#228: How To Use Your Health Coach Email List

All righty. Hello there health coaches, it's nice to see you today. We're going to be talking about your email list. You've probably heard that you should have an email list and maybe you've even set one up. If you're here with me live, tell me in the comments, or even if you're watching the replay later, tell me in the comments if you already have an email list or not. But the question becomes, okay, what happens next? I set the darn thing up, got that task out of the way. Now, what do I do with this list? So today I'm going to be discussing what you're actually supposed to be emailing about and why, and I'll share three main categories of email marketing, including what to write in your very first mailing because that seems to be the thing that trips up the most health coaches the most of the time that I'm talking to them about their mailing list.

They're like, I guess I could set it up, but then what am I going to mail about? What should the first thing be? Don't worry. We're going to cover all of that today. So Jennifer is here, hello, and Morgan and Jennifer says she does not have a mailing list set up yet. By the way, if any of you guys need to set up your mailing list, I have a tutorial that's very point and click step by step, and you can just shoot me a DM on Instagram and ask for it. I'll send it right over to you. Okay, lots of things to tell you today. I want to let you know that in a few weeks, the wait list for our 2023 Fast Track semester will be open. So if you already know that you want help with marketing, and if you love the idea of being able to work with me live every week to get your business off the ground, I want you to keep your eyes open and your ears open if you're listening, because I'm going to be announcing the wait list pretty soon.

I also got to give a shout out to Jamie Jones Campbell, who left this five star review on Apple Podcast. I don't always know your names. It depends on what name you're using on Inside Apple Podcast, but today I know it's Jamie Jones Campbell, who said, so much value here. I stumbled upon this podcast as a new coach with a few clients, and currently studying for the NBHWC exam from starting up an LLC to finding my niche. Michelle's podcast has me feeling ultra, ultra prepared for my second career. Thank you. Thank you a million times. Thank you so much appreciation and gratitude for Michelle and this podcast.

Sometimes coaches think they're going to go get board certified, they're going to get hired by a doctor or wellness company, and that could happen, but more often than not, we do need to find our own clients and do our own marketing, and all of a sudden we're running a business and it's like, ah.

So Jamie, I'm really glad that you're here. Thank you so much for writing a review on Apple Podcast. Please send your mailing address to support health coach power.com and reference this episode because we have a little thank you gift to send your way. Okay, today's episode was inspired Gabriela. So Gabriela, I know you are listening. Thank you so much. She asked this question inside our health coach Power community Facebook group. She said, hi everyone. I finally signed up with an email service provider and I'm ready to get a mail list started. I'm feeling a little stuck about what I'm actually supposed to be emailing about. I'm a new health coach, so I'm just getting started. I have no website yet, but I'm working on it. I would love some input on what those first emails are supposed to be about or look like. Any ideas are greatly appreciated.

And you know what, Gabriela, that sparked this whole conversation inside the Facebook group and I thought, what a great topic for a podcast. I don't think we've talked email marketing in a while, so get your pen and paper ready, everybody just kidding. You can always go back to the show notes@healthcoachpower.com slash podcast if you want to review the transcript from today. But I'm going to go through those three categories of email marketing for you now so you can consider them them differently. I mean, when we say send emails to your list, that encompasses a whole lot of different things, so let's break it down. How's that sound? Yeah. Okay. Let's start with welcome emails or what is sometimes a welcome sequence. This is a separate email or set of emails that go out to someone when they join your mailing list. And it could be, you could think of it as a simple, hello, welcome to my mailing list. Glad you're here. Goodbye. Love Michelle, right? That could be the whole email.

That's essentially the purpose is to welcome someone to the list, but of course we can be so much smarter than that. So when someone first joins our list, we got to think, hmm, they are very interested right now in what I have to offer. They might forget about me in a couple days or weeks. They might decide that actually they're more interested in something else where they're going to spend their time and put their energy, but as of right this moment, they gave an email address so we know they're interested right now, and so we want to strike while the iron is hot in a way and hit them immediately with some of our best content. We want to share something that's going to pull them into our world even more and make an offer for them to take the next step with us.

And for many health coaches, that's going to me making an offer for them to book a consultation call. If you have something else, if you have a Facebook group that you want people to join as a first step, if you have a podcast that you want them to subscribe to, there's a strategy here. And so I don't know each of your situations, but just think of it as how can I get this person who is now on my mailing list to take the next step with me? Whatever that step is. So your welcome email would definitely want to include a way for them to do just that. And if you take it a step further inside of our Healthy Profit University curriculum, I actually give all of our members a set of welcome email templates to use. Not like a copy and paste kind of thing, but here's the kind of thing you want to say in the first email and then a day later, here's the kind of thing that you want to say in a second email and maybe you send a welcome sequence that's like three or four or five days long to welcome someone into your world, to keep them excited about that thing that they signed up for, that they were excited about, and to continuously make that offer for them to take the next step with you.

They go through that process. They've effectively been welcomed into your community. So if there's anything they need to know, every Tuesday I do live whatever, or every Wednesday new podcast episode releases, or every Thursday I do a live Zoom gathering for everyone in my community. Tell them in that welcome sequence and then they'll be up to speed and ready to engage with you and hopefully even go on to book a call and hire you. That's not always going to happen, but it's like why not make the offer while the person is still paying attention? Right? People's attention spans these days are like out to lunch. Abby saying, where can I find those templates inside HPU? Ask us over inside the HPU Facebook group, okay, Abby, and we'll direct you toward them. Good to know, good to know. We got members who are ready to jump and do the thing.

So that's your welcome sequence or your single welcome email, which might be where you start. We can't build everything right off the bat, especially we're brand new to coaching. So for Gabriela who is just starting out, just make sure you have at least one single welcome email that is giving that kind of information and making the best use of that real estate, that very first touchpoint with someone who's new to your list. The next type of emails that you want to think about are nurture emails, and this is the majority of the emails that you're going to be thinking about and sending on a routine basis. This is the term that I want you to use instead of email newsletter, which is gone by the wayside, you guys, the idea of a email newsletter that's done, that's over. That's very 1997, okay? We don't want to do that anymore, but a nurture email, it has the same intent.

The intent is to continuously remind everyone on our list that we exist and that we provide value and that they want us in their world and that we're available to help them. We want to nurture the relationship, and that means these emails are not Sign up with me, be my client. Buy my thing. That Ask, ask people will unsubscribe really quickly. I mean, think about emails that you get in your inbox, what do you look forward to? I get emails from Ash Aje who is a copywriter, and she just started a new company, gosh, what is it called? Selfish Forever about living a digital nomad life. I wasn't even planning on talking about her, but she came to mind immediately when I thought about emails that I enjoy receiving and I don't unsubscribe. Cause even if I don't always have time to read her email, I'm like, Ooh.

And if I do have time, I open it, I read it, I usually get a laugh or I learn something, it makes me feel good. She's nurturing me, she's nurturing the heck out of me, and you better believe I've bought some of her products along the way too. So, the nurture email is the thing that I think, Gabriela, you were talking about, what am I supposed to write about in my nurture sequence? So okay, we've got a group here live with me. So if you're live, or even if you're listening later, think to yourself, who is my ideal client? Just picture that person in your mind. And then what's something that I could send that would be interesting, funny, a value? Add anything to them today? Keep it very simple. So we would never want to send someone, let's say every Thanksgiving recipe that was ever created that is healthy.

That's too much, right? We would send one and think of it the same way. If you're like all the ways to feel better when you have Hashimoto's disease, that's much too much. How about one way, one thing you can do today to feel better when you have Hashimoto's disease? Now of course that is assuming that you're targeting women with Hashimoto's disease. So what is one small way that I can add value to this person's life? And it's not always information, it's sometimes information, but it can also be, like I said, something that makes them laugh, something that is relatable, something that brings a smile to their face because everybody is stressed and busy, and if we can be a positive force in their life, all the better. Nurture is just what it sounds like. It's about relationship building. You got to remember that we're not selling sneakers, we're not selling I don't know, insurance or furniture or this other thing, this other product. We are selling ourselves as a coach, and so the no trust factor, we want it to be way high. So by the time somebody actually books a call with us, they're already sold on working with us. It should be like a no-brainer by that point. And this nurture type email is how you help get your audience there.

Okay? If you have any questions about so far, I am looking over here in the comments and happy to take questions as we go along. Taisha said, what's her name? I think you're referring to the woman I was just speaking about. Her name is Ash Andjay. Now, let's move on to the next type of emails and these are the ones that we all hate the most. So are you ready? These are the emails where you have to sell something. Oh my god. So, like I said earlier, the key here is that every email should not be an email that sells something or that asks for something because even if you're like, sign up for my free event, that's still an ask. So you don't want every email to ask and ask. Ask from your audience. You want to be giving except for that percentage of the time where you do have to ask and you do because are you a nonprofit organization or are you a business?

And if you're a business, you have something to sell and you should not be shy about when the time is right. Asking for the sale. Now, there's so many different ways to do this. I'm going to tell you about two of them. One is when you are going to offer a product or a service to your entire mailing list. So today I'm writing an email, I'm going to send it to my whole mailing list and invite them to join my upcoming detox program. It's $99 and they can click this link and go sign up. That would be a sales email going out to your whole list. Be very, very sparing with that because you don't know if the people on your list are interested in buying a detox right now, you're going to offer it to everyone that's you run the risk of alienating people if we're asking for the sale too often.

And if there's these dollar signs and click here to buy too often it starts to feel spammy. So the other way to do it is to only sell to a select group on your mailing list, which is why you're going to often see in the online world that we invite our mailing list to join some type of free event, a free challenge, a free webinar, free gathering of some kind, download a free mini book or ebook or a minicourse. We invite them to do something for free and opt in. They're raising their hand and saying, yes, I want that, because then they want that. And if that thing is the same topic as the thing you're selling, then you can just make your sales emails go to the group of people who raised their hand. I'll use the same example of as a detox. So option one, and this is way easier in a sense, you email your whole list, you just blanket the whole thing with a sales message fair.

It happens. We do it sometimes smarter. Invite everyone on your mailing list to download your free detox 101 guide as an example, and then those that do, they're the ones that you're going to offer the paid detox to everybody else. You're just going to let them chill because clearly they're not interested in doing this right now, or maybe you're just going to send them one offer. But the people who actually raised their hand and said, yeah, I want to know more about detoxing, I'm interested in detoxing. They would be the people that you're going to hit with a series of sales emails right up until the moment that the detox begins, and you're saying last chance you've all received those. So those are two ways to do sales emails, and like I said, I really prefer that we are sparing with how many sales messages we pound out to people via email.

So that would be the way to do it. Plan something free first. Send your sales emails to those. Another word for that is a launch. I teach the whole launch process inside Healthy Profit University's core curriculum, but that is a good overview for you. Taisha says, I haven't emailed my list in way too long. All right, well, I'm glad that you said that because first of all, I'm sure you're not alone. Anybody else, just say me in the chat. If you haven't emailed your list in far too long, it happens. What I would like you to do is star considering emailing your list as in n sending nurture emails to your list. The way you think about brushing your teeth, you just get up in the morning and you just do the thing. The teeth are brushed. There's no question. You don't hem and haw about it.

You don't think about it too much. You just get it done. And that's how we want to approach our emails too. It may not be every morning, but it might be every Wednesday or it might be every first Monday of the month, whatever schedule you put yourself on, and then it just happens. It's just routine maintenance for your business, just brushing your teeth. And if you haven't emailed your list in a while or if you've never emailed your list at all, Susan's saying So wishy-washy with that. Brian says, once a month at least, but not often enough. Here's what I want you to do. When you send your next email, don't explain yourself. And if it's your very first email to your list, same thing. You don't have to explain yourself far too often you see an email will come into my inbox and it's like, sorry, I haven't emailed in a while.

You see, I went on a safari in Africa and then I had a baby, and then it was covid. And to be honest, I don't care and I probably didn't even notice that the person hasn't emailed me in a while. Or if it's a very first email, I'm not going to be like, wait a minute, why are you emailing me? Because anyone that's emailing, they had to give you an address. They will be expecting emails from you and they don't know it's the very first one you've ever sent. They could be coming in a year after you started your business and after you took my advice to send emails the way that you brush your teeth. So there's no reason to explain to tell your whole story because in the back of everyone's mind, this sounds bad, but it's just normal. It's human nature. They're always thinking what's in it for me?

And if you're so-called, marketing is just talking about yourself, there's nothing in it for them. So I say for your first email to your list or your first email to your list in a while, don't bother telling your story. And then I decided to become health coach and then I enrolled at this school and I got this certificate. They're done. They already deleted it. They're moving on with their day. So here's a suggestion for you, and this is the same exact suggestion that I give inside of Healthy Profit University's core curriculum. I actually give all our members like a packet of email ideas and templates to use for these nurture type emails because sometimes you're like, what do I write? What do I write? What do I write? So for that first one, instead of like I said, explaining yourself, how about you just ask a question because this way you have the opportunity to engage with your audience.

It is like email gold if somebody replies to an email. So we love that. And you can do a little market research and you can say, Hey, I'm listening. I am here to serve. How can I be of service? So if you know that everyone on your list or everyone that you're trying to reach as a health coach has, like I said earlier, Hashimoto's disease, maybe you ask a question, which symptom of Hashimoto's is the biggest pain in the butt for you? And then list them out like A, B, C, D. People do much better with multiple choice than with having to come up with their own answer if you're going to ask a question. So just a tip for you there. If you have no idea who's on your mailing list, because you're one of these people who's been collecting names willy-nilly all over the place, not doing anything with them, maybe the question is a little more broad.

Maybe you're asking in general, you're not going to name a particular diagnosis, but just get a conversation started. It doesn't have to be perfect. It doesn't matter. Send something, try to engage with your list. And I love a question to do that. I love that everyone knows then that you are there from coming from a place of service and you're not just like, hi, I'm health coach. Book a call, work with me. That feels better, right? Jennifer's asking, how does one get consistent contacts and email addresses for the list will grow in your list? That is a whole other topic. And I know we have tons of episodes in the archives about how to do exactly that, and I teach all of that again inside of HPU, but for today, we're assuming that you've built the list and then that's where a lot of coaches find themselves.

So, here's what I want to use as an example in terms of that first email or that first touchpoint someone has with you. You're listening to a podcast right now or you're watching me record the podcast live, and imagine that this very first time that you're listening, you we've never met before, and you just found this podcast on Apple and you're like, whatever. Let me give it a shot and you listen and I'm like, hi, I'm Michelle. So I used to work in advertising and then I became a health coach in 2009 and I went to the institute for, you've already stopped listening, right? You really are not here because you need to hear my story, even though I think that I should tell you that because it's whatever, my introduction to you, you're just coming in and you're like, what value can I get out of this?

Is this worth me listening to another episode? And it's kind of similar when someone's receiving email from you. So imagine that episode versus what if the very first podcast that you were listening to, and maybe it's this one, you got a bunch of useful information and you got some advice, and you also had new questions popping up in your mind like, oh wait, but what Jennifer? But wait, how do I get the contacts in the first place? And you're sparking thoughts and ideas and you're getting a sense of my approach to business building. Which of those are you more interested in? You want to hear my story some more? Nah, you're probably not going to listen to another episode. And that's how your audience will feel if the first email that they get from you is self-serving in a way, it's all about you. You want to make it all about them and give them something that they can actually use and get excited about and spark some of my new ideas and questions in their mind.

My simple health lifestyle, no, my simple health style, sorry, says, I love this idea. I'm not emailing regularly, and then it feels disingenuous when I hit them up with an offer. Thank you for saying that. How many of you have felt the same way? You forget about your email list, you forgot to brush your teeth for the past six months. It's really kind of gross if you ask me and then you have something you want to sell, but then it feels icky to turn around to your email list and try to sell something. So if you find yourself in that situation, what I would definitely do is send not one, not just two, maybe plan three nurture emails to go out before you send anything. That's an ask, right? Help reacquaint your list, prove yourself to them. Put yourself in that position where they're like, oh, this person really is providing value.

I enjoy hearing from them. You have to earn the right to sell to someone. I just talked about this in my last episode. I don't know if you heard it. You can go back and listen to last week's if you didn't, about how health coaches n how people in general these days are just getting slammed with marketing messages. I cannot open my Instagram without having dms like, hi, you want to get 5 million Instagram followers? Or like, Hey, I can help you, whatever. With videos on YouTube and it's just marketing, marketing, marketing messages from people. I have no idea who they are. They might as well be bots. They have not earned the right to sell Jack to me. I'm not buying anything from them. I can't delete that stuff fast enough, right? Anyone else feel this way? It's so annoying and it's going to be the same way for your audience.

So, remember, you need to earn the right, you need to build that no like and trust factor before anyone's going to even consider doing anything paid with you. So I'm glad that we had that comment about it feeling disingenuous because it really c come off the wrong way. Healthy Ebony life says, I'm learning to just give the value because people's attention span is short. It sure is, which just reminds me going back to that comment I made about how the email newsletter is dead. Those things were a long, I mean, when I started my business, again, this was over a decade ago, so the world was different and technology was different, but I would send these long-winded email newsletters and here's an article about magnesium and here's a recipe and oh look, I have a workshop coming up. Here are three things you can do to relieve stress.

I mean, it was all one big long email like this. People's attention spans are short, so make one point in each email, one call to action, that's it. They'll actually make your life much easier because I would spend a week on those emails. Don't who has the time for that? You don't. And no one has the time to read it either. I hope this helps give an overview. Again, your three types of emails are your welcome emails, which can be single or it can be a sequence. Your nurture emails, that's the brushing your teeth bit and your sales emails, which you want to use sparingly and strategically, sending them to the right people at the right time.

Healthy Ebony Life says, how often should you, your product... how often should you offer your product, your email list, weekly? I think that's the question that you're saying here. I suggest that you are not constantly offering your product or service if you have a PS at the bottom or a little thing at the bottom, that's like always just there, a standard footer like book a call. You can do that. You're going to see it doesn't get a lot of clicks, so I'm not sure it's worth it. I've tried that. I think you get a lot more clicks when you're giving value, value, value, and then you offer that something that people can pay you for. People are less likely to tune it out, as for how often in general you should be mailing. I think I mentioned earlier, I'll just say it again. You can email your list, your nurture emails every week.

You can do it every other week. You can do it once a month. I wouldn't do it less than once a month because you do really want people to remember who you are, and a month is a long time. Oh, that is all for today, you guys. I think we talked a lot of email strategies, so I hope that's useful. Again, if you don't have an email list yet and you'd like my step-by-step tutorial to set one up, just shoot me a message and I will get that over to you. And don't forget, the wait list will be open soon for 2023's Fast Track Semester. Fast Track is the one time of year that I personally lead a group of health coaches live through our Healthy Profit University core curriculum. The group goes through it together at the same time, and I am able to teach bonus content this way that is available nowhere else. It is very fun. It's my favorite thing to do all year long. Even our current HPU members are often choosing to upgrade and join us live, and the wait list will be available very soon. I'll see you all next week. Take care, everyone.