September 18, 2025 • 29 mins
In this episode of Imperfect Marketing, I sit down with Zack Zeller, an expert in email marketing, AI, and copywriting. We dive into the evolving role of email as a marketing powerhouse—why it’s still one of the most effective strategies for businesses today and how to do it well.
Zack shares how his journey began by accident, sending daily emails to support his college’s fitness club (without the pizza bribes). From there, he built a thriving career working with major names like Jay Shetty, Jordan Belfort, and Agora, discovering firsthand the power of consistent, high-value email communication
.
The Power of Email Marketing
- Why email remains the single tactic that works for nearly every business
- How even a small list of 600 can generate $15,000 in a month
- Why sending three emails a week hits the sweet spot for most businesses
- The underrated role of email in building deep relationships versus the fast reach of social media
Using AI the Right Way
- Why AI can speed up content creation but can also push you backwards if misused
- The “dirty sponge” effect of repetitive, low-quality AI-driven content
- How Zack uses AI to track patterns, test subject lines, and refine campaigns
- Why real expertise, experience, and thought leadership must still shine through
Real Results from Real Campaigns
- A client with just 600 subscribers who saw $15K in sales in 30 days
- An agency owner whose daily emails turned $3K into $181K in just 90 days
- How nurturing leads over time (30, 60, 90+ days) consistently drives 4–5x more sales
Key Takeaways for Marketers
- Don’t fear being “salesy”—the problem is usually not enough marketing, not too much
- Email accelerates the know, like, and trust factor
- Consistency, case studies, and valuable insights are what make your emails worth opening
- The sales question changes from if they’ll buy to when they’ll buy
Whether you’re sending monthly newsletters or considering moving to three times a week, this episode will show you why email marketing is still the backbone of lasting success.
Are you ready to rethink how often and how well you’re showing up in inboxes? Tune in and discover why email may be the most valuable marketing channel you’re not fully leveraging yet.
Connect with Zack:
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/zackzeller22
Website: https://thisshouldntwork.com/test
Looking to leverage AI? Want better results? Want to think about what you want to leverage?
Check and see how I am using it for FREE on YouTube.
From "Holy cow, it can do that?" to "Wait, how does this work again?" – I've got all your AI curiosities covered. It's the perfect after-podcast snack for your tech-hungry brain.
Watch here
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, I'm Kendra Korman .
If you're a coach, consultantor marketer, you know marketing
is far from a perfect science,and that's why this show is
called Imperfect Marketing.
Join me and my guests as weexplore how to grow your
business with marketing tips and, of course, lessons learned
along the way.
Hello, and welcome back toanother episode of Imperfect
(00:27):
Marketing.
I'm your host, Kendra Korman,and today I am joined by Zach
Zeller.
He is an expert in emailmarketing one of my favorite
topics AI another one of myfavorite topics and copywriting,
which goes with both of those.
So welcome, zach.
Thank you so much for joiningme.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
So glad to be here.
Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
So how did you get started in all this?
Speaker 2 (00:52):
By accident.
So I'm a former engineer turneddigital marketer, because in
college I would buy a lot ofstuff from marketing emails and
at that time I was trying to runmy college's nutrition and
fitness club.
(01:12):
We didn't have a lot of money tobribe students with pizza
because it was new.
So I realized what if I justsend out a daily email to get
people to come to events andjoin us and all of that stuff?
So I ended up writing thatnewsletter for three years and
then started my own nutritioncoaching business, which I ran
(01:36):
that for about a year or two andit really didn't do anything.
So I started freelancing mymarketing stuff and that took
off or at least landed me $1,000worth of clients, which was
taking off for me back then andI moved from my parents' house
across the country to Arizonawhere I probably did not get any
(02:00):
clients for six months, but Iwas working the whole time A
member of like two masterminds,so paying about $6,000 a month
on the credit card every month.
And finally I started figuringa few things out and getting
some clients and working withbigger and bigger names, which
(02:21):
was really exciting and startedmy career in earnest.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
On the more successful side, I love that
story and it does take time forall of us to grow our businesses
, and I think that that'ssomething that people
underestimate is how much timeit's going to take to build.
But I do love that you useemail marketing because you
didn't have a budget for pizza,which we all know is the number
one draw for college students,right Free pizza.
(02:48):
So since you didn't have anyfree pizza, you were able to
grow with email marketing, andthat was even with college
students not that long ago.
So I think that that's reallyimportant to note, because I
feel like a lot of people thinkthat email marketing is
bothering people and it's notthat I think that I shouldn't
(03:08):
say that that's what people tellme.
If I find out that they don'thave an email list and they're
not sending regular emails, Ifind out it's because they think
that they're bothering peopleand they don't want to be salesy
and they think that that's badand I'm like but how am I going
to remember who you are and whatyou do unless you stay in front
of me?
And email is a fantastic way todo that, so I love it.
(03:31):
So let's talk about emailmarketing, because everybody
does it.
Now, right, I just read anarticle not too long ago that
said like even all these brandsare getting sub stacks, now too
that are sending email digests.
So how are you helping yourclients stand out and leverage
email marketing?
Speaker 2 (03:49):
biggest thing that we found is being valuable to
email, and so value is probablythe most overused word in
marketing and what I've seenjust sending tons of emails over
the past I don't even know 11years the most valuable thing
(04:11):
that you can send is tacticallyuseful information that's well
communicated.
So what's working right nowspecifically for clients is we
send about three emails a week,because I'll get to that in a
little bit, but for our goals,sending three emails a week
(04:31):
works really well.
We'd like to do one sort offlagship newsletter, and that
flagship newsletter we focus iton the best content the client
has.
So sometimes that means usingemail actually as a distribution
channel so we can send podcastsor YouTube videos or really
(04:56):
practically useful or engagingstories to the list, which gets
them opened, and then the secondhalf of the email becomes
almost a new email that tellspeople about our offers.
And then the other two touchpoints during the week.
I like to use case studies alot Because, in addition to
(05:19):
being tactically useful, one wayof doing that is demonstrating
your expertise, and the best wayof doing that is with a case
study example saying hey, Iliterally took someone from
point A to point B with thismethod and here's how we did it,
or here's a lesson from that.
And, of course, if you wantsimilar results, then I have
(05:43):
this offer, this book, thiscohort, this product that could
help you as well and you can getit here.
Or you could take the next stephere and then, typically, the
third piece is another casestudy or a second point at
distribution, and I really likeemail as a way to distribute
(06:04):
other content because of howmarketing works in this day and
age.
So I view it as just marketing,as a game of fences and ladders.
So a lot of people start withsocial media because that's not
a high fence to go over.
If you have a smartphone and anattention span of at least two
(06:27):
seconds, you are on social media.
That audience isn't just thefirst rung because it's so
accessible, but it's also, forthe business owner, the highest
frequency tool you have to reachpeople, meaning if you send.
(06:48):
Let's say we were sending maybetwo emails a day when I was
working with large lists of like400,000 people I'm working, if
anyone knows, agora Financiallike sending to big lists and
really sending them a lot ofemails.
We were doing about two emailsa day and that's pretty good
(07:11):
until you talk to someone likeGary Vee who promotes sending
100 pieces of content per week Adifferent game, because if you
can post, let's say, even twoInstagram reels a week, compared
to two emails a week, you canreach a much larger, even warm,
(07:33):
audience or totally brand newaudience and get them into your
world, compared to sending thoseemails.
The problem is a lot of thathigh frequency or reach that
you'll have on social media isjust starting the conversation
(07:57):
at the lowest level.
This activity of just gettingtons of top of funnel awareness
and reach and focusing on areally vague concept of brand
where people have tweets orhooks.
(08:18):
He has to someone knowing whyyou do what you do, a bit about
what it looks like to work withyou through your case studies
and spending more time with youthrough email, which is going to
be the slowest goal.
So people are going to spendmore time, give you more of
(08:42):
their attention, assuming thatyou're doing everything right
practically with the content.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
Yes, social media is fantastic.
Right, it is great for reach.
It is not building therelationships.
I view social media as a greattool to get people on my email
list.
That is its job, right Is toget people move from one point
to the other, and I think thatthere's so much value there.
(09:09):
And I love how you talked aboutthat.
Email is a little bit of a slowscroll.
People are spending more time.
Their email inbox is a lot morepersonal to them than their
social media feeds, right, soinviting you into their inbox is
special, right.
They don't want junk and Ithink that that's important.
(09:29):
So I had a heart attack when Iwent from one, and I'm a huge,
huge, huge proponent of emailmarketing.
I actually have two friendsthat I'm getting started on
email marketing this week, butit you know.
So I'm a huge fan.
I love it.
I had a heart attack when Imade myself go from monthly to
(09:50):
weekly because I knew I justwasn't staying top of mind
enough.
So tell me a little bit aboutwhy three times a week, I mean,
clearly, you have the content,you've got the case studies and
the information, which is great.
That's a lot isn't it?
Speaker 2 (10:06):
I mean, my perspective is based on when I
started, I was working withpeople who do a lot of volume of
marketing.
I've worked with Jay Shetty andJordan Belfort and Agora and a
lot of these big, big seveneight-figure info publishing,
info marketing type brands, andI don't just say that to name
(10:30):
drop, but just to share that thefrequency of email that you
send depends on the stage yourbusiness is at, and I say three
emails a week because there's Iwould say there's an opportunity
cost.
Yes, so I think of it this way.
Let's say, you go from notsending emails to sending emails
(10:52):
.
That's going to turn emailrevenue from zero to one.
It's like an infinite increasein revenue from email, which
sounds really good, especiallywhen you're an engineering nerd
like me who talks a lot aboutstats.
But you go and increase thatfrequency, it's going to take
(11:15):
you longer and longer to writethis content, or be more
expensive if you're hiring acopywriter or someone to work
with you on that, especially ifyou can speed it up using AI
tools and all that, but there'sstill going to be diminishing
returns.
So that's why I like speedemails a week, because it's
something that I know we can getquality information out for
(11:39):
people who are between like amillion to $3 million a year or
even kind of scaling as a oneperson business where there's
not necessarily things orpromotions or news happening
every day in the business, it'sa good sweet spot.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
So let's talk about quality content for just a hot
second here, because I thinkthere's a couple different
schools of people in the worldof content creation and AI has
become a cornerstone of thatdiscussion.
I'm a huge fan of AI.
Ai saves me 30 to 40 hours aweek on average.
I love it.
I could not live without itanymore.
(12:20):
I would totally freak if I lostit.
But there's a lot of people notusing it correctly, in my
opinion, and creating a bunch ofjunk.
They're not creating thatquality content.
What do you have to say aboutthat?
Or about those people that arejust using it to do what Gary
Vee is saying and put out 100pieces of content a week?
Speaker 2 (12:40):
The difference between really thinking from
first principles and followingtactics.
So tactically it makes sensethat the more content you put
out, the more surface area andchances you have of starting a
conversation and getting aclient and having a magical
transformation in your business.
But from first principles youcan't just put out the same
(13:08):
stuff, and the problem with AIis it's trained.
Not just that, it's trained onall the same data.
But AI is almost like a verygood employee in a legacy
business where it wants to stickto status quo.
(13:30):
It doesn't want to be wrong andit takes everything you ask
very literally.
So a lot of the time whathappens is you can model content
and get similar outputs, butthen your content sounds like
kind of the same thing over andover again and it's never going
(13:53):
to be as new as the first personwho says it.
So your content kind of becomeslike a dirty sponge where it's.
You know it was nice and cleanat first, but now the more you
use it it smells funny Likethere's dirt coming out of it
before you even clean anything.
It's not as effective and ifyou really want to create good
(14:17):
content you can use AI to dothat and move faster.
But if you don't have the rightdirection for your content to
go in, you're going to movefaster backwards and not have
that impact or results that youwant.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
I think that there's so much there that's worth
paying attention to.
But, yes, it's going to moveyou backwards if you're putting
out a bunch of junk.
Right, you've got to be addingthat value.
Yes, value is an overused word,like you said in the beginning,
because the first question Ihad when you were talking about
it was sending value and I waslike, what do you mean by value?
(14:55):
And then you answered it.
So that worked out.
But again, it needs to becontent that has your experience
, your expertise, beyond justyour voice, because I can make
AI sound like me all day long.
Right, it's got to have thatextra piece of content, that
(15:15):
differentiator, that thoughtpiece, right, and I think that
that's so important to talkabout.
So, how do you recommend peopleget started with AI?
Because you're using it, right.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
So I like AI, for I like it for the process part.
When I'm writing an email,there's four main pieces.
So first there's like let'sideate and we have a promotional
calendar, we know how muchmoney you want to make in the
month, here's the offers thatare going to fit into that, and
(15:48):
then, creatively, we need tocome up with the different hooks
and pieces that fit in there.
The second part is how are wegonna take that idea and express
it?
And that's like how can wewrite our first draft and then
create a second draft to makesure it's good and then review
(16:08):
the data to see, basically, howour testing on the hooks worked?
And that's really the power ofemail, where it's not just about
owning your audience, it's notjust about nurturing and this
retention-based marketingmarketing.
(16:37):
It's really the lowest cost andbiggest opportunity for you to
test new marketing angles inyour business.
Because if you were going tocreate a new sales letter or VSL
or run ads or do 100 outreachesto try and test a unique
selling proposition or a newoffer or whatever it may be
request a unique sellingproposition or a new offer or
whatever it may be that's goingto take a lot more time than
drafting up an email and saying,hey, would you like it?
(16:57):
I'm putting together XYZ, wouldyou want to join us or ask for
more information.
So with AI, the way that I useit is A aggregating and seeing
big patterns in the data so wecan track email, creatives,
subject lines, open rates,different formats of like hey,
(17:21):
we're sending to a YouTube video, we're sending direct to an
offer, whatever.
And feed that all into an AItool and just say, hey, what
patterns emerge, what's working,what's not working, so that we
can double down on behaviorally,like we did this.
Here's the data, what actuallyworks.
And I think a lot of peoplemiss that and they get stuck in
(17:43):
this marketing echo chambertalking to imaginary friends and
avatars of like oh, you know,if this guy, chris, is this kind
of person who would buy ourthing, like, how would that
conversation roll out?
But that's based off of, andimagine that conversation in
your head.
So I know I talked about a lotthere.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
No, yeah, no, a lot there, which is great, but no, I
think it's important.
I mean, email is a way to getquick response, right.
Especially if you have a largerlist, you're able to get a
decent sample size and see howthat reacts and you can test.
I mean, marketing is so muchexperimentation, right, it's
(18:26):
about testing and learning andexperimenting, which I think is
really important, so that'sfantastic.
Talk to me a little bit, becausewe probably have some people
listening that are like threetimes a week, again, still think
you're insane, right, I'm notmoving to three times a week.
If you're on my email list,don't worry about it, you're
still getting one a week.
Right, I'm not moving to threetimes a week.
If you're on my email list,don't worry about it, you're
still getting one a week.
For now, I've been thinkingabout getting a sub stack and
(18:48):
doing something more often, butwe'll see.
But that's, you know, on the todo list, that doesn't ever get
done.
So so let's, let's talk alittle bit about some of the
success that you've seen, right?
So, so, doing these morefrequent emails, leveraging
email marketing what are some ofthe success?
Can you share a case study,since you like those um, or an
(19:09):
example of something that thatyou've done um, so that that
we're more on team more often.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
Yeah, so actually all right.
So this is going to be a bigfailure and then a big success.
That's always good.
Well, because I had an agencywhere I was doing bulk on chat
closing for Instagram and it wasa big lift where we would
basically create all themarketing assets and you would
(19:44):
just post this content, we wouldget all the conversations in
chat and a full team would runthe sales process to sell your
stuff.
And that was with a.
I had a few partners in thatand they moved on to different
things and so did I.
So I was talking to a client andI said man, you've got a great
LinkedIn, I can create contentand we can get a bunch of sales
(20:07):
and that will be great.
So we did the first month andthen the second and the third,
but we got no leads.
And the way that I framed itbecause I was so confident is
well, there's a setup cost andthen we can just split the
revenue of sales that we get.
But if there's no revenue ofsales, I'm just writing content
(20:32):
for weeks on end.
And he's unhappy because he'snot getting anything going from
this as well.
So I told him well, let's testsending to your email list and I
didn't do this at first becausehis email list was super small
we had less than 600 people onit.
But that first month we madeover $15,000 because of these
(20:56):
emails that we were sending thatwere much more than just little
updates or thought leadershipstuff.
And we've been working togetherfor the past two plus years now
because it just keeps workingand his list keeps growing and
he gets very excited about that.
But it's really like email issuch a powerful thing that if
(21:16):
you have, even if you just have600 people on your list, even if
you just have 600 people onyour list, those relationships
can really turn into a lot ofbusiness for you.
I mean, I can't fit 600 peoplein my house.
That's a huge amount of peoplein real life.
A similar story was an agencyowner.
(21:38):
I was working with this guy,jason Wojo, who has an amazing
Facebook ads agency and he wasspending a ton on Facebook ads
for himself but he never reallymessaged his email list.
I think a big piece of it isnot because he didn't want to
bother people, just that hedidn't have the time to.
And I came in, we startedsending emails.
(22:02):
I came in, we started sendingemails actually every day,
because he had like 13,000people on his list and in the
first month we went from, hiscontrol was $3,000.
We hit just over 17.
And we continued doubling thatevery month and in our first 90
days we got $181,000 of salesjust from email, just attributed
(22:26):
from email traffic.
And so it's such a powerfulthing Because a lot of the time
people on your email list theydon't get there by accident On
social maybe they give you alike because you made them laugh
or because they think you'recute or whatever it is.
But people on your email listtypically opt in and they're in
market or interested in what youhave to say, and so if you
(22:50):
continue sending to people, thenthey're going to buy from you.
I mean, that's a pattern I'veseen again and again and again.
I was working with a client whotrains solar salesmen to kind
of start their own businessesand they give them this is super
smart You're going to love thisthat they give them a list of
(23:13):
60-day-old leads, because60-day-old leads no one wants
those.
They're super cheap and it's agreat value add for the offer.
No one wants those.
They're super cheap and it's agreat value add for the offer,
but those 60-day leads convertreally well because everyone
stops talking to the leads bythat point.
But if you're installing solaryou might need those two months
(23:36):
because maybe it's winter,you're not going to get solar
done.
Time passes, maybe it's a moneything.
They need two weeks to get somecash or to figure things out.
Whatever the case may be, ifyou talk to people over time
over 30, 60, 90, even emailingpeople up to two years I've seen
(24:01):
just anecdotally on severallists you're going to get four
to five times more sales overthat amount of time versus just
hoping people close within thefirst 30 days of talking to you
on the phone.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
It's about relationships, right.
I mean, in marketing, we talkall about the no like and trust
factor.
That's huge and email speedsthat up.
People feel like they know theybegin to like you if they like
your emails.
If they don't, they're not yourtarget audience, right, and
they begin to trust you,especially when you're
consistent and sending regularly.
(24:35):
I think that that is just.
It's so important, it's soundervalued.
I had a conversation withsomebody the other day and he's
like, hey, I'm looking for a newsalesperson.
I'm like, no, you're not.
He's like yeah, yeah.
I'm like no, I'm like when youstart email and stay on top of
mind with everybody else thatyou're networking with, you've
(24:57):
got a huge network.
When you're able to stay on topof mind with those people and
then still need more sales, thenbring in a salesperson.
But until you've got emailturned on, you can't say you
need a salesperson because youdon't need a salesperson.
You don't need someone goingout, you just need to harvest
what you've got already.
Right, because he's got a longsales cycle.
(25:20):
So keep talking to people,because you never know when it
is that they're going to comeback and market and I think that
that's just.
There's so much there, so muchthere and I love, love, love,
love our conversation and I lovethat you're pro email and
you're younger than me, so it'snot dead and it works.
Trust us, we promise, wepromise, promise, promise.
(25:40):
Email marketing, I think, isthe one tactic.
I haven't found a business ororganization that hasn't been
able to leverage it successfully.
It's the one tactic right thatI believe almost every business
needs.
I won't say that about everytactic or every organization,
(26:03):
except for email, because it isthat powerful and I really
appreciate the time that youtook to talk to us about that
today, zach.
So, but before I let you go, Ido need to ask you the question
that I ask all of my guests, andthat is this show is called
Imperfect Marketing, becausemarketing is anything but a
perfect science.
What has been your biggestmarketing lesson learned?
Speaker 2 (26:24):
Yeah, I would say so.
You know how a lot of businessowners don't like feeling salesy
.
The biggest lesson I've learnedis they feel that way because
they're not spending enough timefeeling markety.
Meaning if you're trying to getsomeone to go from just talking
(26:45):
to you to buying in one or twocalls, you can cover that same
amount of ground by takingpeople from A to B, B to C, C,
all the way to Z with yourmarketing and we talked about
how email is one way of doingthat with your marketing, and we
talked about how email is oneway of doing that.
(27:07):
But if you can focus onstarting conversations,
continuing those conversations,the sales game changes from a
matter of if they'll buy to justa matter of when they'll buy.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
Yeah, no, that's great.
So I think, yes, it goes fromif to when, and if you're
showing up in their inbox, thatwhen is going to be much more
timely.
I talk about this all the time.
I get emails from people,replies to my email newsletter.
The reply has nothing to dowith what my email newsletter
was about, right.
(27:37):
Half the time it's somethingjust crazy and off the wall,
right.
That's like hey, I've beenmeaning to reach out to you
about this and I didn't eventalk about that in the email,
right.
But again, it kept me top ofmind.
They didn't even read the email, they just saw my name,
remembered that they had toreach out to me, remembered what
I did and did the outreachthere's again.
(28:00):
I'm such a big fan of emailmarketing.
I think that there's again.
I'm such a big fan of emailmarketing.
I think that there's so muchthere.
I know that we'll have ways toreach Zach in the show notes and
the YouTube description, so besure to check that out and
connect with him.
Zach is also writingghostwriting short books for
people.
I know that I have written ashort book myself.
(28:21):
You can see my book over there.
They add so much value and giveyou so much authority off the
gate that, if you're interestedin talking to them about that
too, we'll have some of thatinformation in the show notes
also.
Thank you again, zach, so muchfor your time.
I really appreciate it Forthose of you listening and
(28:42):
watching.
If you learned something todayand I hope that you did it would
really help us out if you wouldrate and subscribe wherever
you're listening or watching.
Until next time, have a greatrest of your day.
Hi, I'm Kendra Korman .
If you're a coach, consultantor marketer, you know marketing
is far from a perfect science,and that's why this show is
called Imperfect Marketing.
Join me and my guests as weexplore how to grow your
business with marketing tips and, of course, lessons learned
along the way.
Hello, and welcome back toanother episode of Imperfect
(00:27):
Marketing.
I'm your host, Kendra Korman,and today I am joined by Zach
Zeller.
He is an expert in emailmarketing one of my favorite
topics AI another one of myfavorite topics and copywriting,
which goes with both of those.
So welcome, zach.
Thank you so much for joiningme.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
So glad to be here.
Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
So how did you get started in all this?
Speaker 2 (00:52):
By accident.
So I'm a former engineer turneddigital marketer, because in
college I would buy a lot ofstuff from marketing emails and
at that time I was trying to runmy college's nutrition and
fitness club.
(01:12):
We didn't have a lot of money tobribe students with pizza
because it was new.
So I realized what if I justsend out a daily email to get
people to come to events andjoin us and all of that stuff?
So I ended up writing thatnewsletter for three years and
then started my own nutritioncoaching business, which I ran
(01:36):
that for about a year or two andit really didn't do anything.
So I started freelancing mymarketing stuff and that took
off or at least landed me $1,000worth of clients, which was
taking off for me back then andI moved from my parents' house
across the country to Arizonawhere I probably did not get any
(02:00):
clients for six months, but Iwas working the whole time A
member of like two masterminds,so paying about $6,000 a month
on the credit card every month.
And finally I started figuringa few things out and getting
some clients and working withbigger and bigger names, which
(02:21):
was really exciting and startedmy career in earnest.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
On the more successful side, I love that
story and it does take time forall of us to grow our businesses
, and I think that that'ssomething that people
underestimate is how much timeit's going to take to build.
But I do love that you useemail marketing because you
didn't have a budget for pizza,which we all know is the number
one draw for college students,right Free pizza.
(02:48):
So since you didn't have anyfree pizza, you were able to
grow with email marketing, andthat was even with college
students not that long ago.
So I think that that's reallyimportant to note, because I
feel like a lot of people thinkthat email marketing is
bothering people and it's notthat I think that I shouldn't
(03:08):
say that that's what people tellme.
If I find out that they don'thave an email list and they're
not sending regular emails, Ifind out it's because they think
that they're bothering peopleand they don't want to be salesy
and they think that that's badand I'm like but how am I going
to remember who you are and whatyou do unless you stay in front
of me?
And email is a fantastic way todo that, so I love it.
(03:31):
So let's talk about emailmarketing, because everybody
does it.
Now, right, I just read anarticle not too long ago that
said like even all these brandsare getting sub stacks, now too
that are sending email digests.
So how are you helping yourclients stand out and leverage
email marketing?
Speaker 2 (03:49):
biggest thing that we found is being valuable to
email, and so value is probablythe most overused word in
marketing and what I've seenjust sending tons of emails over
the past I don't even know 11years the most valuable thing
(04:11):
that you can send is tacticallyuseful information that's well
communicated.
So what's working right nowspecifically for clients is we
send about three emails a week,because I'll get to that in a
little bit, but for our goals,sending three emails a week
(04:31):
works really well.
We'd like to do one sort offlagship newsletter, and that
flagship newsletter we focus iton the best content the client
has.
So sometimes that means usingemail actually as a distribution
channel so we can send podcastsor YouTube videos or really
(04:56):
practically useful or engagingstories to the list, which gets
them opened, and then the secondhalf of the email becomes
almost a new email that tellspeople about our offers.
And then the other two touchpoints during the week.
I like to use case studies alot Because, in addition to
(05:19):
being tactically useful, one wayof doing that is demonstrating
your expertise, and the best wayof doing that is with a case
study example saying hey, Iliterally took someone from
point A to point B with thismethod and here's how we did it,
or here's a lesson from that.
And, of course, if you wantsimilar results, then I have
(05:43):
this offer, this book, thiscohort, this product that could
help you as well and you can getit here.
Or you could take the next stephere and then, typically, the
third piece is another casestudy or a second point at
distribution, and I really likeemail as a way to distribute
(06:04):
other content because of howmarketing works in this day and
age.
So I view it as just marketing,as a game of fences and ladders.
So a lot of people start withsocial media because that's not
a high fence to go over.
If you have a smartphone and anattention span of at least two
(06:27):
seconds, you are on social media.
That audience isn't just thefirst rung because it's so
accessible, but it's also, forthe business owner, the highest
frequency tool you have to reachpeople, meaning if you send.
(06:48):
Let's say we were sending maybetwo emails a day when I was
working with large lists of like400,000 people I'm working, if
anyone knows, agora Financiallike sending to big lists and
really sending them a lot ofemails.
We were doing about two emailsa day and that's pretty good
(07:11):
until you talk to someone likeGary Vee who promotes sending
100 pieces of content per week Adifferent game, because if you
can post, let's say, even twoInstagram reels a week, compared
to two emails a week, you canreach a much larger, even warm,
(07:33):
audience or totally brand newaudience and get them into your
world, compared to sending thoseemails.
The problem is a lot of thathigh frequency or reach that
you'll have on social media isjust starting the conversation
(07:57):
at the lowest level.
This activity of just gettingtons of top of funnel awareness
and reach and focusing on areally vague concept of brand
where people have tweets orhooks.
(08:18):
He has to someone knowing whyyou do what you do, a bit about
what it looks like to work withyou through your case studies
and spending more time with youthrough email, which is going to
be the slowest goal.
So people are going to spendmore time, give you more of
(08:42):
their attention, assuming thatyou're doing everything right
practically with the content.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
Yes, social media is fantastic.
Right, it is great for reach.
It is not building therelationships.
I view social media as a greattool to get people on my email
list.
That is its job, right Is toget people move from one point
to the other, and I think thatthere's so much value there.
(09:09):
And I love how you talked aboutthat.
Email is a little bit of a slowscroll.
People are spending more time.
Their email inbox is a lot morepersonal to them than their
social media feeds, right, soinviting you into their inbox is
special, right.
They don't want junk and Ithink that that's important.
(09:29):
So I had a heart attack when Iwent from one, and I'm a huge,
huge, huge proponent of emailmarketing.
I actually have two friendsthat I'm getting started on
email marketing this week, butit you know.
So I'm a huge fan.
I love it.
I had a heart attack when Imade myself go from monthly to
(09:50):
weekly because I knew I justwasn't staying top of mind
enough.
So tell me a little bit aboutwhy three times a week, I mean,
clearly, you have the content,you've got the case studies and
the information, which is great.
That's a lot isn't it?
Speaker 2 (10:06):
I mean, my perspective is based on when I
started, I was working withpeople who do a lot of volume of
marketing.
I've worked with Jay Shetty andJordan Belfort and Agora and a
lot of these big, big seveneight-figure info publishing,
info marketing type brands, andI don't just say that to name
(10:30):
drop, but just to share that thefrequency of email that you
send depends on the stage yourbusiness is at, and I say three
emails a week because there's Iwould say there's an opportunity
cost.
Yes, so I think of it this way.
Let's say, you go from notsending emails to sending emails
(10:52):
.
That's going to turn emailrevenue from zero to one.
It's like an infinite increasein revenue from email, which
sounds really good, especiallywhen you're an engineering nerd
like me who talks a lot aboutstats.
But you go and increase thatfrequency, it's going to take
(11:15):
you longer and longer to writethis content, or be more
expensive if you're hiring acopywriter or someone to work
with you on that, especially ifyou can speed it up using AI
tools and all that, but there'sstill going to be diminishing
returns.
So that's why I like speedemails a week, because it's
something that I know we can getquality information out for
(11:39):
people who are between like amillion to $3 million a year or
even kind of scaling as a oneperson business where there's
not necessarily things orpromotions or news happening
every day in the business, it'sa good sweet spot.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
So let's talk about quality content for just a hot
second here, because I thinkthere's a couple different
schools of people in the worldof content creation and AI has
become a cornerstone of thatdiscussion.
I'm a huge fan of AI.
Ai saves me 30 to 40 hours aweek on average.
I love it.
I could not live without itanymore.
(12:20):
I would totally freak if I lostit.
But there's a lot of people notusing it correctly, in my
opinion, and creating a bunch ofjunk.
They're not creating thatquality content.
What do you have to say aboutthat?
Or about those people that arejust using it to do what Gary
Vee is saying and put out 100pieces of content a week?
Speaker 2 (12:40):
The difference between really thinking from
first principles and followingtactics.
So tactically it makes sensethat the more content you put
out, the more surface area andchances you have of starting a
conversation and getting aclient and having a magical
transformation in your business.
But from first principles youcan't just put out the same
(13:08):
stuff, and the problem with AIis it's trained.
Not just that, it's trained onall the same data.
But AI is almost like a verygood employee in a legacy
business where it wants to stickto status quo.
(13:30):
It doesn't want to be wrong andit takes everything you ask
very literally.
So a lot of the time whathappens is you can model content
and get similar outputs, butthen your content sounds like
kind of the same thing over andover again and it's never going
(13:53):
to be as new as the first personwho says it.
So your content kind of becomeslike a dirty sponge where it's.
You know it was nice and cleanat first, but now the more you
use it it smells funny Likethere's dirt coming out of it
before you even clean anything.
It's not as effective and ifyou really want to create good
(14:17):
content you can use AI to dothat and move faster.
But if you don't have the rightdirection for your content to
go in, you're going to movefaster backwards and not have
that impact or results that youwant.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
I think that there's so much there that's worth
paying attention to.
But, yes, it's going to moveyou backwards if you're putting
out a bunch of junk.
Right, you've got to be addingthat value.
Yes, value is an overused word,like you said in the beginning,
because the first question Ihad when you were talking about
it was sending value and I waslike, what do you mean by value?
(14:55):
And then you answered it.
So that worked out.
But again, it needs to becontent that has your experience
, your expertise, beyond justyour voice, because I can make
AI sound like me all day long.
Right, it's got to have thatextra piece of content, that
(15:15):
differentiator, that thoughtpiece, right, and I think that
that's so important to talkabout.
So, how do you recommend peopleget started with AI?
Because you're using it, right.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
So I like AI, for I like it for the process part.
When I'm writing an email,there's four main pieces.
So first there's like let'sideate and we have a promotional
calendar, we know how muchmoney you want to make in the
month, here's the offers thatare going to fit into that, and
(15:48):
then, creatively, we need tocome up with the different hooks
and pieces that fit in there.
The second part is how are wegonna take that idea and express
it?
And that's like how can wewrite our first draft and then
create a second draft to makesure it's good and then review
(16:08):
the data to see, basically, howour testing on the hooks worked?
And that's really the power ofemail, where it's not just about
owning your audience, it's notjust about nurturing and this
retention-based marketingmarketing.
(16:37):
It's really the lowest cost andbiggest opportunity for you to
test new marketing angles inyour business.
Because if you were going tocreate a new sales letter or VSL
or run ads or do 100 outreachesto try and test a unique
selling proposition or a newoffer or whatever it may be
request a unique sellingproposition or a new offer or
whatever it may be that's goingto take a lot more time than
drafting up an email and saying,hey, would you like it?
(16:57):
I'm putting together XYZ, wouldyou want to join us or ask for
more information.
So with AI, the way that I useit is A aggregating and seeing
big patterns in the data so wecan track email, creatives,
subject lines, open rates,different formats of like hey,
(17:21):
we're sending to a YouTube video, we're sending direct to an
offer, whatever.
And feed that all into an AItool and just say, hey, what
patterns emerge, what's working,what's not working, so that we
can double down on behaviorally,like we did this.
Here's the data, what actuallyworks.
And I think a lot of peoplemiss that and they get stuck in
(17:43):
this marketing echo chambertalking to imaginary friends and
avatars of like oh, you know,if this guy, chris, is this kind
of person who would buy ourthing, like, how would that
conversation roll out?
But that's based off of, andimagine that conversation in
your head.
So I know I talked about a lotthere.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
No, yeah, no, a lot there, which is great, but no, I
think it's important.
I mean, email is a way to getquick response, right.
Especially if you have a largerlist, you're able to get a
decent sample size and see howthat reacts and you can test.
I mean, marketing is so muchexperimentation, right, it's
(18:26):
about testing and learning andexperimenting, which I think is
really important, so that'sfantastic.
Talk to me a little bit, becausewe probably have some people
listening that are like threetimes a week, again, still think
you're insane, right, I'm notmoving to three times a week.
If you're on my email list,don't worry about it, you're
still getting one a week.
Right, I'm not moving to threetimes a week.
If you're on my email list,don't worry about it, you're
still getting one a week.
For now, I've been thinkingabout getting a sub stack and
(18:48):
doing something more often, butwe'll see.
But that's, you know, on the todo list, that doesn't ever get
done.
So so let's, let's talk alittle bit about some of the
success that you've seen, right?
So, so, doing these morefrequent emails, leveraging
email marketing what are some ofthe success?
Can you share a case study,since you like those um, or an
(19:09):
example of something that thatyou've done um, so that that
we're more on team more often.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
Yeah, so actually all right.
So this is going to be a bigfailure and then a big success.
That's always good.
Well, because I had an agencywhere I was doing bulk on chat
closing for Instagram and it wasa big lift where we would
basically create all themarketing assets and you would
(19:44):
just post this content, we wouldget all the conversations in
chat and a full team would runthe sales process to sell your
stuff.
And that was with a.
I had a few partners in thatand they moved on to different
things and so did I.
So I was talking to a client andI said man, you've got a great
LinkedIn, I can create contentand we can get a bunch of sales
(20:07):
and that will be great.
So we did the first month andthen the second and the third,
but we got no leads.
And the way that I framed itbecause I was so confident is
well, there's a setup cost andthen we can just split the
revenue of sales that we get.
But if there's no revenue ofsales, I'm just writing content
(20:32):
for weeks on end.
And he's unhappy because he'snot getting anything going from
this as well.
So I told him well, let's testsending to your email list and I
didn't do this at first becausehis email list was super small
we had less than 600 people onit.
But that first month we madeover $15,000 because of these
(20:56):
emails that we were sending thatwere much more than just little
updates or thought leadershipstuff.
And we've been working togetherfor the past two plus years now
because it just keeps workingand his list keeps growing and
he gets very excited about that.
But it's really like email issuch a powerful thing that if
(21:16):
you have, even if you just have600 people on your list, even if
you just have 600 people onyour list, those relationships
can really turn into a lot ofbusiness for you.
I mean, I can't fit 600 peoplein my house.
That's a huge amount of peoplein real life.
A similar story was an agencyowner.
(21:38):
I was working with this guy,jason Wojo, who has an amazing
Facebook ads agency and he wasspending a ton on Facebook ads
for himself but he never reallymessaged his email list.
I think a big piece of it isnot because he didn't want to
bother people, just that hedidn't have the time to.
And I came in, we startedsending emails.
(22:02):
I came in, we started sendingemails actually every day,
because he had like 13,000people on his list and in the
first month we went from, hiscontrol was $3,000.
We hit just over 17.
And we continued doubling thatevery month and in our first 90
days we got $181,000 of salesjust from email, just attributed
(22:26):
from email traffic.
And so it's such a powerfulthing Because a lot of the time
people on your email list theydon't get there by accident On
social maybe they give you alike because you made them laugh
or because they think you'recute or whatever it is.
But people on your email listtypically opt in and they're in
market or interested in what youhave to say, and so if you
(22:50):
continue sending to people, thenthey're going to buy from you.
I mean, that's a pattern I'veseen again and again and again.
I was working with a client whotrains solar salesmen to kind
of start their own businessesand they give them this is super
smart You're going to love thisthat they give them a list of
(23:13):
60-day-old leads, because60-day-old leads no one wants
those.
They're super cheap and it's agreat value add for the offer.
No one wants those.
They're super cheap and it's agreat value add for the offer,
but those 60-day leads convertreally well because everyone
stops talking to the leads bythat point.
But if you're installing solaryou might need those two months
(23:36):
because maybe it's winter,you're not going to get solar
done.
Time passes, maybe it's a moneything.
They need two weeks to get somecash or to figure things out.
Whatever the case may be, ifyou talk to people over time
over 30, 60, 90, even emailingpeople up to two years I've seen
(24:01):
just anecdotally on severallists you're going to get four
to five times more sales overthat amount of time versus just
hoping people close within thefirst 30 days of talking to you
on the phone.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
It's about relationships, right.
I mean, in marketing, we talkall about the no like and trust
factor.
That's huge and email speedsthat up.
People feel like they know theybegin to like you if they like
your emails.
If they don't, they're not yourtarget audience, right, and
they begin to trust you,especially when you're
consistent and sending regularly.
(24:35):
I think that that is just.
It's so important, it's soundervalued.
I had a conversation withsomebody the other day and he's
like, hey, I'm looking for a newsalesperson.
I'm like, no, you're not.
He's like yeah, yeah.
I'm like no, I'm like when youstart email and stay on top of
mind with everybody else thatyou're networking with, you've
(24:57):
got a huge network.
When you're able to stay on topof mind with those people and
then still need more sales, thenbring in a salesperson.
But until you've got emailturned on, you can't say you
need a salesperson because youdon't need a salesperson.
You don't need someone goingout, you just need to harvest
what you've got already.
Right, because he's got a longsales cycle.
(25:20):
So keep talking to people,because you never know when it
is that they're going to comeback and market and I think that
that's just.
There's so much there, so muchthere and I love, love, love,
love our conversation and I lovethat you're pro email and
you're younger than me, so it'snot dead and it works.
Trust us, we promise, wepromise, promise, promise.
(25:40):
Email marketing, I think, isthe one tactic.
I haven't found a business ororganization that hasn't been
able to leverage it successfully.
It's the one tactic right thatI believe almost every business
needs.
I won't say that about everytactic or every organization,
(26:03):
except for email, because it isthat powerful and I really
appreciate the time that youtook to talk to us about that
today, zach.
So, but before I let you go, Ido need to ask you the question
that I ask all of my guests, andthat is this show is called
Imperfect Marketing, becausemarketing is anything but a
perfect science.
What has been your biggestmarketing lesson learned?
Speaker 2 (26:24):
Yeah, I would say so.
You know how a lot of businessowners don't like feeling salesy
.
The biggest lesson I've learnedis they feel that way because
they're not spending enough timefeeling markety.
Meaning if you're trying to getsomeone to go from just talking
(26:45):
to you to buying in one or twocalls, you can cover that same
amount of ground by takingpeople from A to B, B to C, C,
all the way to Z with yourmarketing and we talked about
how email is one way of doingthat with your marketing, and we
talked about how email is oneway of doing that.
(27:07):
But if you can focus onstarting conversations,
continuing those conversations,the sales game changes from a
matter of if they'll buy to justa matter of when they'll buy.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
Yeah, no, that's great.
So I think, yes, it goes fromif to when, and if you're
showing up in their inbox, thatwhen is going to be much more
timely.
I talk about this all the time.
I get emails from people,replies to my email newsletter.
The reply has nothing to dowith what my email newsletter
was about, right.
(27:37):
Half the time it's somethingjust crazy and off the wall,
right.
That's like hey, I've beenmeaning to reach out to you
about this and I didn't eventalk about that in the email,
right.
But again, it kept me top ofmind.
They didn't even read the email, they just saw my name,
remembered that they had toreach out to me, remembered what
I did and did the outreachthere's again.
(28:00):
I'm such a big fan of emailmarketing.
I think that there's again.
I'm such a big fan of emailmarketing.
I think that there's so muchthere.
I know that we'll have ways toreach Zach in the show notes and
the YouTube description, so besure to check that out and
connect with him.
Zach is also writingghostwriting short books for
people.
I know that I have written ashort book myself.
(28:21):
You can see my book over there.
They add so much value and giveyou so much authority off the
gate that, if you're interestedin talking to them about that
too, we'll have some of thatinformation in the show notes
also.
Thank you again, zach, so muchfor your time.
I really appreciate it Forthose of you listening and
(28:42):
watching.
If you learned something todayand I hope that you did it would
really help us out if you wouldrate and subscribe wherever
you're listening or watching.
Until next time, have a greatrest of your day.
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