July 8, 2025 • 45 mins
Are you still relying on social media to promote your book? You’re missing the moment. Algorithms don’t build relationships… email does.
Allison sits down with email marketing expert Abby Combs to unpack exactly how authors can create authentic connections, build visibility, and launch successful books using email. From simple campaign tips to turning subscribers into buyers, this episode is your roadmap to author email marketing without overwhelm.
What You’ll Learn:
- Why email builds stronger author-reader relationships than social media ever can
- How to structure your author emails to avoid the wall of words
- What to send subscribers before your book launches, and how often
Resources Mentioned:
- Abby Combs’ The E-Studios Marketing website: https://theestudios.com/
- Connect with Abby Combs on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/abbycombsceo/
- Email Marketing platforms:
- Flodesk: https://flodesk.com/
- Klaviyo: https://www.klaviyo.com/
- Design tool - CANVA: https://partner.canva.com/c/3658167/647168/10068
- Book Reco: Ever Mine by Laura Pavlov: https://a.co/d/i0YZZnZ
Timestamps:
- 04:12 – The dating analogy that reframes your email list
- 12:58 – Why newsletters aren’t what your audience wants
- 25:05 – The chips-and-salsa email strategy you’ll actually use
- 38:00 – Canva and email formatting that doesn’t suck
- 51:15 – The first step every author should take before writing a single email
If you enjoyed today’s tips, take a moment to rate and review The Author’s Edge. Your support helps us grow and reach more authors who need this kind of strategic marketing insight. Share the episode with a friend who’s ready to take their author platform seriously.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Abby (00:00):
Could you imagine having 200 people just wanna buy when
(00:03):
you say it's ready?
That's the power that you haveby creating a brand, providing
value that it makes selling somuch easier and you don't have
to come out and say, please buymy book.
It's gonna be so great.
Nobody actually wants that.
You're gonna have alreadycreated a relationship and
established authority withinyour area of expertise that of
course they're gonna buy theirbook.
Allison (00:51):
Welcome back to the author's edge.
I know why you're here becauseyou're like, I am sick of trying
to do everything myself.
It's too much.
I have a full-time job and afull-time life.
And now not only are you relyingon social media to promote your
book.
But if you're only relying onsocial media to build your
(01:13):
brand, promote your book getpeople to your event you're not
just missing the market.
I'm sorry, but you're missingthe moment because the real deal
is that the algorithms don'tbuild relationships.
Social is about awareness.
You are just getting in front ofpeople like, I'm doing this.
(01:36):
But email is about relationships'cause someone has to lean in
and say I want this.
So, they're asking for it.
And if you're not using email,you are essentially asking for
somebody's number and then notcalling them.
(01:57):
Have you ever gone out andthought, oh, they're gonna call
me.
I really like them.
And back when you were dating,like when I was dating when the
dirt was new, that was when Iwas on the market.
And then they ask you for yournumber and you give them your
number and then they never call,it stinks.
Don't be that for your book oryour speaking career.
(02:24):
If you are offering someone theopportunity to get emails from
you, to get updates, to get tipsor a guide and you don't send
email, you are a jerk.
It's not nice Most people treattheir email list like it's a
last minute check the box or aplace to send quote unquote
(02:47):
newsletters that no one reads,but when it's used right, email
marketing is one of the toolsthat has the highest return on
the investment that you haveaccess to grow your audience, to
launch your book, to make realsales, to provide proof that you
are the badass that I know youare.
(03:10):
That's why Abby Combs is here.
I'm so glad Abby's here becauseshe runs a business that
supports brands that turnsubscribers into buyers.
She's breaking down today howauthors and experts can use the
same principles to write smarteremail sequences, nurture real
(03:32):
connection and sell withoutbeing salesy.
'cause no one wants to be soldto plus.
She's super charming.
She runs on sunshine and DietCoke and a sixth sense for what
your audience actually wants.
So in this episode, she's gonnagive us a download about what
(03:57):
makes email marketing works.
Abby, thank you.
I'm so glad we met and thatwe're doing this.
Abby (04:04):
I am so excited to be here.
You gave a lot of really amazinganalogies.
I'm like, you should be mysaleswoman for me.
I've never heard it described asdating and that's exactly what
it is.
So yeah, I'm excited to be hereand chat and break it all down.
Allison (04:20):
First, before we start and get into everything most
people who become authors,they'll probably write one.
Book.
Most people who write a bookwrite one book, but the people I
work with might write one ortwo, or they might have
published a book with auniversity press, but now they
have a big traditional press.
(04:43):
And.
They're still doing theirfull-time job, they're still
running HR at a globalcorporation, or they're still a
neurosurgeon, or they're stillpatients in their therapy
practice.
So, they're not used to sendingemails about themselves, and all
(05:04):
they know is that the email theyget from Hollister with the
daily sales is a bother.
And they let them go straight tospam where they keep them in
case there's a coupon.
And I'm just saying Hollister,'cause I was there yesterday
with my daughter who neededshorts that are made of
(05:24):
sweatpants material.
I don't know.
Abby (05:26):
Yeah they're all wearing sweats now.
I don't know.
Allison (05:28):
You know what, I love it.
Abby (05:30):
Blame them.
Allison (05:31):
Yeah, I love first of all, be comfortable.
When I was her age, the trendwas DoorDash jeans as tight as
you could possibly make them,and you would take them off and
you knew they were the rightsize if the seam had made a
wrinkle in the side of your leg.
Abby (05:50):
An indent.
Allison (05:51):
Yes, and it would stay there for a while.
Ooh, that's the right size.
Abby (05:55):
That's it.
Allison (05:56):
The trend is super baggy sweatshirts love it,
Abby (06:00):
Yes.
Allison (06:01):
Super baggy sweatpants.
Love it.
Abby (06:03):
Yeah.
If we see no shape to the bodythat's the right size.
Allison (06:08):
And the other trend is massive skincare.
My daughter and her daughter'sfriends have just peaches and
cream, like nobody has
Abby (06:19):
no,
Allison (06:19):
pimples.
Anything.
Abby (06:21):
I
Allison (06:21):
They,
Abby (06:21):
I'm at the age where I'm asking my daughter like, what
use Foundation?
Is that a thing anymore?
Allison (06:27):
no.
Abby (06:27):
and we're
Allison (06:28):
No.
Abby (06:28):
eyeshadow.
Okay.
So, what are we doing?
Allison (06:30):
Right.
Abby (06:31):
Thank heavens I have this 15 and a half year old that's
filling me in.
Allison (06:34):
It's just about lip gloss, but the lip gloss is,
it's just clear.
Abby (06:40):
Yeah.
Barely there.
We're doing barely there makeupand I actually love it and I've
had to rewire my brain that Idon't need to be a full face of
makeup every time I show upanywhere.
And I feel really exposed.
But it's been really goodexposure therapy probably to
like self-confidence.
I'm like,
Allison (06:57):
Exactly.
It's all about the eyebrows now.
It's like full brows.
Abby (07:01):
Yeah.
Allison (07:02):
Getting put back into, I know everyone's getting emails
from Sephora and Hollister andwe're used to that, but we see
those as sales'cause they aresales.
Those are not relationshipbuilders'cause Hollister is not
a person I don't think.
Abby (07:18):
And they have their own dedicated IP address, which US
small business owners don't.
And so they get to play by theirown rules.
We do not play by those rules.
We have our own set of rules.
We play in our own park that'sblocks away from what they're
doing.
Allison (07:34):
Right.
Abby (07:35):
Have a huge budget behind them and they don't care.
They don't care if youunsubscribe.
Allison (07:40):
Yeah.
Abby (07:41):
You put'em in junk and spam because their opportunity
is so much larger than ours.
However, they are training themass majority of the audience on
how to consume content andinformation.
So as a small business owner,which you all are, if you're
gonna write a book then have towatch what they're doing to take
(08:02):
notes and to play with whatthey're doing.
And how do we take some of itthat works for us and follow
those trends.
One example that I see that Icould also see a lot of your
audience not following is thebig box stores.
If you remember, Hollister orSephora, they're sending mostly
pictures.
In fact, free people has some ofmy favorite emails'cause it's
(08:24):
like window shopping every timeyou open their email.
They're sending mostly imagesand pictures and things that are
moving.
And we, they want them in tolook at that email for, two
seconds at most, maybe three.
And then click somewhere to getout of that email.
A lot of small business ownersare sending only text emails and
(08:45):
they're sending these longparagraphs, especially if you're
an author gonna be really usedto sending lots of words, and
Allison (08:52):
oh, the wall of word email.
Abby (08:54):
I get it.
It makes sense.
It's what you're used to.
It's what's comfortable.
You have so much you wannacommunicate.
Also, if you're only sending oneemail a month or one email a
year, then you've got a lot tocommunicate.
And so you think that you shouldput all of it in an email.
And if you're going to do that,don't do emails.
Do not do text heavy emailsbecause nobody has the time.
(09:15):
I think also what happens is.
small business owners forgetthat they're a consumer too.
You are a consumer of emails.
So how do you like to consumeemails and are you the type that
reads and reads emails, thengreat.
But is your audience that way?
Possibly you could be attractingan audience that loves to read,
especially being in the, authorspace.
(09:37):
However.
We're still being trained thatwhen we open our inbox on our
phone or our computer, it's justquick information.
We're either there for work andwe wanna get outta there as fast
as possible, or we're there toconsume and we wanna get outta
there as fast as possible.
So we've really gotta watch whatyou're putting in emails.
The good news is that itrelieves the pressure of having
to write these 17 page longemails.
(09:59):
Leave that for a book.
If you can write 17 page longemails, write another book, and
then do graphic heavy emails topromote your brand.
So yeah, we don't play by therules of the big box stores.
We learn from them.
They are great teachers.
We let them train the audienceand then we follow along like
little ducklings.
Allison (10:18):
Perfect.
So when it comes to emailmarketing, when people think
they're starting an email listthey learn they have to have an
email service provider.
Abby (10:28):
Yeah.
Allison (10:29):
If you're working.
As a park ranger, you don't,that's not your job.
Like you don't have a brand.
And if you're writing, aenvironmental stewardship book,
everything is new, right?
So you are not behind.
You're just been busy doing thething that makes you freaking
awesome.
Abby (10:49):
Yes.
Allison (10:49):
So let's just take that white noise out of the equation
because that's not the problem.
The problem becomes because youare busy and you know that you
only check your email once aweek.
And when you do, you're justskimming for what actions do I
need to take?
But then you think I don't wannabother people.
(11:11):
So, I'll tell them ahead of timewhen I ask them to sign up for
my emails.
Problem number one, they'll onlyget updates from me once a month
'cause I don't want it to botherthem.
Problem number two.
Nobody ever thinks I'd like tosign up for emails.
That's like to sign up for snailmail or robocalls.
(11:35):
No one does that.
They're just thinking, I wouldlike you to send me some of your
goodness.
Whatever the thing is, whateverthe tip of the day.
The cat if you have one of thoselike Taylor Swift cats that are
interesting looking.
Send them that if that's yourjam.
Listing out the format that thetip comes in is not what people
(12:01):
want.
Yes, they are agreeing that youwill send them information via
email, but the email is not thedraw.
So stop.
Abby (12:11):
That is so smart.
And that's my like, number onething.
So I do a lot of email audits.
So brands will come to me andthen I'll take a look at what
they're doing, what they're notdoing, and give them feedback.
And one of the first things Isay is nobody actually cares
about you.
Nobody cares about your email.
What they care is what's gonnabe in the email.
And that's why when people cometo me for email marketing, we
(12:33):
start with a strategy sessionbecause I need to know, who are
you, what are you offering?
And really the question youshould be asking yourself is,
what problem do I solve?
And with writing a book, you'resolving a problem.
It could just be providinginformation, providing clarity
on a topic letting them escapetheir current world and go into
another world.
(12:54):
Whatever the problem you'resolving is, there is so much to
that we can play off of withyour emails.
And yeah, we have to beincentivized to join an email
list because everyone has anemail and we're getting so many
emails that they wanna knowwhat's going on.
Yeah, stop saying join my emaillist and I'll send you an email.
No, shit.
They're gonna, of course you'regonna send them an email.
(13:15):
A lot of people do this, a lotof like clothing brands or
shopping brands will say, joinand get 10% off on your first
order, or join the email listand you'll get early access to
all of our drops that sell outevery time.
So, there's gotta be anincentive for them joining your
email list.
And if you don't know what thatshould be, then answering that
question of what problem am Isolving?
(13:36):
Hopefully it will allow yourbrain to go through some
creative ways of how are wesolving that problem 16 times
over.
Allison (13:44):
Awesome.
Okay, so we got that outta theway.
Now, when authors when theirbook isn't yet out and they're a
year before the book comes out,they know they have a book deal,
they know it's coming out orthey are looking for a book
(14:04):
deal, but they still know thatthey need to create a
conversation via email.
What should they be emailingabout?
Abby (14:13):
Yeah, great question.
Everyone asked me that.
And then, the follow up questionis, how many emails should I
send?
If I knew the magic number Iwould be buying an island and
not being on this podcast and Iwould just be laying on the
beach drinking my diet Coke forsure.
So, there's not a magicalnumber, but there some
guidelines.
So, we'll go through that andwhat do you email about?
So, I had a thought pop into my.
(14:36):
Oh, I was gonna say that we haveto back up to the beginning of
anyone listening that's wantingto write a book or has written a
book and wherever they are.
But like it or not, you arecreating a brand and I know
you're not used to that and it'snot maybe necessarily your
forte, and you don't know whatyou're doing and that's okay.
(14:56):
We already established you arenew to this and we're, all
figuring it out.
But trust me, I've worked withmultimillion dollar brands that
are still trying to figurethings out.
But you are creating a brand andI would get really curious
around what that brand lookslike for you.
That question again, whatproblem are you solving is it's
my favorite one to ask becauseit, when we start to think of
(15:18):
that, we get really creative.
When we're creative, we canthink through all the things
that we want and what we wannabuild.
And so when you think about yourbook, think about the people who
are reading your book and thelives that you want to change.
Are you gonna solve worldhunger?
No.
But are you gonna changesomebody's life?
Possibly.
Is it gonna be a massive change?
I don't know.
(15:39):
But probably, you're gonna haveinfluence on them.
And so, I would really thinkabout who that person is.
And how do they spend their day?
What time do they wake up in themorning?
What do they do in theafternoon?
Do they drink coffee?
Do they not drink coffee?
Are they married?
Are they not married?
Do they have children?
Male, female all of thosequestions you need to answer
take into consideration todetermine what kind of brand
(16:01):
you're creating.
Once we have that, then reallyknowing what emails to send
becomes a lot easier.
So, we wanna create a balanceand a good cadence of emails
that provide a lot of value.
So, this would be reallycentered around the content that
you're, writing or creating
Allison (16:20):
Yeah.
Abby (16:21):
that you wanna have and we need to sell.
So, even if you're.
A year out or more from the booklaunching.
I still think it's important todo email marketing.
I don't know that you need to doas much as you will when you
launch your book and afterlaunch.
And also picture this.
What if you started now creatinga brand and really understanding
(16:43):
that ideal customer or idealreader providing value to them,
and you build an email list of athousand people.
And then you're continuing thoseconversations and building trust
and creating relationships.
Then you launch your book andyou have a thousand or let's
call it 20%, if 200 people whoare ready to buy your book.
(17:04):
Could you imagine having 200people just wanna buy when you
say it's ready?
That's the power that you haveby creating a brand, providing
value that it makes selling somuch easier and you don't have
to come out and say, please buymy book.
It's gonna be so great.
Nobody actually wants that.
You're gonna have alreadycreated a relationship and
established authority withinyour area of expertise that of
(17:26):
course they're gonna buy theirbook.
That's like a no brainer at thatpoint because they know and love
and trust you that the purchaseis easy and at that point.
You could sell anything.
So if you wanna leave yourcorporate job, or you wanna
leave what you're currentlydoing and eventually run this
brand full-time, you have theoption to do so because you have
(17:46):
a brand and an audiencesurrounding you.
And all it took was you justdeciding who you wanna work with
and what the value that youhave, and just talking to them.
So I would really focus on thatcadence of let's provide a lot
of value which comes fromunderstanding your customer and
your audience.
And then also we have to selland we have to send the ask.
(18:09):
And it can be very simple.
Some ways to get comfortablewith, providing the ask or the
offer is to ask them to go readsomething on a blog or click and
look through this gallery ofphotos.
Link here to go watch this videothat I thought was really
interesting.
Get them to go do something.
It doesn't have to be spendingmoney, but training them to go
(18:30):
do something from your emailswill be really great practice
for when it's time to actuallyspend money.
Allison (18:36):
Ooh, good tip.
Yikes.
Now, can you talk about thedifference between an email and
a newsletter?
Because a lot of people think, Iwanna provide value.
I think I'm going to, I'llstart, I'll have it be a
newsletter, and then it's long.
So, it's not one topic.
(18:56):
It's a couple of things indifferent sections.
And how should people use oneversus the other?
Abby (19:03):
yeah, great question.
Allison (19:04):
And please describe how they're different.
Abby (19:07):
Yeah.
I think you're saying I'll goover a few different kinds of
emails.
How about that?
Allison (19:11):
Yes.
Abby (19:12):
And I love and hate the word newsletter.
I sometimes call them campaignemails.
Allison (19:18):
Yeah.
Abby (19:18):
Have automation emails or funnels you've heard like
clickFunnels or Flows.
And so, there's two buckets.
You have the campaigns or thenewsletters that you create,
weekly, monthly, and send outmanually to most, if not all of
your list.
And then, you have automationsthat you build and you tell your
(19:39):
email platform who to send it toby from what behaviors they
exhibit.
Now, anyone who's brand new toemails, this is going to confuse
you and make you a littleoverwhelmed.
Don't worry about automationsyet, or hire somebody.
This is when you call me and youhire me to build out all the
backend automations.
Allison (20:00):
Yes.
Abby (20:00):
All the time.
We build it for you.
We work through your strategy,and then things are there in the
background.
An example of an automationwould be a welcome series, we
call it, which you've allsubscribed to probably hundreds
if not thousands of welcomeseries.
So, when you go to Hollister andyou are on their website looking
for something and something popsup and says, Hey, get 10% off or
(20:20):
20% off your next order, you putyour email in and then
automatically it gets an emailinto your inbox that says,
thanks for joining.
Here's your code.
That is the beginning of awelcome series that is on the
automation side.
And so, you can build that to bebasically a set it and forget
it.
That's already built andcreated, and it works for the
most part year round.
(20:41):
So there's some backendautomations that you'll want
based on behavior so that youdon't have to constantly be
managing it.
Then your campaigns or yournewsletters.
I love and hate the wordnewsletter because
Allison (20:53):
Me too.
Abby (20:53):
what that is.
So, I use that word a lot, butit also has this connotation
that.
It's just a bunch of texts on ascreen, all about the business
owner or the brand, and nothingto do with me, right?
As the consumer.
And so that's why we don't lovethe word newsletter.
Campaign emails.
(21:14):
Are similar.
And so really the core of anewsletter is just basically a
monthly, it could be weekly, itcould be quarterly consistent
communication.
That's what's going on with thebrand.
And depending on your audience,they might want that, they might
not.
So, you're gonna have to do sometesting.
If anyone knows anything aboutmarketing, it's a game of
testing.
So, know that you're going totry things and it's going to
(21:34):
fail, but you're going to learnsomething and then a adapt to
the next thing.
Other ways that we use campaignemails is to sell, right?
To showcase something and askfor a purchase.
So, newsletters, I'm trying tothink of your original questions
about newsletter.
I'm just kinda
Allison (21:50):
The thing is the email, an email can be you don't even
have to scroll down to see theend of it.
It's like a glimpse.
It's a couple lines.
It's even the email that I sendto let people know about this
episode, it's one topic and
Abby (22:09):
Yes.
Allison (22:10):
There might be a couple of buttons in there of listen
now or go here to watch onYouTube.
But it all goes to the samething.
Abby (22:20):
Yes.
Allison (22:21):
it might be two or three hot links, but they go to
the same place.
Abby (22:26):
Yeah.
Allison (22:27):
I've seen beautifully done newsletters, but they have
kind of sections of here'swhat's going on with me.
Here are the events I'll be at.
Here's a podcast I'm loving.
And no matter how beautiful theyare, or like musings on summer,
like I don't.
(22:48):
Email is not where I want to getthat kind of content from
someone.
And this is my personal thing,is when the someone does that,
they usually only send it once amonth.
So, it does feel like it'scomprehensive in a way that it
didn't need to be.
(23:08):
Like, why save up all yourmusings spoonfeed them to me.
I don't want one big entree.
I like, that's why everybodyloves chips and salsa'cause it's
just one,
Abby (23:22):
It's easy.
Allison (23:23):
chip at a time.
Like I don't want the platter ofenchiladas today.
Just chips and salsa is good.
So, you're think of emails asthe chips and salsa.
And a newsletter is like thetotal entree with the side of
WAC and the, and it's just somuch.
And oftentimes I'm thinking thatwould be good if you wanted to
(23:46):
start a substack, because thenpeople could lean in and know
that they're essentially askingfor an article or something
deeper or start a LinkedInnewsletter.
Abby (23:59):
Yep.
Allison (23:59):
Which is awesome'cause it's has so many SEO tools
behind it.
So, I highly recommend aLinkedIn newsletter.
Abby (24:07):
Yeah.
Allison (24:08):
The titles are SEO enabled.
But back to the email.
So, email versus newsletter is Ithink it's the biggest.
It's one of the two big problemsthat I see people have.
One is getting over the hump of,am I gonna send people emails?
Is two of what's the formatgoing to be?
And they think it has to besomething super substantial,
(24:32):
something small can besubstantial.
Abby (24:35):
Yes.
No, I love that.
And I love the analogy of chipsand salsa because you get just
full enough that you don't eatyour whole meal, and it
satisfies the craving and thehunger right then.
But you really can never getcompletely stuffed off of chips.
At least I can't.
I would highly recommend youremails be chips and salsa, and
if you have enough content for anewsletter that it's six
(24:55):
sections long, that should be atleast three emails.
So that's the good news is ifyou're gonna pack this
newsletter with seven differentsections and topics.
You actually probably justcreated three to five different
emails
Allison (25:12):
Yeah.
Abby (25:13):
don't have to even come up with anything for the month,
right?
Allison (25:16):
Yeah.
Abby (25:17):
I think if you have that much in your brain that you can
share every month, and you caneasily do email marketing.
And we want to give them enoughcontent that they're intrigued,
that they wanna click to dosomething else, but we don't
wanna overwhelm them.
Unless you have a very loyalaudience that is eating up
everything that you give them,they can never get full, then
(25:38):
sure.
Go ahead and give them an entreeevery time.
But I would agree there's otherplaces that you could do that.
And if you have an audience thatcaptivated, then you could be
monetizing that through Substackand have them pay to get that
content.
Especially those of you thathave a specific profession that
you have extreme knowledge in.
People wanna have access to thatand they don't wanna have to go
(26:00):
schedule an appointmentsomewhere to work one-on-one
with somebody for 30 minutes oran hour and pay, who knows how
much to get that informationwhen they would pay, 6 99 or
1299 or 20, whatever it is everymonth, to get that information
delivered straight to
Allison (26:13):
Right.
Abby (26:14):
Inbox, and it's a way that you can scale your brain, right?
So, if you're a neurosurgeon andyou have content that we all
need, and we need to learn aboutour brain, I mean, everyone
wants to know about their brainand learn more, and how can we
manage it now.
There's an opportunity where youcould really brain dump once a
month.
that over three to five emailsand send that out and you could
(26:36):
monetize it.
That analogy really is ifyou're, if you think that this
would be the whole enchilada,then take out 40 or of it and
just send the 40%.
Allison (26:48):
Yes.
I love the whole enchilada aswell.
Sometimes I just love the chipsand salsa.
Okay, you hinted at somethingand I wanna ask you, tell me
what to do'cause this is reallywhen we met, I actually sat in
on one of your workshops at theMom 2.0 Summit.
(27:10):
And I was in the room.
I came in late.
I was hobnobbing in the hallway.
And I came in late and I satdown and I heard you talk for
one minute and I was like, oh myGod, this woman is the tits.
You are the real deal.
You are the shizz.
You were lobbing prescriptive dothis, not that to everyone in
(27:36):
the room.
And the side conversations ofwait, what did she say?
Wait, I'm not supposed to dothat.
No, I don't.
I don't need to do, oh, like youwere blowing people's minds.
And these were people who knewabout email and they understood,
but they were, people need toknow a little bit more.
Abby (27:56):
Yeah.
Allison (27:56):
of the things that.
After I tackled you in thehallway and I was like, we have
to be friends.
And you said the way that youset up emails is you use images,
so you mentioned it before,using images.
But I find that it's not thewriting of the email that is the
(28:18):
difficult thing I can vomit intomy voice memo, look at the
transcript, edit that, and Ihave the text.
It's the putting it into my,email service provider and like
making it look good.
(28:38):
And you'd think cut and pasteAllison, right?
I do that.
I do cut and paste, but then nomatter what, the formatting is
weird or some of the words are adifferent size than the others,
even though I cut and paste froma Google Doc.
So, I don't understand whatgremlins are in the machine.
But you have a solution forthat.
(28:59):
So, please tell me and everyonewhat to do.
Abby (29:03):
Okay.
Yeah, I think I know what you'reasking so I'll give you how we
do it.
Allison (29:06):
Okay.
Abby (29:06):
Start by saying I am not a designer.
That's just not my creativetalent.
My creative talent comes in theform of calendaring and
scheduling and planning.
It's really fun for me, but thelike typical creative, what we
think about of these artists andbeing able to design stuff that
is not in my wheelhouse, whichis why I have a team and they do
all of that first for myclients.
(29:28):
But also I realize that's not astrength of mine.
And so, there is a power inhiring that out.
Do what you do best.
And for those that arelistening, what I'm knowing
about you is that you have anamazing brain and access to
knowledge and information thatyou wanna put out in the world.
I think you should stay in thatseat and there's a power in
hiring it out.
Being said, there's a couple ofplatforms, email sending
(29:50):
platforms that make it reallyeasy to design.
And they all come with pros andcons.
And so, I'll tell you one thatmakes it really easy to design,
but doesn't allow you to do alot of automations, and that's
okay when you're first starting.
So, flow desks, and you can putthis in the show notes,
F-L-O-D-E-S-K Flow desks is areally great platform that's so
easy to use and they havebeautiful, like 2025 version
(30:14):
templates that you can just goin, pick what looks like
beautiful to you and throw inyour content and you're good to
go.
So, that's one place to start.
When you're wanting to get intoa more robust platform something
like Klaviyo is what I love touse.
Their templates aren't as prettyso you can use them, but you're
gonna have to have an eye fordesign and I don't love their
(30:36):
templates.
And so, we create our emailsfrom scratch just in Canva.
And a lot of people know how touse Canva now.
The pro is like$13 a month.
It's very affordable.
You're gonna need it for yoursocial media, you're gonna need
it for everything else on Canvaand how we create emails is we
actually, we want to see thewhole email in Canva, what it's
gonna look like.
(30:56):
And we start with there's aratio already built in Canva for
the Instagram stories.
So, Instagram stories alreadyhas it created, and in the top
left corner, you can adjust thelength of that image it's super
long.
You start with that and you canstart to create your email in
(31:17):
Canva, they have a lot oftemplates and graphics they're
already created that you canuse.
And play with it and put yourcontent in.
And then, what we do is whereverthere's to put a button, so some
of the things that you want themto click, we now crop the image
to right under that button.
So, now what you'll have inCanva is several images long.
(31:42):
And then you upload all of thoseinto your email sending platform
and then once you upload it, itformats all really seamlessly so
you don't see the chop.
And then, every image that youupload, you can link to wherever
you wanted that button to link.
So, now you can have multiplelinks within a button.
Allison (31:58):
Okay.
I need you to slow down.
Abby (32:00):
I know.
I'm like, I need to write down atutorial.
Allison (32:03):
Yes, in fact.
Okay, so I have, I just openedCanva while we're talking.
'cause when you told me that mymind melted a little bit.
Abby (32:13):
Yeah.
Allison (32:13):
I'll tell you, I was like, oh my gosh, this makes it
so simple because I can copy andpaste my Google Doc into this
Instagram story, and you adjustthe length, so you make it like
3000 pixels instead of whateverit comes with.
(32:36):
And since the link is only gonnago to one place, you could just
have one image if you want.
Abby (32:44):
Yes, you could.
Especially if it's going to oneplace.
If you're wanting to link, iflet's say you're providing a
really great newsletter or acampaign email that's about
several different articles ofone topic.
And you want to link multiplethings, you're going to wanna be
able to chop things so that youcan link go to this article
here, go to this article here,and give them what they want.
So, they have multiple options,but.
(33:05):
If they're all going to oneplace, then don't worry about
any chopping.
Allison (33:10):
And so, when you do that.
When I tried that out, Irealized that you don't need to
allow for margins within theInstagram story because the
email itself has margins that.
Is because I of course, testedit and I was like, why is it so
(33:33):
small?
So, I have two questions thatare super practical.
When you do this, what size fontdo you use for the text in the
Instagram story?
Abby (33:47):
Good question.
Allison (33:49):
Okay.
Abby (33:50):
It might depend, and also keep in mind for us, we're
working with a lot of e-commercebrands.
And so there's not as much text,but there is some so that the
tech size will change based onthe design of the email.
So, let's trying to highlightsomething at the beginning,
Allison (34:06):
Yeah.
Abby (34:06):
Your first section is your hero banner or hero image that
can be larger.
And then, into the body of theemail that should be a little
bit smaller.
Allison (34:15):
Okay,
Abby (34:15):
I can see if there's a common text.
Allison (34:18):
So, while you're doing that, usually the default email
that pops up in my email serviceprovider will say that the
email, the default is 16 pointtype.
And it's San Serif, right?
So, when I did this in usingyour Canva Instagram story
(34:41):
formula, I made it 16 pointtype.
But when you import that imageit seems on the small side.
So, that's why I ask.
And second question, when youdownload those images from
Canva, what do you download themas?
Because I was downloading themas A JPEG or A PNG, and somehow
(35:03):
the text looks not as sharp,like a little fuzzy, so I think
I'm doing it wrong.
Abby (35:10):
Yes.
Okay.
I'm just pulling up one of ouremails and literally within one
small box, we have threedifferent sizes.
The solution to what size is totest it.
You can start with your 16, thenimport it, and there's a preview
link when you're creating anemail.
You should be able to preview itright on your screen.
(35:32):
You also can send yourself atest email, I believe they're
all free in every platform.
Allison (35:37):
Yeah.
Abby (35:37):
Even in your own email address and have it come in your
inbox and see how you like it.
Everyone's gonna have theirsettings a little different on
the consumer side.
So, they might have their fontsor really overall image will be
larger on somebody's phone ordesktop versus somebody else's.
So, I don't know that matters asmuch as long as it plays the
(36:00):
overall design and that it looksgood to you and you can read it.
Also, for example, a lot of myemployees are in their early
twenties, cute gals, and theywould send me an email and I
couldn't read it.
And I'm like, I feel like I'm inmy early twenties, but I'm not.
And I just realized it because Ican't read this.
So, just have maybe a second setof eyes on things and know who
your audience is.
(36:21):
If your audience is young, 20year olds, you might be able to
get away with smaller fonts.
If your audience is in theirfifties or older, they're gonna
want a larger font.
So, really have an exact number,I would play with what the
audience needs and how it lookson your phone and your desktop
or laptop.
Allison (36:38):
Ooh, that's a good tip.
Make sure you look at it on yourphone.
Abby (36:41):
Yes, and you can in Klaviyo, which is a really
robust email platform.
You can see the mobile version.
And in fact, a lot of platforms,you can see the mobile version.
Allison (36:49):
In Kajabi, you can do that too.
I love Kajabi.
Abby (36:51):
Good.
Yeah.
Kajabi is really great,especially if you're doing
courses.
Kajabi has a pretty decent emailplatform, so you can view that
in mobile.
You'll want to make sure you'reoptimized for mobile part most
audiences consume content ontheir phones.
I've had a few brands across theyears that you would think their
audience would be on theirphones would bet a million
(37:11):
dollars.
Their data says that they'reopening on their desktop, which
plays a whole story, right?
So, watch your data and youranalytics to see how that can
help you make decisions.
But for sure optimize for mobileto see how that looks on your
phone.
Allison (37:26):
Okay.
And then, the images from Canva,you download as what?
Abby (37:30):
So, you download as you should be able to do PNG.
But if it's giving you some sortof error on sizing, I would
download as an SVG.
Allison (37:39):
Oh, okay.
Abby (37:40):
You could try that.
And then, also sometimes whenyou download as SVG, you'll have
to resize, which you can easilydo on your computer.
You just change the sizing alittle bit, and then you can
upload.
So SVG or PNG should.
And I will double check with myoptimization specialist and see
if she recommends anythingdifferent.
And then I'll message you andyou can update the show notes.
Allison (38:01):
Thanks.
Yeah, I, that's the thing likeif you don't know all of the
little steps, you might stopbefore you get success.
So, I was like, oh I did a testwhere I put text directly into
the email platform.
Abby (38:17):
Yeah.
Allison (38:17):
Then, the same text that I had imported for with an
image from Canva and the textfrom the Canva image was a
little bit faded.
Abby (38:27):
Yeah.
Allison (38:27):
it wasn't as sharp.
Abby (38:29):
Yeah.
Allison (38:30):
And I thought maybe it has to do with the format that I
was downloading.
Abby (38:34):
Yeah, that could be it for sure.
I love the idea of testingnative texts in an email as
well.
Sometimes that will help withdeliverability.
And that's the thing.
We could spend hours talkingabout all the tiny things.
My recommendation for everyonelistening is just get started.
And everything in business isgoing to eventually be really
cringe.
That's you know what the coolkids are saying,
Allison (38:54):
Yeah.
Abby (38:54):
Look back and be like, why did I send that email that was
so cringe?
But you're gonna learnsomething, so just get started.
Even if you just get started andyou are sending text heavy
emails, at least you're gonnaget in the practice of sending
them and not feeling like you'rea bother.
People have asked to join youremail list.
They wanna hear from you.
Really build out what the valuethat you're providing to this
(39:15):
audience and what problem you'resolving.
And then, emails will be easy,and as you learn, you'll get
better.
And then as you grow, you'll endup hiring it out anyway.
And then, they'll worry aboutthe intricacies of email
marketing.
You did not write a book to bean email marketing expert.
You wrote a book to make changeand in influence.
(39:36):
So, stay in that seat andeventually hire out all the
experts.
Allison (39:40):
So smart and yes.
Now, I always ask this.
Abby (39:45):
Okay.
Allison (39:45):
What is a book that you are loving right now or that you
can't wait to read?
Abby (39:53):
Oh, okay.
Well, I will say for me, I readto like escape and I'm not into
like the fantasy dragon worldyet.
I'm curious, I'm intrigued, butI love a good romance and so I
read all of Colleen Hoover'sbooks.
And that has always really likefor me, honestly, like I used to
scroll social media to kind ofnumb or you know turn my brain
(40:16):
off.
And now, it's such a work thingfor me that I've really turned
away from that.
And reading has become my like,I've gotta reset my nervous
system and I'm going to read.
And so, I have had to have thesejust fun, like very probably
young adults, easy to readbooks.
Allison (40:30):
Yeah.
Abby (40:31):
That's been fun for me.
I read all of her books and thenI've moved on to a very similar
style, but I don't know theauthor and that is so unfair to
her.
She has at least I think fourbooks that I've read, three of
'em.
So, that's been fun.
Allison (40:43):
You could just tell me the name of them.
Abby (40:46):
Oh, ever mine.
And ever mine, like always mine.
There's is always a mine in it.
Allison (40:54):
It's the like small town romances, is it the Laura
Pavlov books?
Okay.
Abby (40:58):
It might be.
Allison (41:00):
Yeah, yeah, Yeah.
Yeah, Like he's a hockey goldenboy and I, you know, he's the
man I've avoided for years.
Yes, yes, Yes.
Abby (41:10):
Honey Mountain.
They live in Honey Mountain.
Allison (41:13):
Yeah.
Abby (41:14):
Yeah.
It's been really fun.
I'm like, wow, what a life.
Allison (41:18):
Yeah, I love it.
Oh my God, that's hilarious.
I wanna end this by just askingyou what is one thing that
everyone can do today to get ahold of their own email
marketing?
Abby (41:35):
I mean, I should say just send an email, but I do think it
begins.
Allison (41:39):
I just meet so many business owners who are like, I
don't even know where to start.
And where you start is not inthe email.
It's creating your idealcustomer and what problem you're
solving and use chat GPT andpour your soul out to it and
have it tell you what problemyou're solving and give you
ideas.
Abby (41:57):
And so, really utilize AI.
So, I would get really clear onthe value that you wanna provide
and the problem that you'resolving.
And then, emails become easy,and social media becomes easy.
Allison (42:07):
So true.
Abby, thank you so much forsprinkling your genius on us.
Like rays of sunshine, wedefinitely need it.
People overlook the tiny stepsthat actually can move you
forward.
And that's why people avoidemail.
'cause it's like, what?
(42:28):
I don't wanna get all thoseemails.
Well, you're not your reader.
Abby (42:31):
Yeah.
Allison (42:32):
Who cares what you like?
When someone raises their handand says, please send me some of
your genius.
Are you gonna be rude andwithhold that?
Don't be rude.
Be awesome.
Abby (42:44):
Yes.
Allison (42:44):
You have an edge here, and you are not bothering them.
If they're saying, please sharewith me, because that's what
they really want.
Ugh.
Abby (42:57):
We all need help.
We all need each other, and Ithink that's one thing I've
learned is that.
We all need each other.
And so, somebody out there needswhat information you have.
You already have thatinformation.
Other people don't and so youhave a gift that you need to
share with the world.
And they wanna know don't be ajerk and give us the info.
Give us the dets.
Allison (43:16):
Yeah, don't hold back.
Abby (43:18):
Yeah.
Allison (43:19):
Alright people, you can leave Hollister now.
And I know you've been sittinghiding in the corner you found a
place to sit'cause I don't knowif you realize, but stores in
the mall do not have any placesto sit.
So, you know where I sit on oneof the displays'cause screw you.
You know my daughter's gonna bein the changing room for a good
(43:40):
while and there's no place forthe mom, which is the person who
holds the credit card.
Okay?
If you are a store manager,please, a bench would be great.
Otherwise, I will be sittingright up front next to the jean
shorts.
You can leave that place now andknow that we are with you.
(44:03):
And if this episode is helpingyou in the least, please leave a
review and share the episodewith someone who needs it, or PS
someone whose emails you'relike, I like them, but maybe
they also could use this.
Abby (44:21):
Yes.
Allison (44:21):
Because
Abby (44:21):
everyone
Allison (44:22):
complains about email, but no one really knows the
answer.
And they think it's, oh I bundlemy work so that I can really dig
into the email writing likenobody wants to dig into the
email writing.
It sounds terrible.
Yuck.
No thank you.
Move on.
I will take the chips and salsaevery time.
Abby (44:43):
Every time.
Allison (44:44):
Every time.
Alright, I will see you nextweek.
In the meantime, please lean into your edge as an author.
Could you imagine having 200 people just wanna buy when
(00:03):
you say it's ready?
That's the power that you haveby creating a brand, providing
value that it makes selling somuch easier and you don't have
to come out and say, please buymy book.
It's gonna be so great.
Nobody actually wants that.
You're gonna have alreadycreated a relationship and
established authority withinyour area of expertise that of
course they're gonna buy theirbook.
Allison (00:51):
Welcome back to the author's edge.
I know why you're here becauseyou're like, I am sick of trying
to do everything myself.
It's too much.
I have a full-time job and afull-time life.
And now not only are you relyingon social media to promote your
book.
But if you're only relying onsocial media to build your
(01:13):
brand, promote your book getpeople to your event you're not
just missing the market.
I'm sorry, but you're missingthe moment because the real deal
is that the algorithms don'tbuild relationships.
Social is about awareness.
You are just getting in front ofpeople like, I'm doing this.
(01:36):
But email is about relationships'cause someone has to lean in
and say I want this.
So, they're asking for it.
And if you're not using email,you are essentially asking for
somebody's number and then notcalling them.
(01:57):
Have you ever gone out andthought, oh, they're gonna call
me.
I really like them.
And back when you were dating,like when I was dating when the
dirt was new, that was when Iwas on the market.
And then they ask you for yournumber and you give them your
number and then they never call,it stinks.
Don't be that for your book oryour speaking career.
(02:24):
If you are offering someone theopportunity to get emails from
you, to get updates, to get tipsor a guide and you don't send
email, you are a jerk.
It's not nice Most people treattheir email list like it's a
last minute check the box or aplace to send quote unquote
(02:47):
newsletters that no one reads,but when it's used right, email
marketing is one of the toolsthat has the highest return on
the investment that you haveaccess to grow your audience, to
launch your book, to make realsales, to provide proof that you
are the badass that I know youare.
(03:10):
That's why Abby Combs is here.
I'm so glad Abby's here becauseshe runs a business that
supports brands that turnsubscribers into buyers.
She's breaking down today howauthors and experts can use the
same principles to write smarteremail sequences, nurture real
(03:32):
connection and sell withoutbeing salesy.
'cause no one wants to be soldto plus.
She's super charming.
She runs on sunshine and DietCoke and a sixth sense for what
your audience actually wants.
So in this episode, she's gonnagive us a download about what
(03:57):
makes email marketing works.
Abby, thank you.
I'm so glad we met and thatwe're doing this.
Abby (04:04):
I am so excited to be here.
You gave a lot of really amazinganalogies.
I'm like, you should be mysaleswoman for me.
I've never heard it described asdating and that's exactly what
it is.
So yeah, I'm excited to be hereand chat and break it all down.
Allison (04:20):
First, before we start and get into everything most
people who become authors,they'll probably write one.
Book.
Most people who write a bookwrite one book, but the people I
work with might write one ortwo, or they might have
published a book with auniversity press, but now they
have a big traditional press.
(04:43):
And.
They're still doing theirfull-time job, they're still
running HR at a globalcorporation, or they're still a
neurosurgeon, or they're stillpatients in their therapy
practice.
So, they're not used to sendingemails about themselves, and all
(05:04):
they know is that the email theyget from Hollister with the
daily sales is a bother.
And they let them go straight tospam where they keep them in
case there's a coupon.
And I'm just saying Hollister,'cause I was there yesterday
with my daughter who neededshorts that are made of
(05:24):
sweatpants material.
I don't know.
Abby (05:26):
Yeah they're all wearing sweats now.
I don't know.
Allison (05:28):
You know what, I love it.
Abby (05:30):
Blame them.
Allison (05:31):
Yeah, I love first of all, be comfortable.
When I was her age, the trendwas DoorDash jeans as tight as
you could possibly make them,and you would take them off and
you knew they were the rightsize if the seam had made a
wrinkle in the side of your leg.
Abby (05:50):
An indent.
Allison (05:51):
Yes, and it would stay there for a while.
Ooh, that's the right size.
Abby (05:55):
That's it.
Allison (05:56):
The trend is super baggy sweatshirts love it,
Abby (06:00):
Yes.
Allison (06:01):
Super baggy sweatpants.
Love it.
Abby (06:03):
Yeah.
If we see no shape to the bodythat's the right size.
Allison (06:08):
And the other trend is massive skincare.
My daughter and her daughter'sfriends have just peaches and
cream, like nobody has
Abby (06:19):
no,
Allison (06:19):
pimples.
Anything.
Abby (06:21):
I
Allison (06:21):
They,
Abby (06:21):
I'm at the age where I'm asking my daughter like, what
use Foundation?
Is that a thing anymore?
Allison (06:27):
no.
Abby (06:27):
and we're
Allison (06:28):
No.
Abby (06:28):
eyeshadow.
Okay.
So, what are we doing?
Allison (06:30):
Right.
Abby (06:31):
Thank heavens I have this 15 and a half year old that's
filling me in.
Allison (06:34):
It's just about lip gloss, but the lip gloss is,
it's just clear.
Abby (06:40):
Yeah.
Barely there.
We're doing barely there makeupand I actually love it and I've
had to rewire my brain that Idon't need to be a full face of
makeup every time I show upanywhere.
And I feel really exposed.
But it's been really goodexposure therapy probably to
like self-confidence.
I'm like,
Allison (06:57):
Exactly.
It's all about the eyebrows now.
It's like full brows.
Abby (07:01):
Yeah.
Allison (07:02):
Getting put back into, I know everyone's getting emails
from Sephora and Hollister andwe're used to that, but we see
those as sales'cause they aresales.
Those are not relationshipbuilders'cause Hollister is not
a person I don't think.
Abby (07:18):
And they have their own dedicated IP address, which US
small business owners don't.
And so they get to play by theirown rules.
We do not play by those rules.
We have our own set of rules.
We play in our own park that'sblocks away from what they're
doing.
Allison (07:34):
Right.
Abby (07:35):
Have a huge budget behind them and they don't care.
They don't care if youunsubscribe.
Allison (07:40):
Yeah.
Abby (07:41):
You put'em in junk and spam because their opportunity
is so much larger than ours.
However, they are training themass majority of the audience on
how to consume content andinformation.
So as a small business owner,which you all are, if you're
gonna write a book then have towatch what they're doing to take
(08:02):
notes and to play with whatthey're doing.
And how do we take some of itthat works for us and follow
those trends.
One example that I see that Icould also see a lot of your
audience not following is thebig box stores.
If you remember, Hollister orSephora, they're sending mostly
pictures.
In fact, free people has some ofmy favorite emails'cause it's
(08:24):
like window shopping every timeyou open their email.
They're sending mostly imagesand pictures and things that are
moving.
And we, they want them in tolook at that email for, two
seconds at most, maybe three.
And then click somewhere to getout of that email.
A lot of small business ownersare sending only text emails and
(08:45):
they're sending these longparagraphs, especially if you're
an author gonna be really usedto sending lots of words, and
Allison (08:52):
oh, the wall of word email.
Abby (08:54):
I get it.
It makes sense.
It's what you're used to.
It's what's comfortable.
You have so much you wannacommunicate.
Also, if you're only sending oneemail a month or one email a
year, then you've got a lot tocommunicate.
And so you think that you shouldput all of it in an email.
And if you're going to do that,don't do emails.
Do not do text heavy emailsbecause nobody has the time.
(09:15):
I think also what happens is.
small business owners forgetthat they're a consumer too.
You are a consumer of emails.
So how do you like to consumeemails and are you the type that
reads and reads emails, thengreat.
But is your audience that way?
Possibly you could be attractingan audience that loves to read,
especially being in the, authorspace.
(09:37):
However.
We're still being trained thatwhen we open our inbox on our
phone or our computer, it's justquick information.
We're either there for work andwe wanna get outta there as fast
as possible, or we're there toconsume and we wanna get outta
there as fast as possible.
So we've really gotta watch whatyou're putting in emails.
The good news is that itrelieves the pressure of having
to write these 17 page longemails.
(09:59):
Leave that for a book.
If you can write 17 page longemails, write another book, and
then do graphic heavy emails topromote your brand.
So yeah, we don't play by therules of the big box stores.
We learn from them.
They are great teachers.
We let them train the audienceand then we follow along like
little ducklings.
Allison (10:18):
Perfect.
So when it comes to emailmarketing, when people think
they're starting an email listthey learn they have to have an
email service provider.
Abby (10:28):
Yeah.
Allison (10:29):
If you're working.
As a park ranger, you don't,that's not your job.
Like you don't have a brand.
And if you're writing, aenvironmental stewardship book,
everything is new, right?
So you are not behind.
You're just been busy doing thething that makes you freaking
awesome.
Abby (10:49):
Yes.
Allison (10:49):
So let's just take that white noise out of the equation
because that's not the problem.
The problem becomes because youare busy and you know that you
only check your email once aweek.
And when you do, you're justskimming for what actions do I
need to take?
But then you think I don't wannabother people.
(11:11):
So, I'll tell them ahead of timewhen I ask them to sign up for
my emails.
Problem number one, they'll onlyget updates from me once a month
'cause I don't want it to botherthem.
Problem number two.
Nobody ever thinks I'd like tosign up for emails.
That's like to sign up for snailmail or robocalls.
(11:35):
No one does that.
They're just thinking, I wouldlike you to send me some of your
goodness.
Whatever the thing is, whateverthe tip of the day.
The cat if you have one of thoselike Taylor Swift cats that are
interesting looking.
Send them that if that's yourjam.
Listing out the format that thetip comes in is not what people
(12:01):
want.
Yes, they are agreeing that youwill send them information via
email, but the email is not thedraw.
So stop.
Abby (12:11):
That is so smart.
And that's my like, number onething.
So I do a lot of email audits.
So brands will come to me andthen I'll take a look at what
they're doing, what they're notdoing, and give them feedback.
And one of the first things Isay is nobody actually cares
about you.
Nobody cares about your email.
What they care is what's gonnabe in the email.
And that's why when people cometo me for email marketing, we
(12:33):
start with a strategy sessionbecause I need to know, who are
you, what are you offering?
And really the question youshould be asking yourself is,
what problem do I solve?
And with writing a book, you'resolving a problem.
It could just be providinginformation, providing clarity
on a topic letting them escapetheir current world and go into
another world.
(12:54):
Whatever the problem you'resolving is, there is so much to
that we can play off of withyour emails.
And yeah, we have to beincentivized to join an email
list because everyone has anemail and we're getting so many
emails that they wanna knowwhat's going on.
Yeah, stop saying join my emaillist and I'll send you an email.
No, shit.
They're gonna, of course you'regonna send them an email.
(13:15):
A lot of people do this, a lotof like clothing brands or
shopping brands will say, joinand get 10% off on your first
order, or join the email listand you'll get early access to
all of our drops that sell outevery time.
So, there's gotta be anincentive for them joining your
email list.
And if you don't know what thatshould be, then answering that
question of what problem am Isolving?
(13:36):
Hopefully it will allow yourbrain to go through some
creative ways of how are wesolving that problem 16 times
over.
Allison (13:44):
Awesome.
Okay, so we got that outta theway.
Now, when authors when theirbook isn't yet out and they're a
year before the book comes out,they know they have a book deal,
they know it's coming out orthey are looking for a book
(14:04):
deal, but they still know thatthey need to create a
conversation via email.
What should they be emailingabout?
Abby (14:13):
Yeah, great question.
Everyone asked me that.
And then, the follow up questionis, how many emails should I
send?
If I knew the magic number Iwould be buying an island and
not being on this podcast and Iwould just be laying on the
beach drinking my diet Coke forsure.
So, there's not a magicalnumber, but there some
guidelines.
So, we'll go through that andwhat do you email about?
So, I had a thought pop into my.
(14:36):
Oh, I was gonna say that we haveto back up to the beginning of
anyone listening that's wantingto write a book or has written a
book and wherever they are.
But like it or not, you arecreating a brand and I know
you're not used to that and it'snot maybe necessarily your
forte, and you don't know whatyou're doing and that's okay.
(14:56):
We already established you arenew to this and we're, all
figuring it out.
But trust me, I've worked withmultimillion dollar brands that
are still trying to figurethings out.
But you are creating a brand andI would get really curious
around what that brand lookslike for you.
That question again, whatproblem are you solving is it's
my favorite one to ask becauseit, when we start to think of
(15:18):
that, we get really creative.
When we're creative, we canthink through all the things
that we want and what we wannabuild.
And so when you think about yourbook, think about the people who
are reading your book and thelives that you want to change.
Are you gonna solve worldhunger?
No.
But are you gonna changesomebody's life?
Possibly.
Is it gonna be a massive change?
I don't know.
(15:39):
But probably, you're gonna haveinfluence on them.
And so, I would really thinkabout who that person is.
And how do they spend their day?
What time do they wake up in themorning?
What do they do in theafternoon?
Do they drink coffee?
Do they not drink coffee?
Are they married?
Are they not married?
Do they have children?
Male, female all of thosequestions you need to answer
take into consideration todetermine what kind of brand
(16:01):
you're creating.
Once we have that, then reallyknowing what emails to send
becomes a lot easier.
So, we wanna create a balanceand a good cadence of emails
that provide a lot of value.
So, this would be reallycentered around the content that
you're, writing or creating
Allison (16:20):
Yeah.
Abby (16:21):
that you wanna have and we need to sell.
So, even if you're.
A year out or more from the booklaunching.
I still think it's important todo email marketing.
I don't know that you need to doas much as you will when you
launch your book and afterlaunch.
And also picture this.
What if you started now creatinga brand and really understanding
(16:43):
that ideal customer or idealreader providing value to them,
and you build an email list of athousand people.
And then you're continuing thoseconversations and building trust
and creating relationships.
Then you launch your book andyou have a thousand or let's
call it 20%, if 200 people whoare ready to buy your book.
(17:04):
Could you imagine having 200people just wanna buy when you
say it's ready?
That's the power that you haveby creating a brand, providing
value that it makes selling somuch easier and you don't have
to come out and say, please buymy book.
It's gonna be so great.
Nobody actually wants that.
You're gonna have alreadycreated a relationship and
established authority withinyour area of expertise that of
(17:26):
course they're gonna buy theirbook.
That's like a no brainer at thatpoint because they know and love
and trust you that the purchaseis easy and at that point.
You could sell anything.
So if you wanna leave yourcorporate job, or you wanna
leave what you're currentlydoing and eventually run this
brand full-time, you have theoption to do so because you have
(17:46):
a brand and an audiencesurrounding you.
And all it took was you justdeciding who you wanna work with
and what the value that youhave, and just talking to them.
So I would really focus on thatcadence of let's provide a lot
of value which comes fromunderstanding your customer and
your audience.
And then also we have to selland we have to send the ask.
(18:09):
And it can be very simple.
Some ways to get comfortablewith, providing the ask or the
offer is to ask them to go readsomething on a blog or click and
look through this gallery ofphotos.
Link here to go watch this videothat I thought was really
interesting.
Get them to go do something.
It doesn't have to be spendingmoney, but training them to go
(18:30):
do something from your emailswill be really great practice
for when it's time to actuallyspend money.
Allison (18:36):
Ooh, good tip.
Yikes.
Now, can you talk about thedifference between an email and
a newsletter?
Because a lot of people think, Iwanna provide value.
I think I'm going to, I'llstart, I'll have it be a
newsletter, and then it's long.
So, it's not one topic.
(18:56):
It's a couple of things indifferent sections.
And how should people use oneversus the other?
Abby (19:03):
yeah, great question.
Allison (19:04):
And please describe how they're different.
Abby (19:07):
Yeah.
I think you're saying I'll goover a few different kinds of
emails.
How about that?
Allison (19:11):
Yes.
Abby (19:12):
And I love and hate the word newsletter.
I sometimes call them campaignemails.
Allison (19:18):
Yeah.
Abby (19:18):
Have automation emails or funnels you've heard like
clickFunnels or Flows.
And so, there's two buckets.
You have the campaigns or thenewsletters that you create,
weekly, monthly, and send outmanually to most, if not all of
your list.
And then, you have automationsthat you build and you tell your
(19:39):
email platform who to send it toby from what behaviors they
exhibit.
Now, anyone who's brand new toemails, this is going to confuse
you and make you a littleoverwhelmed.
Don't worry about automationsyet, or hire somebody.
This is when you call me and youhire me to build out all the
backend automations.
Allison (20:00):
Yes.
Abby (20:00):
All the time.
We build it for you.
We work through your strategy,and then things are there in the
background.
An example of an automationwould be a welcome series, we
call it, which you've allsubscribed to probably hundreds
if not thousands of welcomeseries.
So, when you go to Hollister andyou are on their website looking
for something and something popsup and says, Hey, get 10% off or
(20:20):
20% off your next order, you putyour email in and then
automatically it gets an emailinto your inbox that says,
thanks for joining.
Here's your code.
That is the beginning of awelcome series that is on the
automation side.
And so, you can build that to bebasically a set it and forget
it.
That's already built andcreated, and it works for the
most part year round.
(20:41):
So there's some backendautomations that you'll want
based on behavior so that youdon't have to constantly be
managing it.
Then your campaigns or yournewsletters.
I love and hate the wordnewsletter because
Allison (20:53):
Me too.
Abby (20:53):
what that is.
So, I use that word a lot, butit also has this connotation
that.
It's just a bunch of texts on ascreen, all about the business
owner or the brand, and nothingto do with me, right?
As the consumer.
And so that's why we don't lovethe word newsletter.
Campaign emails.
(21:14):
Are similar.
And so really the core of anewsletter is just basically a
monthly, it could be weekly, itcould be quarterly consistent
communication.
That's what's going on with thebrand.
And depending on your audience,they might want that, they might
not.
So, you're gonna have to do sometesting.
If anyone knows anything aboutmarketing, it's a game of
testing.
So, know that you're going totry things and it's going to
(21:34):
fail, but you're going to learnsomething and then a adapt to
the next thing.
Other ways that we use campaignemails is to sell, right?
To showcase something and askfor a purchase.
So, newsletters, I'm trying tothink of your original questions
about newsletter.
I'm just kinda
Allison (21:50):
The thing is the email, an email can be you don't even
have to scroll down to see theend of it.
It's like a glimpse.
It's a couple lines.
It's even the email that I sendto let people know about this
episode, it's one topic and
Abby (22:09):
Yes.
Allison (22:10):
There might be a couple of buttons in there of listen
now or go here to watch onYouTube.
But it all goes to the samething.
Abby (22:20):
Yes.
Allison (22:21):
it might be two or three hot links, but they go to
the same place.
Abby (22:26):
Yeah.
Allison (22:27):
I've seen beautifully done newsletters, but they have
kind of sections of here'swhat's going on with me.
Here are the events I'll be at.
Here's a podcast I'm loving.
And no matter how beautiful theyare, or like musings on summer,
like I don't.
(22:48):
Email is not where I want to getthat kind of content from
someone.
And this is my personal thing,is when the someone does that,
they usually only send it once amonth.
So, it does feel like it'scomprehensive in a way that it
didn't need to be.
(23:08):
Like, why save up all yourmusings spoonfeed them to me.
I don't want one big entree.
I like, that's why everybodyloves chips and salsa'cause it's
just one,
Abby (23:22):
It's easy.
Allison (23:23):
chip at a time.
Like I don't want the platter ofenchiladas today.
Just chips and salsa is good.
So, you're think of emails asthe chips and salsa.
And a newsletter is like thetotal entree with the side of
WAC and the, and it's just somuch.
And oftentimes I'm thinking thatwould be good if you wanted to
(23:46):
start a substack, because thenpeople could lean in and know
that they're essentially askingfor an article or something
deeper or start a LinkedInnewsletter.
Abby (23:59):
Yep.
Allison (23:59):
Which is awesome'cause it's has so many SEO tools
behind it.
So, I highly recommend aLinkedIn newsletter.
Abby (24:07):
Yeah.
Allison (24:08):
The titles are SEO enabled.
But back to the email.
So, email versus newsletter is Ithink it's the biggest.
It's one of the two big problemsthat I see people have.
One is getting over the hump of,am I gonna send people emails?
Is two of what's the formatgoing to be?
And they think it has to besomething super substantial,
(24:32):
something small can besubstantial.
Abby (24:35):
Yes.
No, I love that.
And I love the analogy of chipsand salsa because you get just
full enough that you don't eatyour whole meal, and it
satisfies the craving and thehunger right then.
But you really can never getcompletely stuffed off of chips.
At least I can't.
I would highly recommend youremails be chips and salsa, and
if you have enough content for anewsletter that it's six
(24:55):
sections long, that should be atleast three emails.
So that's the good news is ifyou're gonna pack this
newsletter with seven differentsections and topics.
You actually probably justcreated three to five different
emails
Allison (25:12):
Yeah.
Abby (25:13):
don't have to even come up with anything for the month,
right?
Allison (25:16):
Yeah.
Abby (25:17):
I think if you have that much in your brain that you can
share every month, and you caneasily do email marketing.
And we want to give them enoughcontent that they're intrigued,
that they wanna click to dosomething else, but we don't
wanna overwhelm them.
Unless you have a very loyalaudience that is eating up
everything that you give them,they can never get full, then
(25:38):
sure.
Go ahead and give them an entreeevery time.
But I would agree there's otherplaces that you could do that.
And if you have an audience thatcaptivated, then you could be
monetizing that through Substackand have them pay to get that
content.
Especially those of you thathave a specific profession that
you have extreme knowledge in.
People wanna have access to thatand they don't wanna have to go
(26:00):
schedule an appointmentsomewhere to work one-on-one
with somebody for 30 minutes oran hour and pay, who knows how
much to get that informationwhen they would pay, 6 99 or
1299 or 20, whatever it is everymonth, to get that information
delivered straight to
Allison (26:13):
Right.
Abby (26:14):
Inbox, and it's a way that you can scale your brain, right?
So, if you're a neurosurgeon andyou have content that we all
need, and we need to learn aboutour brain, I mean, everyone
wants to know about their brainand learn more, and how can we
manage it now.
There's an opportunity where youcould really brain dump once a
month.
that over three to five emailsand send that out and you could
(26:36):
monetize it.
That analogy really is ifyou're, if you think that this
would be the whole enchilada,then take out 40 or of it and
just send the 40%.
Allison (26:48):
Yes.
I love the whole enchilada aswell.
Sometimes I just love the chipsand salsa.
Okay, you hinted at somethingand I wanna ask you, tell me
what to do'cause this is reallywhen we met, I actually sat in
on one of your workshops at theMom 2.0 Summit.
(27:10):
And I was in the room.
I came in late.
I was hobnobbing in the hallway.
And I came in late and I satdown and I heard you talk for
one minute and I was like, oh myGod, this woman is the tits.
You are the real deal.
You are the shizz.
You were lobbing prescriptive dothis, not that to everyone in
(27:36):
the room.
And the side conversations ofwait, what did she say?
Wait, I'm not supposed to dothat.
No, I don't.
I don't need to do, oh, like youwere blowing people's minds.
And these were people who knewabout email and they understood,
but they were, people need toknow a little bit more.
Abby (27:56):
Yeah.
Allison (27:56):
of the things that.
After I tackled you in thehallway and I was like, we have
to be friends.
And you said the way that youset up emails is you use images,
so you mentioned it before,using images.
But I find that it's not thewriting of the email that is the
(28:18):
difficult thing I can vomit intomy voice memo, look at the
transcript, edit that, and Ihave the text.
It's the putting it into my,email service provider and like
making it look good.
(28:38):
And you'd think cut and pasteAllison, right?
I do that.
I do cut and paste, but then nomatter what, the formatting is
weird or some of the words are adifferent size than the others,
even though I cut and paste froma Google Doc.
So, I don't understand whatgremlins are in the machine.
But you have a solution forthat.
(28:59):
So, please tell me and everyonewhat to do.
Abby (29:03):
Okay.
Yeah, I think I know what you'reasking so I'll give you how we
do it.
Allison (29:06):
Okay.
Abby (29:06):
Start by saying I am not a designer.
That's just not my creativetalent.
My creative talent comes in theform of calendaring and
scheduling and planning.
It's really fun for me, but thelike typical creative, what we
think about of these artists andbeing able to design stuff that
is not in my wheelhouse, whichis why I have a team and they do
all of that first for myclients.
(29:28):
But also I realize that's not astrength of mine.
And so, there is a power inhiring that out.
Do what you do best.
And for those that arelistening, what I'm knowing
about you is that you have anamazing brain and access to
knowledge and information thatyou wanna put out in the world.
I think you should stay in thatseat and there's a power in
hiring it out.
Being said, there's a couple ofplatforms, email sending
(29:50):
platforms that make it reallyeasy to design.
And they all come with pros andcons.
And so, I'll tell you one thatmakes it really easy to design,
but doesn't allow you to do alot of automations, and that's
okay when you're first starting.
So, flow desks, and you can putthis in the show notes,
F-L-O-D-E-S-K Flow desks is areally great platform that's so
easy to use and they havebeautiful, like 2025 version
(30:14):
templates that you can just goin, pick what looks like
beautiful to you and throw inyour content and you're good to
go.
So, that's one place to start.
When you're wanting to get intoa more robust platform something
like Klaviyo is what I love touse.
Their templates aren't as prettyso you can use them, but you're
gonna have to have an eye fordesign and I don't love their
(30:36):
templates.
And so, we create our emailsfrom scratch just in Canva.
And a lot of people know how touse Canva now.
The pro is like$13 a month.
It's very affordable.
You're gonna need it for yoursocial media, you're gonna need
it for everything else on Canvaand how we create emails is we
actually, we want to see thewhole email in Canva, what it's
gonna look like.
(30:56):
And we start with there's aratio already built in Canva for
the Instagram stories.
So, Instagram stories alreadyhas it created, and in the top
left corner, you can adjust thelength of that image it's super
long.
You start with that and you canstart to create your email in
(31:17):
Canva, they have a lot oftemplates and graphics they're
already created that you canuse.
And play with it and put yourcontent in.
And then, what we do is whereverthere's to put a button, so some
of the things that you want themto click, we now crop the image
to right under that button.
So, now what you'll have inCanva is several images long.
(31:42):
And then you upload all of thoseinto your email sending platform
and then once you upload it, itformats all really seamlessly so
you don't see the chop.
And then, every image that youupload, you can link to wherever
you wanted that button to link.
So, now you can have multiplelinks within a button.
Allison (31:58):
Okay.
I need you to slow down.
Abby (32:00):
I know.
I'm like, I need to write down atutorial.
Allison (32:03):
Yes, in fact.
Okay, so I have, I just openedCanva while we're talking.
'cause when you told me that mymind melted a little bit.
Abby (32:13):
Yeah.
Allison (32:13):
I'll tell you, I was like, oh my gosh, this makes it
so simple because I can copy andpaste my Google Doc into this
Instagram story, and you adjustthe length, so you make it like
3000 pixels instead of whateverit comes with.
(32:36):
And since the link is only gonnago to one place, you could just
have one image if you want.
Abby (32:44):
Yes, you could.
Especially if it's going to oneplace.
If you're wanting to link, iflet's say you're providing a
really great newsletter or acampaign email that's about
several different articles ofone topic.
And you want to link multiplethings, you're going to wanna be
able to chop things so that youcan link go to this article
here, go to this article here,and give them what they want.
So, they have multiple options,but.
(33:05):
If they're all going to oneplace, then don't worry about
any chopping.
Allison (33:10):
And so, when you do that.
When I tried that out, Irealized that you don't need to
allow for margins within theInstagram story because the
email itself has margins that.
Is because I of course, testedit and I was like, why is it so
(33:33):
small?
So, I have two questions thatare super practical.
When you do this, what size fontdo you use for the text in the
Instagram story?
Abby (33:47):
Good question.
Allison (33:49):
Okay.
Abby (33:50):
It might depend, and also keep in mind for us, we're
working with a lot of e-commercebrands.
And so there's not as much text,but there is some so that the
tech size will change based onthe design of the email.
So, let's trying to highlightsomething at the beginning,
Allison (34:06):
Yeah.
Abby (34:06):
Your first section is your hero banner or hero image that
can be larger.
And then, into the body of theemail that should be a little
bit smaller.
Allison (34:15):
Okay,
Abby (34:15):
I can see if there's a common text.
Allison (34:18):
So, while you're doing that, usually the default email
that pops up in my email serviceprovider will say that the
email, the default is 16 pointtype.
And it's San Serif, right?
So, when I did this in usingyour Canva Instagram story
(34:41):
formula, I made it 16 pointtype.
But when you import that imageit seems on the small side.
So, that's why I ask.
And second question, when youdownload those images from
Canva, what do you download themas?
Because I was downloading themas A JPEG or A PNG, and somehow
(35:03):
the text looks not as sharp,like a little fuzzy, so I think
I'm doing it wrong.
Abby (35:10):
Yes.
Okay.
I'm just pulling up one of ouremails and literally within one
small box, we have threedifferent sizes.
The solution to what size is totest it.
You can start with your 16, thenimport it, and there's a preview
link when you're creating anemail.
You should be able to preview itright on your screen.
(35:32):
You also can send yourself atest email, I believe they're
all free in every platform.
Allison (35:37):
Yeah.
Abby (35:37):
Even in your own email address and have it come in your
inbox and see how you like it.
Everyone's gonna have theirsettings a little different on
the consumer side.
So, they might have their fontsor really overall image will be
larger on somebody's phone ordesktop versus somebody else's.
So, I don't know that matters asmuch as long as it plays the
(36:00):
overall design and that it looksgood to you and you can read it.
Also, for example, a lot of myemployees are in their early
twenties, cute gals, and theywould send me an email and I
couldn't read it.
And I'm like, I feel like I'm inmy early twenties, but I'm not.
And I just realized it because Ican't read this.
So, just have maybe a second setof eyes on things and know who
your audience is.
(36:21):
If your audience is young, 20year olds, you might be able to
get away with smaller fonts.
If your audience is in theirfifties or older, they're gonna
want a larger font.
So, really have an exact number,I would play with what the
audience needs and how it lookson your phone and your desktop
or laptop.
Allison (36:38):
Ooh, that's a good tip.
Make sure you look at it on yourphone.
Abby (36:41):
Yes, and you can in Klaviyo, which is a really
robust email platform.
You can see the mobile version.
And in fact, a lot of platforms,you can see the mobile version.
Allison (36:49):
In Kajabi, you can do that too.
I love Kajabi.
Abby (36:51):
Good.
Yeah.
Kajabi is really great,especially if you're doing
courses.
Kajabi has a pretty decent emailplatform, so you can view that
in mobile.
You'll want to make sure you'reoptimized for mobile part most
audiences consume content ontheir phones.
I've had a few brands across theyears that you would think their
audience would be on theirphones would bet a million
(37:11):
dollars.
Their data says that they'reopening on their desktop, which
plays a whole story, right?
So, watch your data and youranalytics to see how that can
help you make decisions.
But for sure optimize for mobileto see how that looks on your
phone.
Allison (37:26):
Okay.
And then, the images from Canva,you download as what?
Abby (37:30):
So, you download as you should be able to do PNG.
But if it's giving you some sortof error on sizing, I would
download as an SVG.
Allison (37:39):
Oh, okay.
Abby (37:40):
You could try that.
And then, also sometimes whenyou download as SVG, you'll have
to resize, which you can easilydo on your computer.
You just change the sizing alittle bit, and then you can
upload.
So SVG or PNG should.
And I will double check with myoptimization specialist and see
if she recommends anythingdifferent.
And then I'll message you andyou can update the show notes.
Allison (38:01):
Thanks.
Yeah, I, that's the thing likeif you don't know all of the
little steps, you might stopbefore you get success.
So, I was like, oh I did a testwhere I put text directly into
the email platform.
Abby (38:17):
Yeah.
Allison (38:17):
Then, the same text that I had imported for with an
image from Canva and the textfrom the Canva image was a
little bit faded.
Abby (38:27):
Yeah.
Allison (38:27):
it wasn't as sharp.
Abby (38:29):
Yeah.
Allison (38:30):
And I thought maybe it has to do with the format that I
was downloading.
Abby (38:34):
Yeah, that could be it for sure.
I love the idea of testingnative texts in an email as
well.
Sometimes that will help withdeliverability.
And that's the thing.
We could spend hours talkingabout all the tiny things.
My recommendation for everyonelistening is just get started.
And everything in business isgoing to eventually be really
cringe.
That's you know what the coolkids are saying,
Allison (38:54):
Yeah.
Abby (38:54):
Look back and be like, why did I send that email that was
so cringe?
But you're gonna learnsomething, so just get started.
Even if you just get started andyou are sending text heavy
emails, at least you're gonnaget in the practice of sending
them and not feeling like you'rea bother.
People have asked to join youremail list.
They wanna hear from you.
Really build out what the valuethat you're providing to this
(39:15):
audience and what problem you'resolving.
And then, emails will be easy,and as you learn, you'll get
better.
And then as you grow, you'll endup hiring it out anyway.
And then, they'll worry aboutthe intricacies of email
marketing.
You did not write a book to bean email marketing expert.
You wrote a book to make changeand in influence.
(39:36):
So, stay in that seat andeventually hire out all the
experts.
Allison (39:40):
So smart and yes.
Now, I always ask this.
Abby (39:45):
Okay.
Allison (39:45):
What is a book that you are loving right now or that you
can't wait to read?
Abby (39:53):
Oh, okay.
Well, I will say for me, I readto like escape and I'm not into
like the fantasy dragon worldyet.
I'm curious, I'm intrigued, butI love a good romance and so I
read all of Colleen Hoover'sbooks.
And that has always really likefor me, honestly, like I used to
scroll social media to kind ofnumb or you know turn my brain
(40:16):
off.
And now, it's such a work thingfor me that I've really turned
away from that.
And reading has become my like,I've gotta reset my nervous
system and I'm going to read.
And so, I have had to have thesejust fun, like very probably
young adults, easy to readbooks.
Allison (40:30):
Yeah.
Abby (40:31):
That's been fun for me.
I read all of her books and thenI've moved on to a very similar
style, but I don't know theauthor and that is so unfair to
her.
She has at least I think fourbooks that I've read, three of
'em.
So, that's been fun.
Allison (40:43):
You could just tell me the name of them.
Abby (40:46):
Oh, ever mine.
And ever mine, like always mine.
There's is always a mine in it.
Allison (40:54):
It's the like small town romances, is it the Laura
Pavlov books?
Okay.
Abby (40:58):
It might be.
Allison (41:00):
Yeah, yeah, Yeah.
Yeah, Like he's a hockey goldenboy and I, you know, he's the
man I've avoided for years.
Yes, yes, Yes.
Abby (41:10):
Honey Mountain.
They live in Honey Mountain.
Allison (41:13):
Yeah.
Abby (41:14):
Yeah.
It's been really fun.
I'm like, wow, what a life.
Allison (41:18):
Yeah, I love it.
Oh my God, that's hilarious.
I wanna end this by just askingyou what is one thing that
everyone can do today to get ahold of their own email
marketing?
Abby (41:35):
I mean, I should say just send an email, but I do think it
begins.
Allison (41:39):
I just meet so many business owners who are like, I
don't even know where to start.
And where you start is not inthe email.
It's creating your idealcustomer and what problem you're
solving and use chat GPT andpour your soul out to it and
have it tell you what problemyou're solving and give you
ideas.
Abby (41:57):
And so, really utilize AI.
So, I would get really clear onthe value that you wanna provide
and the problem that you'resolving.
And then, emails become easy,and social media becomes easy.
Allison (42:07):
So true.
Abby, thank you so much forsprinkling your genius on us.
Like rays of sunshine, wedefinitely need it.
People overlook the tiny stepsthat actually can move you
forward.
And that's why people avoidemail.
'cause it's like, what?
(42:28):
I don't wanna get all thoseemails.
Well, you're not your reader.
Abby (42:31):
Yeah.
Allison (42:32):
Who cares what you like?
When someone raises their handand says, please send me some of
your genius.
Are you gonna be rude andwithhold that?
Don't be rude.
Be awesome.
Abby (42:44):
Yes.
Allison (42:44):
You have an edge here, and you are not bothering them.
If they're saying, please sharewith me, because that's what
they really want.
Ugh.
Abby (42:57):
We all need help.
We all need each other, and Ithink that's one thing I've
learned is that.
We all need each other.
And so, somebody out there needswhat information you have.
You already have thatinformation.
Other people don't and so youhave a gift that you need to
share with the world.
And they wanna know don't be ajerk and give us the info.
Give us the dets.
Allison (43:16):
Yeah, don't hold back.
Abby (43:18):
Yeah.
Allison (43:19):
Alright people, you can leave Hollister now.
And I know you've been sittinghiding in the corner you found a
place to sit'cause I don't knowif you realize, but stores in
the mall do not have any placesto sit.
So, you know where I sit on oneof the displays'cause screw you.
You know my daughter's gonna bein the changing room for a good
(43:40):
while and there's no place forthe mom, which is the person who
holds the credit card.
Okay?
If you are a store manager,please, a bench would be great.
Otherwise, I will be sittingright up front next to the jean
shorts.
You can leave that place now andknow that we are with you.
(44:03):
And if this episode is helpingyou in the least, please leave a
review and share the episodewith someone who needs it, or PS
someone whose emails you'relike, I like them, but maybe
they also could use this.
Abby (44:21):
Yes.
Allison (44:21):
Because
Abby (44:21):
everyone
Allison (44:22):
complains about email, but no one really knows the
answer.
And they think it's, oh I bundlemy work so that I can really dig
into the email writing likenobody wants to dig into the
email writing.
It sounds terrible.
Yuck.
No thank you.
Move on.
I will take the chips and salsaevery time.
Abby (44:43):
Every time.
Allison (44:44):
Every time.
Alright, I will see you nextweek.
In the meantime, please lean into your edge as an author.
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