3 Costly Email Mistakes Coaches Make

Plus, the "You had me at hello!" welcome sequence that shows people why you’re the best coach for them

If you follow any good marketer, you’ll most likely heard how important it is to build your email list.

But what, exactly, should you do with a list once you have one?

I talk about that every week in one of my calls with health and wellness coaches.

The coaches come looking for guidance on ways to improve their email marketing. This is a very smart move. Because their email list can be one of their best sources of new clients.

I often see coaches make the same costly mistakes. So today, I’m going to tell you about 3 of the ones I see the most, and what you should do instead.

If you’re a paid subscriber, you’ll also get access to a new resource called How To Make Your Email List Your Best Source Of New Clients. It includes:

1. The 3 steps you should take the moment people opt in for your list

2. My “You had me at hello” welcome sequence

3. The 5 most important copywriting tips to make people love your emails!

Now let’s dive into those mistakes I see!

Mistake #1: Not sending enough (or any) emails

If you’re taking steps to grow your email list (and you 100% should), every person on your list is hard won. You’ve invested time and probably money to get their email address. And if you’re not taking steps to turn them into clients, you might as well throw that money out the window.

Think of your emails as a bridge that moves people from “curious” to client. Some people will see what’s on the other side and run across the bridge as soon as they see it. But most people need a little more convincing. They want to know the bridge is safe.

In a previous article, I talked about research that was done on “buying speed.” It said that when a good prospect comes across your content, 50% of them will never be interested in working with you.

For whatever reason, they don’t like the bridge or don’t believe it will actually get them to the other side.

Of the people who remain, 15% of them will cross the bridge and buy within 90 days. And the other 85% takes 90 to 180 days to make the journey across.

Of course there are a lot of factors that go into getting people to cross the bridge. But if you’re not sending emails (or enough emails) to your list, you definitely won’t convince them!

There’s also the 7-11-4 formula to consider that I told you about last week.

According to the formula, the more a person sees your content, the more likely they are to buy. The exact formula is:

• 7 hours engaging with your content

• The content is spread across 11 touch points (social media posts, ads, emails, workshops, phone calls, webinars, etc.)

• And it’s in 4 locations (your website, social media platforms, emails, etc.)

So that’s one reason. Another one is that your emails keep you top of mind. And you never know when an email is going to arrive in a person’s inbox at just the right time.

Many marketers say you should be emailing your list every day. I can certainly see that if you’re running an ecommerce business. But in our case, 3 emails a week is fine for ongoing contact.

Truth be told, I’m not there yet myself. Right now I’m sending 2 emails a week. But my goal is to work up to a consistent 3.

So if you’re not sending any emails now, start with at least 1 a week. It’s better than nothing and will get you in the habit. Then work up to 3 times a week.

Will you see more unsubscribes? Probably. And I know those can hurt a bit. But it’s actually a good thing. Those are people who fall in the “never going to buy from you” category and you really don’t want them polluting your list. (You’ll see why in a moment.)

Mistake #2: Easy to ignore subject lines

The most important part of your email is the subject line. Because obviously, if people don’t open the email, they’ll never read it.

I spend a lot of time working on the subject line. The best ones typically fall into one of 3 categories:

1. Benefit focused

Benefits can be either blatant or implied. Here are a few examples:

• 3 healthy foods that boost energy instantly

• Do this by 10am if you want to lose weight

• 3 costly mistakes coaches make with their emails

The first 2 are blatant benefits. That last one (which is also the headline of this article) is an implied benefit because once you know what the mistakes are you can avoid them, which is a benefit.

2. Story subject lines

Yes, you can write a subject line that tells a story! They work great because people want to know what happens next.

Here are some examples of ones from my own emails:

• Well that was a ballsy move!

• She only had $60 to her name

• It’s over 😥

Now a word of warning …

I once reviewed a coach’s emails and she’d used my example story subject lines. But the emails inside were about something completely different.

That’s a huge mistake! The subject line must be related to the email, or it’s considered click bait. That’s a sure fire way to piss people off and have them mark your email as spam (the kiss of death to your sender reputation, as you’ll see in a moment.)

3. Subject lines that sound personal

Some of my best open rates came from subject lines that sounded like a quick, personal note. Things like …

• Can you do me a favor?

• I need your help with something

• This is personal

(Of course, the same word of warning applies. Make it relevant to the email.)

There’s one common factor across all of these emails …

Curiosity. They all create a sense of curiosity that entices people to open the email and read more.

Mistake #3: Not managing your sender reputation

There was a time when I couldn’t open up my inbox without seeing a bunch of emails for products that would enhance a body part I don’t have … or from my long lost Nigerian uncle whose dying wish was to leave me his fortune.

Thanks to the efforts of inbox providers, like Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo, I never see emails like those anymore. That’s the good news.

The bad news is, a lot of legitimate emails are siphoned out, too.

You could be writing the best emails in the world! But if your sender reputation isn’t good, it means many people on your list won’t see them.

To make matters worse, if your email service provider charges you by the number of people on your list, you could be paying for people who will never get your emails.

And there goes more money out the window…

So what gives you a bad sender reputation?

One of the worst offenders is poor list engagement. List engagement is mostly determined by the volume of people who click on a link inside your email. (And every email you send should have one.)

Engagement is much more important these days than open rates because open rates don’t tell an accurate story. (I won’t bore you with the tech reasons behind that.)

The problem is, many people keep sending emails to people on their list who will never engage with their emails. The email addresses may not even be active anymore! (20% of email addresses become inactive every year.)

So the first thing you need to do is to stop sending emails to inactive addresses. And then you need to figure out the people on your list who still have an active address but have gone cold. They’re getting your emails but not opening them.

This is a very important exercise. Just to give you an idea, one of my clients had 14,000 people on her list. When she figured out which of those were inactive or cold, her list was down to 3,000 people.

That’s still 3,000 people who are considering crossing the bridge. Since she sells a high-ticket program, she could convert just 1% of them a year and make a nice 6-figure income.

We’re also going to do some CPR with my client’s list. This involves a strategic re-engagement campaign to see if we can warm up some of the people who’ve gone cold. If they re-engage, fantastic! If they don't, we’ll stop sending them emails.

So how do you know if your sender reputation is keeping you out of the inbox? And what do you do if that’s the case?

I wanted to find out. Because if I’m writing emails for a client, I want to make sure they’re making it into the inbox.

Luckily, I’m in a mastermind group for marketers. And one of the members is an email deliverability specialist. He does audits that are eye-opening! They tell you exactly where the problems are. And he’ll show you how to fix them.

If you’re sending emails to your list now, he can do an audit. The price is super reasonable. If you’re interested, you can check it out here. (This is an affiliate link, so I get a small fee for people who buy his audit.)

To summarize, the 3 mistakes I see most often are:

1. Not sending enough (or any) emails

2. Easy to ignore subject lines

3. Not managing your sender reputation

Now for the free resource I told you about.

If you want to know how to make your email list your best source of new clients, this resource will help you. It includes:

1. The 3 steps you should take the moment people opt in for your list

2. My “You had me at hello” welcome sequence

3. The 5 most important copywriting tips to make people love your emails!

It’s free to all paid subscribers.