is just purely getting their emails opened and read.

[00:01:40] So that's kind of, there's a kind of a bunch of factors that go into that. So first of all, a lot of inbox providers are kind of tightening their promotional filters and their spam filters, right? So deliverability is getting [00:01:50] harder. But also there's just so many more, so there's just so much stimuli now that's competing for people's attention, right?

So the threshold to peak someone's curiosity and attention and to hold their [00:02:00] attention is higher than it's ever been, right? So back in the day when, uh, email marketing was kind of new, you could just send out a bland generic email and people would open it and read it because [00:02:10] That would be like an event for them, right?

Like getting an email, right? Nowadays, people's inboxes are just full of emails, right? So standing out and capturing that attention is harder than it's ever been. [00:02:20] I think standing out is a good point there. Obviously you want to get people to open and click your emails. And I think you need to have a very strong brand personality.

It's very strong branding [00:02:30] to make that sure. Is that something you experience in your day to day life? Yeah, yeah. So that's actually a huge pillar of what we do at my agency and kind of the philosophy. That we really [00:02:40] abide by. So, uh, one thing that we've really noticed in terms of if the topic is generating a ton of sales and breaking sales records, right?

Like a big part of that is building a very [00:02:50] strong connection between your brand and the audience, right? And, and this is really important because I mean, besides having a really unique and amazing product, [00:03:00] that connection is one of the biggest factors when it comes to turning a lead into a customer, uh, turning a one time customer into a repeat buyer.

Uh, and turning a repeat buyer into someone who's screaming [00:03:10] about your brand from the rooftops, right? And then actively, uh, winning over new customers for you via word of mouth, right? And, uh, and a big part of that, of building that connection. [00:03:20] Because it's really hard to come up with a unique and amazing product, right?

Even e commerce brands that have really high quality products, very few of them have [00:03:30] something that's truly one of a kind and is just in a completely different stratosphere from anything that their competitors are selling, right? But on the other hand, it's It's, it's possible for any kind of brand to build this kind of [00:03:40] connection that I'm talking about.

Uh, but it really comes down to holding and maintaining and capturing people's attention. Right? A good example of that is podcasts actually, like look at what we're doing right now, right? Like these [00:03:50] longer form podcasts. And that's one of the reasons why you see in this past election cycle in the U S for example, both of the candidates spent [00:04:00] podcasts, right?

Like Trump, especially his team had got him on like every podcast they could. And Yeah. Uh, a lot of the times he was just talking about random stuff, you know, telling stories, cracking jokes, [00:04:10] not really talking about policy a lot of the time. And, and that was actually very strategic. I think his team understood that, Hey, we want people to feel connected to this guy, right?

We want people to feel like they know him, they like [00:04:20] him, they trust him. So that way when he's selling them on his policy ideas, people are going to be more receptive to that. And I think nowadays a lot of e commerce brands try to mirror that strategy through the use of [00:04:30] newsletters. So the philosophy there is, Hey, if we put out a bunch of these newsletters and we give people a bunch of value, then people are going to like us more.

They're going to trust us more. And as a [00:04:40] result, when we are selling them something, when we're pitching them on something, they're going to be more receptive to that. Right. And, and I think the, the problem with that and the reason in theory, it sounds good, but [00:04:50] the reason that a lot of times it doesn't really work out, um, is because.

Just because someone, let's say you run a vitamin supplement company, right? Just because someone, let's [00:05:00] say their doctor recommends that they buy a vitamin supplement. Now they're interested in buying a vitamin supplement. That doesn't necessarily mean they're going to be interested in learning about how vitamins work or about the pitfalls of the vitamin industry.[00:05:10] 

or even about what foods they should be eating in order to optimize their nutritional intake, right? It all comes down to like intrinsic motivation. The example I always give is. [00:05:20] Let's say you're, you're studying for an exam and you have a problem, right? You want to pass this exam, you don't want to fail and you have a textbook that's basically giving you the answer to your [00:05:30] problem, right?

So the textbook is giving you pure value, but because you're not intrinsically motivated to read what's in that textbook, it's going to be a slog for you, right? You're going to be forcing yourself to do it. You're not going to [00:05:40] feel very engaged. You're going to procrastinate. You might not even read the textbook altogether, even though you have such a pressing problem, right?

And, and it really comes down to that intrinsic motivation, which a lot of times is missing. [00:05:50] With these newsletters. And the reason you can tell that these newsletters don't work a lot of time is because if you look at a lot of the types of promo emails that e commerce brands are putting [00:06:00] out there, I mean, I'm sure you've seen a million of these yourself, right?

It's. Usually some, um, fancy HTML design, right? Which is pretty bad for deliverability, but that's a topic for another podcast. [00:06:10] But, but usually it's some fancy HTML design with some images of the product, a button to the landing page, and just a few short lines of copy, right? And, and the reason that you see that a lot of the time is [00:06:20] because these companies and the agencies that work for them.

They split test this stuff, right? So they'll test, uh, one of these emails that have very, very little copy on them versus a longer form email that [00:06:30] devote devotes more words to hyping up the sale and pre framing the product and all that kind of stuff. And what they find is that the shorter form emails tend to win out almost all the time.

And so the [00:06:40] conclusion that they draw there is people just don't have the attention span quote unquote. to read these longer emails. Now, what does that tell you? That means people aren't interested in what you [00:06:50] have to say, which means you failed at building that connection between your brand and the audience, right?

Because the reality is if people have the attention span to binge, watch hours of their favorite TV show, right? If they [00:07:00] have the attention span to listen to a three hour Joe Rogan podcast, they definitely have the attention span to devote a few minutes. To reading a 300, 400, or even a 500 word email, [00:07:10] right?

It's just that you're not giving them a good enough reason to pay attention, right? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And so I think it's, it's, um, what you said, I think it's brilliant there because you're really [00:07:20] highlighting where the problem is. And I think the default answer of a D2C campaign manager is like, what do you want to achieve?

Conversions. And [00:07:30] that's when you end up having all these promo emails and obviously buying every day a new product from that specific brand. So you want to dive a little bit deeper [00:07:40] into segmentation, into making sure that you send out in the right moment. And I want to talk a little bit about this. How do you approach segmentation of [00:07:50] a list so that the list does not die out?

Yeah, so segmentation is a pretty key factor because, uh, when we're talking conversions, right? The more targeted you [00:08:00] can get with your messaging, the better your conversions are going to be. So, for example, someone who, let's say you're running a skincare company, right? Someone who has really dry [00:08:10] skin.

They're going to be on the topic of holding and capturing people's attention. They're going to be much more likely to pay attention to a subject line or an email that's speaking directly to people that have [00:08:20] dry skin and vice versa for someone that has oily skin. Right? So, uh, the idea there, and this is something that we do for our clients is.

On the one hand, you want to be gathering data on [00:08:30] demographics, pain points, interests, and you can do that through the use of surveys, by sending out regular surveys, or third party data tools. Uh, and then you want to segment your list based off of those criteria. So that [00:08:40] way, again, you can, instead of sending out one blanket promo to your entire list, you can send out multiple promos that run in parallel to each other.

And are each hypertargeted to these different segments, right? So [00:08:50] that way you're going to be able to target the people with the dry skin with messaging that appeals to them and the people with oily skin with messaging that appeals to them, right? And you can go even deeper than that. So one thing we also do is we set up [00:09:00] automations.

Uh, that will automatically segment people based off of how they've engaged with previous emails in the past. Uh, so, for example, let's say out of, [00:09:10] there's a specific segment of people, uh, and, and for those people, all of, if you look at all the emails that they've clicked on or bought from, uh, there's a disproportionate amount of those emails that are [00:09:20] social proof emails.

So that means these emails have some sort of testimonial in them. They have some sort of case study of them, something like that, right? That means that these people likely have a social proof buying [00:09:30] trigger, right? So when you're sending them a hyper targeted promo, you want to load up those emails full of social proof because you know that that's something that these people specifically respond to, right?

You want to do the same for other types of [00:09:40] buying triggers as well, along with customer journey and all that kind of stuff. Now, everyone knows about welcome flows, promotion flows, and so on. But I think what [00:09:50] I hear quite often from DTC brands, specifically small and medium enterprises that are coming from brick and mortar and going into online, they're very unsure on how often they should [00:10:00] send out an email.

They don't want to overwhelm their customers. So what's your advice there? So what we do is we send out emails every single [00:10:10] day. And I know for a lot of people who are listening to this, they might be like, that sounds crazy. Like people aren't going to be willing to get that many emails. Right. But what people are missing here is that [00:10:20] again, it comes down to giving people what they want.

Right. So again, the reason someone is willing to listen to a three hour Joe Rogan podcast is. Uh, a big part of, of that is [00:10:30] the, the key missing ingredient that a lot of email marketing agencies and a lot of e commerce brands are just completely missing from their marketing, which is entertainment, right?

Like that's the missing ingredient that [00:10:40] really allows you to email people basically as much as you want. And they're going to keep begging you for more because you're keeping them entertained. Right. And when I mean my entertainment, when, when I say entertainment, a lot of people think, Oh, do we [00:10:50] just need to make the emails funnier?

Right. Uh, but the truth is there's a million different ways to entertain. Like a horror movie can be just as entertaining as a comedy to the right audience, right? So [00:11:00] that's why when we send out emails for our clients, we incorporate a whole bunch of a different, a whole range of different, uh, elements that get people hooked onto their [00:11:10] favorite, uh, TV shows and social media, right?

So that could be anything from, uh, humor to controversy, conflict, drama. Captivating stories, right? So the, the [00:11:20] intention is to get people conditioned to reading your emails just for the sake of reading the emails. Right? So, so even if they're not interested in buying anything, they're going to read the emails just because they genuinely [00:11:30] enjoy reading them.

So the, the goal is really to give the reader a positive reading experience. And this is for the daily broadcast, right? So when, when there's not a promotion being run, we still have a CTA to buy something in [00:11:40] almost every single email. Uh, and, and that allows us actually to generate sales. Uh, pretty much every single day while at the same time doing it in a way where people are enjoying it rather than, [00:11:50] than pissing them off.

Right? Because again, the focus is not on actually selling it's, it's on giving the reader the positive reading experience. And you can also incorporate Uh, links and stuff [00:12:00] where if, if someone doesn't like the, if let's say that entertainment isn't for them, they want to receive emails less frequently without unsubscribing altogether, you can include like granular unsubscribed links where people [00:12:10] can click the link and they can fill out a form that says, Hey, I only want to receive emails like two to three times a week, and then you can segment those people out and email them accordingly.

Right? But what we found is, is that when you [00:12:20] are, Okay. Uh, using the right kind of elements in your marketing. Very few people will actually ask to receive last emails because they're genuinely enjoying the emails. Right. And it comes down to, uh, one key [00:12:30] thing, which is narrowing in on your brand avatar.

And this is something that we do a lot of where what you see a lot in the e commerce industry, right. Is that people are sending out these, uh, [00:12:40] bland generic emails that are just coming from like a company name. Right. And it's very clear that you're getting an email from just this faceless company. And of course, if you start sending people a bunch of those emails every [00:12:50] day, People are not going to be a fan, right, because there's nothing inherently in it for them because people aren't wired to take interest in or, or pay attention to faceless companies, right?

They take interest in and pay attention [00:13:00] to other people. That's why if, uh, let's say Google put out a tweet, uh, and they're, they're putting out a tweet on a major update they're doing to their search algorithm, like marketers, like [00:13:10] you and me, we would pay attention to that stuff, right? Because that, that's directly impacting our lives, but the average person would even register it, right?

Versus if. Taylor Swift, let's say, put out a [00:13:20] major update on her life, that would be in the radio, that would be in all the headlines. Uh, that would be all over the internet. Like even though it doesn't affect any of our lives in the slightest, everybody would be hearing about it, right? [00:13:30] And that's why one of the first things we do when we onboard an e comm client is we work with that client to figure out what kind of brand avatar we want to create.

And that avatar is going to be representing their brand to their audience. And a [00:13:40] lot of times this avatar is based off of a real person. So it can be based off of the founder of the company or the CEO. Uh, but a lot of times it actually works out better if it's just based off of some random person in the company, [00:13:50] because if it's based off of the founder, like the avatar is more of a caricature, it's not really a real person, right?

Like it has its distinct personality, distinct story, uh, distinct voice and all that kind of stuff. [00:14:00] Um, but if it's based off of, uh, a founder or a CEO and they have a big media presence that we need to kind of stay congruent to that media presence. So we don't have as much freedom with the voice, right?

Versus if it's just some [00:14:10] random person that nobody knows about. We can, we have much more creative license with that voice and that allows us to be a lot more entertaining, uh, and build a lot more trust, uh, through that [00:14:20] entertainment and, and get really increased that no like and trust factor. Right. And that's the key when it comes to the promotions, because now when, when you're setting up promotions, you're still doing it in the voice of the avatar, right?

Even [00:14:30] though these promotions are focused less on entertainment and more on Uh, Derek response principles, persuasive copy, hitting people's buying triggers, all that kind of stuff. Since they're still coming from the brand [00:14:40] avatar and because people now they, they know this avatar, they like this avatar, they trust this avatar.

When the avatar who is representing the brand is telling them, Hey, you should really hop on this opportunity. It's amazing [00:14:50] opportunity. People are going to be much more receptive to that, right? No, I like the idea with the avatar. And I think what our listeners already can hear that your background is in psychology and there's a lot of [00:15:00] psychology in making this work.

It's not just plain copywriting. There is a lot of in depth thinking about like an avatar who can represent my company, even if it's not a real person. [00:15:10] And I think that's where listeners should really dive into and see, okay, who is the person that I want to have talking to my clients. This episode comes [00:15:20] out early 2025 and I think a lot of brands right now in end of 2024 have burned their email creditability, their deliverability.

So I want to, [00:15:30] don't want to touch too much on technology in the background, but I want to find out on how you approach a new client coming on with onboarding, um, and to make sure that. [00:15:40] Not only the copy is great and everything else, but that the emails are actually getting delivered. What's your take on that?

Right. Yeah. So there's, I mean, there's a ton that goes into email deliverability, right? So [00:15:50] it kind of all works together in terms of the copy, uh, the technical stuff, right. And just the overall email strategy. So in terms of just the technical aspects [00:16:00] of deliverability, so there's a couple things that go into that you want to make sure you have a high domain reputation, you want to make sure that your emails are going out from quality IPs, right?

And this is all stuff that you can [00:16:10] check through Google Postmasters. Uh, if the e commerce, uh, people listening to this don't have Google Postmaster set up for their email list, I would highly recommend that you do it because it's free to set [00:16:20] up, it's pretty easy to set up, and it's going to give you insight onto a ton of different metrics that are really important when it comes to your deliverability.

So it's going to tell you what your domain reputation is, it's going to tell you what the quality [00:16:30] of your IPs are, right? And then from there, you want to fix any kind of problems that you see. So if you're getting a ton of spam complaints, then you want to figure out why that is the case, right? And Google [00:16:40] Postmaster is going to tell you that as well.

If your domain reputation is low, then you want to take some corrective action to repair that domain reputation. So what that would look like is emailing your most engaged [00:16:50] subscribers. Uh, for a period of time in order to bump up that engagement because once inbox providers see that, okay, people are really engaging with your emails, they're going to raise your domain reputation and that is [00:17:00] going to allow you to start emailing some of your, your, your lesser engaged contacts now, uh, which you weren't able to before because you were just going straight to spam, right?

Uh, so that's kind of [00:17:10] a broad picture of how I would look at some of the more technical aspects. And then when it comes to some of the strategy and the copy, Uh, you need to really understand [00:17:20] what these inbox providers are looking for, right? They want to make sure that people are receiving emails that they want to be receiving, right?

And that's kind of why, [00:17:30] uh, these strategies that we've been talking about here work so well, because a ton of what these inbox providers are looking for is they're looking for, uh, it's not just opens and clicks, right? Like people think, oh, if I just get a [00:17:40] bunch of opens and clicks. Then that's going to be really great engagement, but there's a ton of stuff that goes into the algorithm, right?

Like these inbox providers will look at how long people spend reading your emails, right? So [00:17:50] someone who's sending out emails where people are reading those emails for a long time, inbox providers are going to see that as a really positive signal because they're going to see, Oh, people really enjoy reading these emails because they're spending so much time reading [00:18:00] them.

Right. And also replies, right? Like how many replies are your emails getting? Because replies are actually. And their deliverability gold, like the more replies that you get to your emails, the [00:18:10] more inbox providers are going to start sorting your emails into people's primary inboxes. So that means every couple of weeks, sending out a short personal email, that's just kind of geared towards getting [00:18:20] people to reply, right?

So that could be from the brand avatar. I just kind of asking people like a personal question, uh, under the framing of, of wanting to help them out. Right. Or just [00:18:30] to even just, uh, to list, to hear from your audience. Right. Or to offer a free gift, you can ask them to reply with a certain word and then the avatar will send them a free gift.

There's all kinds of ways to go [00:18:40] about it, but really taking the time to maximize, uh, the important types of engagement that most, uh, companies don't really think about. Because most companies are very much just like, okay, let's, let's get [00:18:50] opens, let's get clicks. That's, that's what we're, we're looking at in terms of engagement.

And it's really so much more than that because the algorithms are very multifaceted, right? Yeah, I think you just gave away really a [00:19:00] golden nugget there. And for our listeners, try it out. Um, try to just have a simple question that people have to reply. And even if it's just a one word reply, I think that's the best you can do [00:19:10] because that's really gold in increasing your deliverability and get out of the promo.

Folder or the spam box. Now I want to talk a little bit about [00:19:20] SMS. Um, I know that you guys also help us SMS. Where do you see the synergy, the benefit of using SMS together with email marketing? Yeah. So [00:19:30] SMS is great because it gives you a much more direct line of contact to your audience, right? Because SMS, like everyone's going to see an SMS notification popping up on their [00:19:40] phone, right?

And with SMS too, I think one thing that we've noticed which is kind of synergistic with email marketing is really taking an engagement based approach. [00:19:50] Uh, so what we've done actually, is we've partnered with a company that uses an AI tool in order to kind of engage in these one on one conversations with people [00:20:00] through SMS in real time.

Uh, so what that allows us to do is to use SMS as another way of building this connection with the audience, right? Because a lot of times what you see with [00:20:10] SMS, it's just these very short Uh, SMS marketing messages that just really just sell the click and they just want people clicking and going to the landing page.

Right. Uh, but the, but the beauty of SMS [00:20:20] is allows you to enter these conversations with people and really build a very strong sense of connection that way. Right. So a lot of what we do, uh, and this is something that people enjoy doing, right? Because [00:20:30] people, they, they want that connection, right? They want to feel like they're, they're.

Uh, they're being heard, right? They're being understood. So instead of just sending a, uh, a link to, to a landing page [00:20:40] to buy, uh, one thing that we've been playing around with, that's been working really well is we send out a question, right? That allows people to kind of self identify what they're interested in, for example, right?

And that [00:20:50] allows the AI to then send them to the appropriate page based off of the conversation with that prospect, right? So it's, it's really much more personalized and that's the beauty of SMS is that it allows [00:21:00] you to get into these personal back and forths. In real time that allows you to really personalize your SMS marketing, and it's much more permission based to write.

So when you're asking a question, [00:21:10] it's not just like, hey, buy this thing like click here. Now it's like, hey, we want to hear from you and we want to really make sure that we're taking the time to understand what you're looking for. So that way we can [00:21:20] help you as best we can. Right? And people really appreciate that.

Yeah, I think the permission based part of it is very important because SMS is more of a sensitive, [00:21:30] um, tool to get through to people, but you have opening rates of 98 percent or something really, really high. So you want to make sure that you're not sending out your SMS at three o'clock in the morning.

People will be [00:21:40] not happy with that. Now, could you share potentially some success stories or case studies of brands and you don't need to name them that you have worked with and what kind of results they [00:21:50] saw? Sure. Yeah, sure. Uh, so on the smaller end, we worked with one supplement company that had about 33, 000 people on their email list.

[00:22:00] Uh, and so before we, we onboarded them, they were sending emails pretty consistently, uh, I think every two to three days and they're getting open rates, about 25 percent and [00:22:10] a click rate of about 1%. And their broadcast email revenue was about 15 K per month. Now, after we worked with them in the first 60 days.

Uh, their open rates went up to [00:22:20] 73%, which is one of our best results in terms of engagement. Uh, click rate also went up to 3%, a little over 3%, so almost triple. Uh, and the revenue [00:22:30] itself from the broadcast went to 65k per month. Uh, now on the bigger end, we've worked with other brands. For example, one brand that was, this was like an interesting case, because [00:22:40] it goes back to the topic of what you were talking about, where Uh, some brands have just completely burnt out their list.

Right? So, so this brand, they had a hundred thousand contacts on their list, but because [00:22:50] they were just engaging in suboptimal email marketing practices, uh, their deliverability was kind of down the drain. Very few people were opening their emails. Cause again, it's, it's kind of what we were talking about before, where [00:23:00] it was like, They were sending out these very bland emails with nothing for people to really engage with, uh, nothing that really piqued people's attention and curiosity and, and offer any kind of positive reading [00:23:10] experience.

So over time, people just started tuning them out. Right. So by the time we onboarded them, they were getting like 5 percent opens and, uh, we there, I think there, yeah. So their, their email revenue [00:23:20] was about 65, 000 per month in terms of email gender revenue when we first onboarded them. And after the first 90 days, we took them to over 750.

1, [00:23:30] 000 per month. Uh, and then, uh, as well, there was another health brand, uh, that one of our, our, uh, list managers, shout out Ariba. She was able to, with, [00:23:40] uh, the, the segmentation strategy that we were talking about based off of customer journey, um, they were, they were emailing their list every day, so that was good, but they were doing it in a way that was just [00:23:50] pissing people off, kind of what we were talking about before.

Um, so what she was able to do, she was still emailing them the list every day, but. Uh, she was able to take their revenue from [00:24:00] 20, 000 per month, all the way up to, 000 per month, all the way up to 275, 000 per month, which is almost a 10 X increase. Right. [00:24:10] So yeah, there's this, this system really works because again, it's playing off of the idea of you're giving people what they want.

Right. And you're really taking the time to build that win win relationship between your brand [00:24:20] and the audience. No, absolutely. And it shows you to tell that email marketing has been declared dead so many times, um, but it's just doing it right. [00:24:30] And there is a massive potential there. And I still believe that email marketing is one of the strongest tool in your toolbox as a marketer that you can have if you do it right.

Now who's your perfect [00:24:40] customer? Are there specific industries or niches that you work more with than with others? Yeah. So we tend to work mostly with either e commerce brands or high ticket coaches. So we have people [00:24:50] on our team. Uh, that specialize in both those different industries. Um, so we're, we're kind of a collective of high level email marketers and we have certain people that, uh, have had [00:25:00] successful careers in the e commerce industry.

Other people that have successful careers with high ticket coaching. So we kind of serve both those demographics, uh, in terms of just general criteria. So for e commerce [00:25:10] brands specifically. Uh, we're looking for brands that already have a robust collection of high quality products, an email list of at least [00:25:20] 30, 000 active contacts, although if Uh, let's say they, they're selling something relatively high ticket.

So let's say they're selling something that's over 2, 000. In that case, we would consider working with them if they only [00:25:30] had 20, 000 active contacts, but that's kind of, uh, the minimum in terms of the active list size and either way they would need to be bringing in at least [00:25:40] 2000 new subscribers onto the list every month.

Because as you know, if you're not bringing fresh leads onto the list, then it doesn't matter how good the email marketing is. Eventually the list is going to die over time, right? [00:25:50] No, totally. Walk me through the typical onboarding process. What kind of steps are involved? How long does it take? Yeah, so the onboarding process, it really, in terms of the length of time, it really depends on [00:26:00] how fast Uh, the client is able to get us certain pieces of, of, uh, information that we need to do our job.

Right. Because a lot of times, like the client will sign the contract, you'll send them the, uh, [00:26:10] the onboarding document and it'll take them like a week to fill out the onboarding document. Right. And I always tell clients like the faster you give us this information, the faster we're going to be able to start making a ton of money.

Right. So you really, you're just [00:26:20] robbing from yourself if you don't, uh, fill this out. As soon as possible, but basically the way the, the onboarding process works is we send them a document, which is going to have a ton of stuff, [00:26:30] a ton of questions that is going to give us information that we need. Uh, so for example, where we can find testimonials, uh, any insights that they have on their existing audience, that kind of stuff, right?[00:26:40] 

And then they're also going to need to give us login information. So they're going to need to give their list manager, uh, the, the appropriate login details in order for the list manager to go into their accounts and do an [00:26:50] audit. So test their deliverability. Uh, see how past campaigns and automations have been performing.

And then from there, the list manager is going to get onto an initial onboarding meeting [00:27:00] with the clients. And then during that onboarding meeting, they're going to go over the results of the audits. And they're also going to come up with a game plan, right? For the next 30 days, [00:27:10] 60 days, 90 days and beyond.

They're also going to work together to kind of pin down what the avatar is going to look like, what the avatar is going to sound like in terms of the avatar's personality and voice [00:27:20] and overall tone, right? And then the list manager is going to write. After the call, they're going to write a couple of samples in the avatars voice.

So that way we can make sure that the client [00:27:30] is satisfied with the, the person, the avatar, that's going to be representing their brand to their list. Right. And after that, they're just going to move forward with implementing the game plan, which is going to [00:27:40] be, uh, within the scope of our broader email marketing system and, uh, moving forward, if it makes sense, the client and the list manager and the client's team are going to hop on weekly [00:27:50] strategy call meetings as well.

Okay. No, it makes perfect sense. And it shows to tell that you need to put a lot of thought into that to make it work and to build up an avatar. And I [00:28:00] think the more you dive into this, your more results you will see how does your pricing structure work? Yeah. So it depends on the depth of the [00:28:10] service, I guess you could say that we're offering.

So for a larger lists, uh, for lists, over a hundred thousand contacts, Uh, it depends on if there's SMS marketing involved, but at the, the [00:28:20] highest end. So this is with SMS marketing, with, uh, hyper targeted promos, advanced segmentation, uh, daily broadcasts, uh, 10 automated emails per month and all the other stuff [00:28:30] that you would traditionally associate with email marketing, that would be all the way up to 15, 000 per month.

And then, uh, that would be, that would include up to five targeted promos. Uh, so every [00:28:40] time. We're running a promo. We'd be sending out five different sequences instead of just one sequence. Uh, and then all the way on the lower end of the spectrum, this would be just. Daily broadcasts and the automated emails, [00:28:50] plus all the deliverability stuff minus SMS marketing, minus any kind of advanced segmentation and hyper targeted promos, that would be 7, 000 per [00:29:00] month.

But either way, we're going to split test everything, so this is one thing that's going to be included in any package that we do. We split test every email and SMS that goes out in terms of like hooks, [00:29:10] angles, messaging, subject lines, that kind of stuff. And we track all the data and then we share it with our clients.

So that way they can use that data to, for example, make their front end [00:29:20] marketing efforts more efficient or anywhere else in their funnel to kind of increase their overall conversions. No, totally. Before our coffee break comes to an end today, is there anything that you want to share with our [00:29:30] listeners that we haven't covered yet?

Like you were saying, people have been pronouncing the death of email marketing for a long time now, right? I mean, you're, you're a lot older than I am. So you can probably [00:29:40] remember when they were, when they were saying it like 15 years ago. Right. And I would just say that as long as email is still Like require a required thing [00:29:50] to make an account for any kind of software, right?

Like as long as you still need an email address, email marketing is always going to be one of the most. Uh, profitable in terms of ROI, one of the most [00:30:00] profitable and rewarding channels to market to. Yeah. Couldn't agree more. A hundred percent. Right. Where can people go to find out more about you guys?

Yeah. So if [00:30:10] you as a listener wants me to help you implement some of these strategies for free, uh, then all you have to do is head over to our website, which is www. emailsuperstars. com and just hit the [00:30:20] button above the fold that says grow my business. That's going to pull up a calendar. That's going to pull up my calendar.

And then from there, you'll have the chance to book a one on one call with me. Now maybe we can also put a link to that [00:30:30] calendar directly in. The description of this podcast, so people can just click on that directly. Uh, but this is not going to be a sales call. I really can't stress that enough. You can leave the credit card at home.

Uh, the purpose [00:30:40] of this call is going to be so I can walk you through our full email marketing system, which includes the strategies that I've been talking about here today, and one of the things that, uh, I do [00:30:50] for e commerce brands on this call is I'm actually going to work with them directly to really pin down.

Uh, what their avatar is going to sound like or what their ideal avatar looks and sounds like. [00:31:00] Uh, and then from there, after I hop off the call, I'm going to write, I'm going to personally write three emails written in the brand avatars voice, their new avatars voice. [00:31:10] So that way they can use those emails in their marketing and they can share those emails with their marketing team so they can use that as inspiration for their email marketing moving forward.

Uh, plus I'll also [00:31:20] answer any questions, uh, that you have about email deliverability, email strategy, or anything like that. And that's all going to be completely free. All you have to do is head over to our website, email [00:31:30] or www dot email superstars. com and click the button that says grow my business. Or if we're going to include a link directly to my calendar, you can just click the link in the description as well.

Yeah. I [00:31:40] will put the links in the show notes as always, then you just want to click away. And I think that's a great offer. And to our listeners, um, get in touch with Stefan and get the info out of him. And I'm sure you will be [00:31:50] more than happy to work with him. I think the idea of having a daily email and somebody with a really good background in psychology, helping you with the email marketing that can only contribute [00:32:00] to grow your business.

Stefan. Thanks so much for your time today. Um, great chat. I know we can talk for hours about email, but for today we'll leave it like it is. And I hope a lot of people get in touch with you. [00:32:10] Awesome. Thank you so much for having me close.