August 19, 2025 • 24 mins
Are your emails getting lost in crowded inboxes? After years of helping creators leverage their podcasts and YouTube channels to build thriving email lists, I've identified five common mistakes that can drastically hurt your open rates and connection with your audience.
The first mistake is launching email marketing without clear goals. You need to understand why you're building your list—whether for sponsorships, product launches, or community building. For me, consistent weekly emails serve as a vital touchpoint that fosters lasting relationships.
Another key area to focus on is your subject lines, which are often treated as an afterthought yet are crucial for engagement. I recommend generating multiple options for every email and even testing them with AI tools to find the one that will intrigue your audience the most.
Also, be cautious about over-relying on AI to craft your emails. While tools like ChatGPT can assist, outsourcing your voice can lead to generic messages. I've had success in creating authentic communication by starting with handwritten notes to maintain a personal touch.
Lastly, every email should include a clear call to action, guiding readers on what steps to take next. Simple engagement tactics, like encouraging replies, can foster deeper connections. Additionally, tracking your email performance is essential. By understanding your baseline metrics and experimenting with improvements, including consistent sending times, you’ll see a significant boost in your open rates. Ready to transform your email strategy? Grab our free PREP'M Method guide at krystalproffitt.com/prepm to get started.
Ready to stop starting projects and never finishing them? Get the proven system that creates consistent content without the chaos. Get the PREP'M Method Now
Click the "Send Krystal a Text Message" link above to send us your questions, comments, and feedback on the show! (Pssst...we'll do giveaways in upcoming episodes so make sure you leave your name & podcast title.)
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Krystal Proffitt (00:00):
So, after years of helping creators use
their podcast and YouTube togrow their email list, I see
these mistakes all the time andI want to make sure that you're
not making these same mistakes,because even just one of them
just one can kill your openrates and make it so much harder
(00:22):
for you to grow your content,have a bigger impact with your
customers and the business thatyou're trying to grow.
So let's talk about thosemistakes and make sure that
you're not making them.
So today we're going to walkthrough the top mistakes that I
see all the time, how to avoidthem and how you can actually
implement strategies that willhelp you save time, make more
(00:44):
money and have a bigger impact.
So let's get right to it.
Welcome to the Profit Podcast,where we teach you how to start,
launch and market your contentwith confidence.
I'm your host, crystal Profit,and I'm so excited that you're
here.
Thanks for hanging out with metoday, because if you've been
trying to figure out the worldof content creation, this is the
(01:05):
show that will help be yourtime-saving shortcut.
So let's get right to it, shallwe?
So we're just going to diveright into.
Mistake number one is you'retrying to send emails or grow an
email list with no clear goalsfor why you're writing these
(01:25):
emails.
So you've probably heard allover the internet you need an
email list, you need to lookinto email marketing, you need
to learn email marketing.
You need to spend thousands ofdollars on courses to learn
email marketing.
But let me give you just thetwo seconds.
That you really need to know iswhat is your goal?
That's what you need to figureout.
You don't need to go buyanother book.
(01:46):
Read more blogs, watch moreYouTube videos all about email
marketing.
You just need to know what isyour goal.
What are you trying to do?
And if you don't know, thenthat's the first thing you have
to figure out.
So I always tell people whenthey come to me with their
content.
They're like Crystal, I'mcreating this content.
I have to figure out a way toweave in building my email list
(02:07):
into my podcast strategy or theweekly YouTube videos that I
want to put out, and I say well,what is your goal?
Are you trying to grow an emaillist so that you can have
sponsored content and you cangrow a list of 20,000 people and
you can have, and you can growa list of 20,000 people and you
can have.
You know this is brought to youby X, y and Z sponsor.
(02:32):
What are you trying to do?
Or are you trying to grow anemail list so that you can
launch a book, you can sell aproduct, you can start a
membership?
What are you trying to do?
So that's mistake number one isyou just jump into email
marketing and you just have nostrategy behind it, and that
often leads to you don't knowwhat to write, because if you
don't have a strategy behindwhat you're doing, you're like
(02:52):
you sit down and the cursor isjust blinking at you and you're
like what am I supposed to say?
Like what is actually happening?
Well, that gets fixed when youhave a clear strategy.
So for me, I have a weeklynewsletter I send every single
Friday.
I've done this for years, yearsand years.
I have been sending a weeklynewsletter come rain or shine,
(03:15):
come hell or high water, everysingle Friday morning I was
going to say afternoon.
It goes out in the morning andit's just one of my favorite
parts of my week and I send it.
And my main goal to send thatis to get people to my content
or tell them about a promotionthat we have.
But the strategy piece is justto have a weekly connection with
(03:35):
my audience.
That's it.
Yes, there's pieces of it thatcan be, you know, higher
priority than others throughoutthe year, depending on what's
happening in the business, butfor me, the number one priority
for my email list is to have aconnection point with my
audience.
That is not dependent onhopefully algorithms don't
change, or I hope my audiencesees this post that I made on
(03:58):
the social media platform no,I'm going to their inbox every
single Friday.
Rain or shine, hell or highwater, it is happening and they
get that connection point withme.
So that is my goal for my emaillist.
But I would love to know do youhave a goal for yours, or do
you have one that you want tohave for a future email list of
yours?
(04:19):
But you have to have a cleargoal.
Why are you doing this?
Why do you want to start emailmarketing?
And if you don't have that?
That's the first piece of thepuzzle that you have to figure
out.
The second mistake that I see sooften with email marketing is
(04:39):
people ignoring their subjectlines or writing something.
That's just so boring, and thequick test for me is or?
I'm actually going to give thisadvice to you like this is your
assignment very early on inthis is go look at your emails,
like the ones that you'rereceiving as a consumer, and see
what are the ones that youactually want to open, because
(05:00):
those are signs that that iswhat is intriguing to you as a
consumer.
Now put yourself in youraudience's shoes.
Are you bored by your ownsubject lines?
There's a good chance that youare.
I was for a long time and Ididn't even realize this was a
problem until I started reallylooking at my content and
thinking like why is thiscompelling?
(05:23):
Why would this compel anyone todo this?
So what I see often is peoplewill write things that are like
blog post titles.
It's like three simple steps toblank or how I did this, and
it's like that's not compelling,like why would I care?
(05:44):
Like what is the thing that I'mgoing to get from this?
Or, even better, I like tothink of it as like if I were
writing this to a friend, whatwould I write to them that would
make them go?
Oh, I want to know about thisimmediately.
I wrote an email recently thathad the sentence in quotes that
said damn, that was good withthe trophy.
(06:06):
So it was.
So it was.
It was very simple.
And immediately you're like,well, that was good.
Like I want to know.
I want to know what that wasLike.
It piques your curiosity.
You're like, well, what is shetalking about?
What is this in reference to?
I want to know more about it.
And so you have to get out ofthe boring like this is what
(06:28):
everyone else is doing.
Or if your email subject lines,when you look in your own
emails, looks like everyoneelse's, why would someone open
it?
Why would someone click on itand read it?
So you could spend hours onthis incredible email.
Maybe you wrote this awesomestory about your journey or
(06:49):
something that happened to you.
That would be really impactfulfor your audience.
But if they don't open itbecause you put a boring subject
line in there, that's a problem.
That's a problem.
So you have to spend more time.
Subject lines can't just be theafterthought.
It's like, oh, I spent all thistime writing this email and now
it's just like I'll just throwsomething out there.
(07:10):
Let's just no, it should not bean afterthought.
You should have so many options.
I actually use Quad or ChatGPTto.
I'll write my whole email, thenI'll throw it in one of the AI
apps that I use and say one ofthe AI apps that I use and say
give me five to 10, depends onhow I'm feeling that day.
Sometimes I'll do 10, give me10 subject lines and preview
(07:37):
text, because I want someone tosee this in their inbox and say,
ooh, what is this?
So it's not just a one and done.
I don't think that you shouldjust pick the first thing that
comes to mind, write it up andthen it's gone.
I want you to put it in youremail service provider.
Like kid, I send myself apreview of what my email is
going to look like to myself, tomy email address.
Then I open it and I pretendlike, oh, like, I'm one of my
(07:58):
readers and it's like oh, thisis how they would see it.
So I open it, I read it andthen I will make changes.
I will test it, I will test itagain and I will try to see what
is that most compelling thing?
So mistake number two isignoring your email subject
lines.
You cannot do this anymore.
It shouldn't be an afterthought.
So if it's something you'vebeen ignoring today, right now,
(08:20):
pause this video, go look at theemails in your inbox and ask
yourself what are the ones thatI am most compelled to open and
what are the ones that I thinkare totally vanilla and basic
and I would never open these ina million years.
They go straight to my spam,straight to my inbox.
You want to ignore those emailsubject lines?
Okay, mistake number three isprobably going to be a little
(08:42):
controversial and that's okay,but it's.
You're writing like a robot.
Come on Y'all.
You cannot outsource your emailsto your audience, to Chad, gpt
or Claude.
You can't and you shouldn't.
This is not something that youshould just outsource and say I
created a podcast episode aboutthis and write me an email.
(09:02):
Or, even worse, there's otherapps out there that you will
upload your content and it willspit out a generic newsletter
and you think like, well, thisis good enough, I can just send
this to my audience.
No, no, it's not good enough,it's not and that's not where
you should start with yourcontent.
I will say I use Claude andChatGPT to help me refine it or
(09:27):
to make whether it's likeimpacting a story or like
inserting a story that'simpactful.
That's the way I meant to saythat, in a way that can really
tie in the story better or takeyou from the big top to bottom,
the beginning to end, and reallyhave something that's like a
lot meatier.
I will use AI to help me boostsomething or make it sound
(09:49):
better, but I'm not having itright for me.
Actually, it's right over here,like I have this little book
behind me, this little bookshelf, my little cabinet where I
write every morning and everysingle week.
I know it's gonna be supernerdy.
Stick with me for a second.
I handwrite my emails.
I do, I've done this for years.
So what I actually do in myprocess is I sit down, I
(10:14):
handwrite my emails, becausethen it sounds like it comes
from a pen pal mindset for me,so that I'm actually thinking of
you when I'm writing theseemails, and it is just coming
from a different state than if Iwere to sit there, stare at a
blank Google Doc and say what amI supposed to write this day?
It just it doesn't work for methat way.
(10:34):
So the creative outlet for meis to handwrite my emails.
Then I put it in a Google Doc,then I zhuzh it up, I make it
better, I make it sound so fancyand so gorgeous with all of
these wonderful stories, but Iat least start from a place of
I'm writing to one person.
This is the other part.
If you're writing like a robot,it's probably because you're
trying to talk to 5,000 people.
(10:55):
Why don't you just talk to theone person on the other side
that's going to read that emailand it will resonate so much
deeper than if you just use AIto write it, because it's
probably going to spit backsomething that doesn't sound
like you anyway and you can'tmake it just be so generic that
someone opens it and says what'sthe takeaway for me?
(11:16):
Why does this apply to me?
So make sure that you're notwriting like a robot and you're
not outsourcing those creativepieces that you need to make
your content sound more like you.
You need to make your contentsound more like you.
And then mistake number fourthat I see email marketing
(11:37):
content folks making is youdon't have a call to action or
your CTA.
What are you trying to getsomeone to do so?
Every single email, I told youall.
I send emails every singleFriday and I want someone to do
something after they read thisemail, like, even if it's just
hit reply and share yourthoughts on this email, or hit
reply and just say yes, me too,or yes, interested, or yes, this
(12:02):
was great.
I mean, it could be thesimplest thing, but having a
call to action gets peopleactively engaged.
So so many of you will befamiliar with posting on social
media.
Maybe you post on Instagrambecause you're hoping to get a
like, a share, a comment.
It's the same with email.
You should have a call toaction that tells people what to
(12:24):
do.
And so often for me, I set myemails up like it's story and it
has an impactful piece thatpeople should take action on.
But sometimes it's not untilthe very bottom of the email
where I share in my sectioncalled new resources this week,
that's where I will share apiece of content.
(12:45):
So I shared this episoderecently where I was talking
about speaking on stage and Iwas sharing the behind the
scenes of my podcast movementtalk, and in that email the
whole story was set up to beabout planning and promotion and
preparation and my experiencewith speaking on stage, and all
(13:05):
of it led up to a call to actionfor people to go watch my
latest YouTube video about how Iprepped to speak on stage a
podcast movement.
So it was all intentional andthe main call to action was go
watch this YouTube video that Icreated.
So it doesn't have to be buy myproduct in every single email
that you send, because I thinkthat that gets old after a while
(13:28):
.
Anyway, I want people to open myemails and say what's Crystal
up to this week, what is thisstory that she's going to share
and what is the supportingresource that she's also going
to put in there for me?
That's what I want my audienceto think immediately is there's
going to be something of valuein here?
And I know she's going to askme to do something.
Do they always do it?
(13:49):
No, absolutely not.
But more often than not, peopleare finding my content.
If they've never seen it before, they've never listened to my
podcast, they've never watchedmy YouTube videos, they're going
to find it in my email everysingle week.
There is always a call toaction.
So for you, if you haven'tpreviously had any calls to
(14:09):
action in your email, considerwhat could you add in there.
Could you have a link to yourlatest podcast episode?
Could you have people go followyou on Instagram?
Go watch your YouTube video.
Go download your freebie.
I mean it could be go buy myproduct or sign up for my
membership or schedule acoaching call, like whatever it
is for you and the season ofcontent and life and business
(14:32):
that you're in, but you musthave a call to action in every
single email that you send toyour audience.
And the final mistake, mistakenumber five, is you're not
tracking or testing the thingsthat you're doing.
Therefore, you're just guessingand that's essentially just
(14:52):
wasting your time.
So one thing that I always tellpeople is, once you start
getting those emails like you'reconsistently sending them out,
you need to consider what is mybaseline Like, what are those
percentages that I can expect?
So, whether that's your openrate, it's your click rate, how
big your audience is like.
If you know that if I send thisemail at this time, you can
(15:16):
start to actually forecast whatyour results are going to be.
And it's funny because you knowthe operations and metrics and
KPIs, like all of that stuffreally used to bother me and I
used to just be like numbers, amI right?
Like this is too much for me.
But I started to fall in lovewith metrics the more I started
to become obsessed with whatthese click rates and what these
(15:40):
open rates and what these A-Btest conversions meant for me
because it actually becamereally fun once I started
playing with how I could improvethose, how could I tweak those,
and the one thing I found forme specifically was being able
to send at the exact same time.
This took a few years to reallydial in, but I send at the
(16:01):
exact same time every singleFriday and that has consistently
kept my open rate the same.
If I go and send promotions atdifferent times, I will see my
open rate and my click ratefluctuate when I go through
promotions because people arelike, oh wait, she's emailing
more than she normally does, oroh, this is a time when she
(16:22):
normally doesn't send emails, soit's not as consistent.
But you throw in a Friday emailat the normal time I send it,
those things skyrocket again.
So it's that predictability,and that only comes from testing
and tracking.
But speaking of testing, so Iuse Kit.
This is my email serviceprovider.
You can go to crystalprofitcomforward slash Kit to learn more.
(16:43):
This is my favorite tool andone thing that I love about it
is I can actually A-B testsubject lines.
I don't do this for everysingle email, but I will do it
when I'm not sure.
So remember we were talkingabout subject lines earlier.
If I'm not sure which one Ireally love or which one that I
want to go with, which one wouldbe most impactful, I'd take the
(17:05):
decision making off of my plateand I will actually do A-B
tests to see, well, which onedoes my audience love?
And what's cool about it is youcan put a few different ones in
there.
You can test it for 30 minutesup to, I think, two hours Maybe
it's even longer than that andso as people start to receive
your email and open it, it getsreally smart and intelligent in
(17:29):
how it knows like oh, this one'sgetting more clicks, this is
the one that you should go withand you should send that to the
larger majority of your audience.
So I have become a full blownnerd on metrics and A-B testing
and I love to test andexperiment with what works, and
I think that it's just somethingthat really tracking these can
(17:50):
help you become a better emailmarketer over time.
If you're just getting started,just start emailing your list
consistently.
You don't have to worry aboutall the metrics or understanding
all of them.
Just get in that habit ofconsistency and then you can
start to look at your metricsand track what's working and
what's not.
But please, please, please,start tracking and looking at
(18:12):
those metrics.
All right, let's do a quickrecap of all of these mistakes,
that way you are not making themwhen you're done with this
video today.
One you don't have a clear goal.
We're going to have a cleargoal.
We're going to have a clearstrategy from right, but, yes,
you're nodding with me, okay,good.
The second one is you'reignoring your subject lines.
Please consider how they can beso much more impactful.
(18:35):
Go look at your own email rightnow.
Go look at your inbox and seewhich ones are compelling to you
and just enlist ChatGPT orClaude to help you write better
subject lines.
Okay, let's just go with that.
The third one is writing like arobot.
Don't fully let Claude andChatGPT do everything for your
email, but you can enlist themto help you a little bit.
So don't write like a robot forevery single thing that you
(18:58):
send out to your audience.
Please, please, please.
I beg of you.
You will get so manyunsubscribes.
The fourth mistake is no call toaction.
If anything, you should havepeople reply back to you and,
speaking of CTAs, if you havenot liked and subscribed to the
channel, make sure you do thatnow, because it will be very
(19:18):
important so you get morecontent like this that helps you
avoid all the mistakes that Ihave made in my content journey.
And the fifth mistake is nottracking or testing or
experimenting with your content.
This is something that I cannotstress to you how important it
was whenever I did startlaunching and promoting and
(19:39):
doing a lot of affiliates andsponsorships.
Metrics matter in a way thatmaybe you don't see at the very
beginning, but over time theyare so important to help you
grow and scale and find otheropportunities that you can with
your content.
So please don't ignore yourmetrics.
They are something that youshould absolutely be paying
(19:59):
attention to.
But that's all I have for youtoday.
I hope you enjoyed this minicourse on email marketing.
Please leave any questions orcomments below.
If you want to know more aboutany of the things we talked
about here today, or even howyour podcast and your YouTube
channel can integrate into youremail marketing strategies, I
(20:20):
actually have a free guide thatI want you to go download.
It's at crystalprofitcom.
Forward slash prepm P-R-E-P-M.
This is our guide on thefive-step content system process
that we use here at ProfitMedia.
It's called the PREPA methodand it will give you the basics
of how we approach content andhow we can make it so much
(20:41):
easier for you to work smarterand not harder.
But, like I said, that's all Ihave for you today.
So make sure you like andsubscribe, follow wherever
you're watching, listening todayand, as always, remember, keep
it up.
We all have to start somewhere.
So, after years of helping creators use
their podcast and YouTube togrow their email list, I see
these mistakes all the time andI want to make sure that you're
not making these same mistakes,because even just one of them
just one can kill your openrates and make it so much harder
(00:22):
for you to grow your content,have a bigger impact with your
customers and the business thatyou're trying to grow.
So let's talk about thosemistakes and make sure that
you're not making them.
So today we're going to walkthrough the top mistakes that I
see all the time, how to avoidthem and how you can actually
implement strategies that willhelp you save time, make more
(00:44):
money and have a bigger impact.
So let's get right to it.
Welcome to the Profit Podcast,where we teach you how to start,
launch and market your contentwith confidence.
I'm your host, crystal Profit,and I'm so excited that you're
here.
Thanks for hanging out with metoday, because if you've been
trying to figure out the worldof content creation, this is the
(01:05):
show that will help be yourtime-saving shortcut.
So let's get right to it, shallwe?
So we're just going to diveright into.
Mistake number one is you'retrying to send emails or grow an
email list with no clear goalsfor why you're writing these
(01:25):
emails.
So you've probably heard allover the internet you need an
email list, you need to lookinto email marketing, you need
to learn email marketing.
You need to spend thousands ofdollars on courses to learn
email marketing.
But let me give you just thetwo seconds.
That you really need to know iswhat is your goal?
That's what you need to figureout.
You don't need to go buyanother book.
(01:46):
Read more blogs, watch moreYouTube videos all about email
marketing.
You just need to know what isyour goal.
What are you trying to do?
And if you don't know, thenthat's the first thing you have
to figure out.
So I always tell people whenthey come to me with their
content.
They're like Crystal, I'mcreating this content.
I have to figure out a way toweave in building my email list
(02:07):
into my podcast strategy or theweekly YouTube videos that I
want to put out, and I say well,what is your goal?
Are you trying to grow an emaillist so that you can have
sponsored content and you cangrow a list of 20,000 people and
you can have, and you can growa list of 20,000 people and you
can have.
You know this is brought to youby X, y and Z sponsor.
(02:32):
What are you trying to do?
Or are you trying to grow anemail list so that you can
launch a book, you can sell aproduct, you can start a
membership?
What are you trying to do?
So that's mistake number one isyou just jump into email
marketing and you just have nostrategy behind it, and that
often leads to you don't knowwhat to write, because if you
don't have a strategy behindwhat you're doing, you're like
(02:52):
you sit down and the cursor isjust blinking at you and you're
like what am I supposed to say?
Like what is actually happening?
Well, that gets fixed when youhave a clear strategy.
So for me, I have a weeklynewsletter I send every single
Friday.
I've done this for years, yearsand years.
I have been sending a weeklynewsletter come rain or shine,
(03:15):
come hell or high water, everysingle Friday morning I was
going to say afternoon.
It goes out in the morning andit's just one of my favorite
parts of my week and I send it.
And my main goal to send thatis to get people to my content
or tell them about a promotionthat we have.
But the strategy piece is justto have a weekly connection with
(03:35):
my audience.
That's it.
Yes, there's pieces of it thatcan be, you know, higher
priority than others throughoutthe year, depending on what's
happening in the business, butfor me, the number one priority
for my email list is to have aconnection point with my
audience.
That is not dependent onhopefully algorithms don't
change, or I hope my audiencesees this post that I made on
(03:58):
the social media platform no,I'm going to their inbox every
single Friday.
Rain or shine, hell or highwater, it is happening and they
get that connection point withme.
So that is my goal for my emaillist.
But I would love to know do youhave a goal for yours, or do
you have one that you want tohave for a future email list of
yours?
(04:19):
But you have to have a cleargoal.
Why are you doing this?
Why do you want to start emailmarketing?
And if you don't have that?
That's the first piece of thepuzzle that you have to figure
out.
The second mistake that I see sooften with email marketing is
(04:39):
people ignoring their subjectlines or writing something.
That's just so boring, and thequick test for me is or?
I'm actually going to give thisadvice to you like this is your
assignment very early on inthis is go look at your emails,
like the ones that you'rereceiving as a consumer, and see
what are the ones that youactually want to open, because
(05:00):
those are signs that that iswhat is intriguing to you as a
consumer.
Now put yourself in youraudience's shoes.
Are you bored by your ownsubject lines?
There's a good chance that youare.
I was for a long time and Ididn't even realize this was a
problem until I started reallylooking at my content and
thinking like why is thiscompelling?
(05:23):
Why would this compel anyone todo this?
So what I see often is peoplewill write things that are like
blog post titles.
It's like three simple steps toblank or how I did this, and
it's like that's not compelling,like why would I care?
(05:44):
Like what is the thing that I'mgoing to get from this?
Or, even better, I like tothink of it as like if I were
writing this to a friend, whatwould I write to them that would
make them go?
Oh, I want to know about thisimmediately.
I wrote an email recently thathad the sentence in quotes that
said damn, that was good withthe trophy.
(06:06):
So it was.
So it was.
It was very simple.
And immediately you're like,well, that was good.
Like I want to know.
I want to know what that wasLike.
It piques your curiosity.
You're like, well, what is shetalking about?
What is this in reference to?
I want to know more about it.
And so you have to get out ofthe boring like this is what
(06:28):
everyone else is doing.
Or if your email subject lines,when you look in your own
emails, looks like everyoneelse's, why would someone open
it?
Why would someone click on itand read it?
So you could spend hours onthis incredible email.
Maybe you wrote this awesomestory about your journey or
(06:49):
something that happened to you.
That would be really impactfulfor your audience.
But if they don't open itbecause you put a boring subject
line in there, that's a problem.
That's a problem.
So you have to spend more time.
Subject lines can't just be theafterthought.
It's like, oh, I spent all thistime writing this email and now
it's just like I'll just throwsomething out there.
(07:10):
Let's just no, it should not bean afterthought.
You should have so many options.
I actually use Quad or ChatGPTto.
I'll write my whole email, thenI'll throw it in one of the AI
apps that I use and say one ofthe AI apps that I use and say
give me five to 10, depends onhow I'm feeling that day.
Sometimes I'll do 10, give me10 subject lines and preview
(07:37):
text, because I want someone tosee this in their inbox and say,
ooh, what is this?
So it's not just a one and done.
I don't think that you shouldjust pick the first thing that
comes to mind, write it up andthen it's gone.
I want you to put it in youremail service provider.
Like kid, I send myself apreview of what my email is
going to look like to myself, tomy email address.
Then I open it and I pretendlike, oh, like, I'm one of my
(07:58):
readers and it's like oh, thisis how they would see it.
So I open it, I read it andthen I will make changes.
I will test it, I will test itagain and I will try to see what
is that most compelling thing?
So mistake number two isignoring your email subject
lines.
You cannot do this anymore.
It shouldn't be an afterthought.
So if it's something you'vebeen ignoring today, right now,
(08:20):
pause this video, go look at theemails in your inbox and ask
yourself what are the ones thatI am most compelled to open and
what are the ones that I thinkare totally vanilla and basic
and I would never open these ina million years.
They go straight to my spam,straight to my inbox.
You want to ignore those emailsubject lines?
Okay, mistake number three isprobably going to be a little
(08:42):
controversial and that's okay,but it's.
You're writing like a robot.
Come on Y'all.
You cannot outsource your emailsto your audience, to Chad, gpt
or Claude.
You can't and you shouldn't.
This is not something that youshould just outsource and say I
created a podcast episode aboutthis and write me an email.
(09:02):
Or, even worse, there's otherapps out there that you will
upload your content and it willspit out a generic newsletter
and you think like, well, thisis good enough, I can just send
this to my audience.
No, no, it's not good enough,it's not and that's not where
you should start with yourcontent.
I will say I use Claude andChatGPT to help me refine it or
(09:27):
to make whether it's likeimpacting a story or like
inserting a story that'simpactful.
That's the way I meant to saythat, in a way that can really
tie in the story better or takeyou from the big top to bottom,
the beginning to end, and reallyhave something that's like a
lot meatier.
I will use AI to help me boostsomething or make it sound
(09:49):
better, but I'm not having itright for me.
Actually, it's right over here,like I have this little book
behind me, this little bookshelf, my little cabinet where I
write every morning and everysingle week.
I know it's gonna be supernerdy.
Stick with me for a second.
I handwrite my emails.
I do, I've done this for years.
So what I actually do in myprocess is I sit down, I
(10:14):
handwrite my emails, becausethen it sounds like it comes
from a pen pal mindset for me,so that I'm actually thinking of
you when I'm writing theseemails, and it is just coming
from a different state than if Iwere to sit there, stare at a
blank Google Doc and say what amI supposed to write this day?
It just it doesn't work for methat way.
(10:34):
So the creative outlet for meis to handwrite my emails.
Then I put it in a Google Doc,then I zhuzh it up, I make it
better, I make it sound so fancyand so gorgeous with all of
these wonderful stories, but Iat least start from a place of
I'm writing to one person.
This is the other part.
If you're writing like a robot,it's probably because you're
trying to talk to 5,000 people.
(10:55):
Why don't you just talk to theone person on the other side
that's going to read that emailand it will resonate so much
deeper than if you just use AIto write it, because it's
probably going to spit backsomething that doesn't sound
like you anyway and you can'tmake it just be so generic that
someone opens it and says what'sthe takeaway for me?
(11:16):
Why does this apply to me?
So make sure that you're notwriting like a robot and you're
not outsourcing those creativepieces that you need to make
your content sound more like you.
You need to make your contentsound more like you.
And then mistake number fourthat I see email marketing
(11:37):
content folks making is youdon't have a call to action or
your CTA.
What are you trying to getsomeone to do so?
Every single email, I told youall.
I send emails every singleFriday and I want someone to do
something after they read thisemail, like, even if it's just
hit reply and share yourthoughts on this email, or hit
reply and just say yes, me too,or yes, interested, or yes, this
(12:02):
was great.
I mean, it could be thesimplest thing, but having a
call to action gets peopleactively engaged.
So so many of you will befamiliar with posting on social
media.
Maybe you post on Instagrambecause you're hoping to get a
like, a share, a comment.
It's the same with email.
You should have a call toaction that tells people what to
(12:24):
do.
And so often for me, I set myemails up like it's story and it
has an impactful piece thatpeople should take action on.
But sometimes it's not untilthe very bottom of the email
where I share in my sectioncalled new resources this week,
that's where I will share apiece of content.
(12:45):
So I shared this episoderecently where I was talking
about speaking on stage and Iwas sharing the behind the
scenes of my podcast movementtalk, and in that email the
whole story was set up to beabout planning and promotion and
preparation and my experiencewith speaking on stage, and all
(13:05):
of it led up to a call to actionfor people to go watch my
latest YouTube video about how Iprepped to speak on stage a
podcast movement.
So it was all intentional andthe main call to action was go
watch this YouTube video that Icreated.
So it doesn't have to be buy myproduct in every single email
that you send, because I thinkthat that gets old after a while
(13:28):
.
Anyway, I want people to open myemails and say what's Crystal
up to this week, what is thisstory that she's going to share
and what is the supportingresource that she's also going
to put in there for me?
That's what I want my audienceto think immediately is there's
going to be something of valuein here?
And I know she's going to askme to do something.
Do they always do it?
(13:49):
No, absolutely not.
But more often than not, peopleare finding my content.
If they've never seen it before, they've never listened to my
podcast, they've never watchedmy YouTube videos, they're going
to find it in my email everysingle week.
There is always a call toaction.
So for you, if you haven'tpreviously had any calls to
(14:09):
action in your email, considerwhat could you add in there.
Could you have a link to yourlatest podcast episode?
Could you have people go followyou on Instagram?
Go watch your YouTube video.
Go download your freebie.
I mean it could be go buy myproduct or sign up for my
membership or schedule acoaching call, like whatever it
is for you and the season ofcontent and life and business
(14:32):
that you're in, but you musthave a call to action in every
single email that you send toyour audience.
And the final mistake, mistakenumber five, is you're not
tracking or testing the thingsthat you're doing.
Therefore, you're just guessingand that's essentially just
(14:52):
wasting your time.
So one thing that I always tellpeople is, once you start
getting those emails like you'reconsistently sending them out,
you need to consider what is mybaseline Like, what are those
percentages that I can expect?
So, whether that's your openrate, it's your click rate, how
big your audience is like.
If you know that if I send thisemail at this time, you can
(15:16):
start to actually forecast whatyour results are going to be.
And it's funny because you knowthe operations and metrics and
KPIs, like all of that stuffreally used to bother me and I
used to just be like numbers, amI right?
Like this is too much for me.
But I started to fall in lovewith metrics the more I started
to become obsessed with whatthese click rates and what these
(15:40):
open rates and what these A-Btest conversions meant for me
because it actually becamereally fun once I started
playing with how I could improvethose, how could I tweak those,
and the one thing I found forme specifically was being able
to send at the exact same time.
This took a few years to reallydial in, but I send at the
(16:01):
exact same time every singleFriday and that has consistently
kept my open rate the same.
If I go and send promotions atdifferent times, I will see my
open rate and my click ratefluctuate when I go through
promotions because people arelike, oh wait, she's emailing
more than she normally does, oroh, this is a time when she
(16:22):
normally doesn't send emails, soit's not as consistent.
But you throw in a Friday emailat the normal time I send it,
those things skyrocket again.
So it's that predictability,and that only comes from testing
and tracking.
But speaking of testing, so Iuse Kit.
This is my email serviceprovider.
You can go to crystalprofitcomforward slash Kit to learn more.
(16:43):
This is my favorite tool andone thing that I love about it
is I can actually A-B testsubject lines.
I don't do this for everysingle email, but I will do it
when I'm not sure.
So remember we were talkingabout subject lines earlier.
If I'm not sure which one Ireally love or which one that I
want to go with, which one wouldbe most impactful, I'd take the
(17:05):
decision making off of my plateand I will actually do A-B
tests to see, well, which onedoes my audience love?
And what's cool about it is youcan put a few different ones in
there.
You can test it for 30 minutesup to, I think, two hours Maybe
it's even longer than that andso as people start to receive
your email and open it, it getsreally smart and intelligent in
(17:29):
how it knows like oh, this one'sgetting more clicks, this is
the one that you should go withand you should send that to the
larger majority of your audience.
So I have become a full blownnerd on metrics and A-B testing
and I love to test andexperiment with what works, and
I think that it's just somethingthat really tracking these can
(17:50):
help you become a better emailmarketer over time.
If you're just getting started,just start emailing your list
consistently.
You don't have to worry aboutall the metrics or understanding
all of them.
Just get in that habit ofconsistency and then you can
start to look at your metricsand track what's working and
what's not.
But please, please, please,start tracking and looking at
(18:12):
those metrics.
All right, let's do a quickrecap of all of these mistakes,
that way you are not making themwhen you're done with this
video today.
One you don't have a clear goal.
We're going to have a cleargoal.
We're going to have a clearstrategy from right, but, yes,
you're nodding with me, okay,good.
The second one is you'reignoring your subject lines.
Please consider how they can beso much more impactful.
(18:35):
Go look at your own email rightnow.
Go look at your inbox and seewhich ones are compelling to you
and just enlist ChatGPT orClaude to help you write better
subject lines.
Okay, let's just go with that.
The third one is writing like arobot.
Don't fully let Claude andChatGPT do everything for your
email, but you can enlist themto help you a little bit.
So don't write like a robot forevery single thing that you
(18:58):
send out to your audience.
Please, please, please.
I beg of you.
You will get so manyunsubscribes.
The fourth mistake is no call toaction.
If anything, you should havepeople reply back to you and,
speaking of CTAs, if you havenot liked and subscribed to the
channel, make sure you do thatnow, because it will be very
(19:18):
important so you get morecontent like this that helps you
avoid all the mistakes that Ihave made in my content journey.
And the fifth mistake is nottracking or testing or
experimenting with your content.
This is something that I cannotstress to you how important it
was whenever I did startlaunching and promoting and
(19:39):
doing a lot of affiliates andsponsorships.
Metrics matter in a way thatmaybe you don't see at the very
beginning, but over time theyare so important to help you
grow and scale and find otheropportunities that you can with
your content.
So please don't ignore yourmetrics.
They are something that youshould absolutely be paying
(19:59):
attention to.
But that's all I have for youtoday.
I hope you enjoyed this minicourse on email marketing.
Please leave any questions orcomments below.
If you want to know more aboutany of the things we talked
about here today, or even howyour podcast and your YouTube
channel can integrate into youremail marketing strategies, I
(20:20):
actually have a free guide thatI want you to go download.
It's at crystalprofitcom.
Forward slash prepm P-R-E-P-M.
This is our guide on thefive-step content system process
that we use here at ProfitMedia.
It's called the PREPA methodand it will give you the basics
of how we approach content andhow we can make it so much
(20:41):
easier for you to work smarterand not harder.
But, like I said, that's all Ihave for you today.
So make sure you like andsubscribe, follow wherever
you're watching, listening todayand, as always, remember, keep
it up.
We all have to start somewhere.
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