Are emails dead?

Ashley DeLuca would argue that emails and email strategy are far from dead!

If you have been on the fence about starting an email list, then I hope that today’s post will give you insight on how to create profits from your list!

If you already have a list but it seems to have a lot of tumbleweeds blowing across its barren content, then read on for Ashley has a lot of great insights for you, too!

I interviewed Ashley within The 6-Figure Momma Facebook Group community where it’s geared to help entrepreneurs women who are raising children scale their businesses to 6-Figures while having a safe place to be themselves, as both mom and businesswoman.

If you would like the see the full recording of this interview, you can click here to watch it on YouTube.

I have been following Ashley before she was married and now, she’s married and working with a two-year-old. She’s certainly is an amazing woman to be working with a toddler 24/7!

Meet Ashley DeLuca, Email Marketing Queen

Ashley is on a mission to simplify email marketing so entrepreneurs can amplify relationships and sales.

Over the last three years, Ashley has written campaigns that resulted in $40,000 launches, with list creation from 200 to 18,000 subscribers.

Needless to say she believes email marketing should be simplified. You know, so easy her toddler can do it. That’s right. Most days start with coffee and end with a book in bed snuggled with her toddler, Nick.

She’s a huge fan of avocados and sea turtles, and email marketing and so if you have literally any questions, I’m more than happy to share any additional answers, questions, all of that really fun stuff with you today.

Why is it so important for us entrepreneurs to have an email list in the first place?

You’ve heard that the gold is an email list, like all the money’s in the list and all that really fun stuff.

Statistically speaking, email marketing actually converts 40% higher or  40 times higher, however you want to kind of put that percentage there, than social media.

So we’re thinking about all the time that we’re spending on social media on Facebook and Instagram doing things, and email marketing is literally the best way, in my personal opinion, to be able to create relevancy and build relationships.

Because here’s the thing, especially at the end of 2020, we’re really looking for connection points we’re looking for people to relate to, especially with our social lives being really different than what they were before.

We can create intentional journeys within email marketing, to be able to really help people go on a custom journey from opt-in, to offer to them fulfillment to raving fans.

Email marketing is a huge asset for your business. We’re currently renting space on Facebook, even as we do this live right now.

Your email is a clean asset of your own just like your website is especially hosted or self hosted on WordPress, you can move that and go wherever it is that you want to go.

And so honestly at the end of the day, it’s one of your top priority assets of your business, especially if you ever look to sell your business.

I’ve seen it time and time again where you know just randomly as I’m scrolling through on Facebook or Instagram someone’s like, “oh my gosh, I just lost my account this is my new account!”

I remember one gal, she got her Facebook shut down and all of everything was in it, all the members, all the assets, everything just like poof one day because of some copyright issue.

And everyone was searching the name of the group and we’re like, where’s the group? What happened to the group?

And then we had to go to her business page to find out that like it just poofed into thin air; Facebook decided that it could not be no more.

And so when I think about those things. I’m like, “man, what are some places where you can really build your legacy, where you can build yourself a foundation?”

It’s in an email list, podcast, website, those are places that you own and have that content and assets.

What are some of the most common email marketing struggles with entrepreneurs?

There’s a couple different things. There’s kind of the party of people who haven’t started yet because it’s very much so feeling like, “oh my gosh this is super time consuming, there’s a lot of missing pieces there’s, you know, there’s like segments and tags and filters and all the things!”

The second group of people we have is like, “oh I started my list, I have some emails, I started the process. But now I don’t really have anything else to say.”

They get a welcome and then they just kind of fall into a deep dark hole of nothingness where subscribers just like, “Well what happened here? Are you alive?”

And then you have on the flip side where you may have a third bucket. Where are you have some of these things in place, you have funnels, you have things going on in the backend, but you’re either stuck because you don’t know what the world is going on because it’s very complicated.

Or you’re like, “oh my gosh it would take me forever go through my content and reposition it and make sure it’s with my correct messaging!”

Or thinking, “I don’t even know what to write in my emails.”

It’s one of those things where a lot of times we just get stuck in the how.

And that’s why my mission is to simplify the email marketing process so that way you’re not asking how, you’re going into the process of just implementing and doing the things and making it part of your marketing schedule.

One of the biggest things entrepreneurs complain about is that they have a lack of response from their subscribers. What gives?

Here’s something that was very extremely interesting, I’m gonna share this.

So when we’re writing emails, when we’re creating videos, when we’re writing content, what is the back intention of that?

Is it, “Oh my gosh, I’m coming in because I want to sell”, and you have more of that like egotistic energy of like, “Oh I’m gonna make this about me and my offer what I do.”

Or are you coming through and are you serving in selling, and more so focusing on like, “I’m just gonna shine my light onto the world, and whoever gets attracted to it comes to me”.

And the way this kind of transforms and applies is like, I send out emails where I don’t get any replies, and that’s totally okay. Because I know that I’m still asking and I think the biggest thing is that even if this isn’t the right question, that doesn’t mean I stop asking the questions.

But you have to keep showing up, you have to keep asking and really focus more so on serving with that heart and serving by just shining your light.

When you know you don’t have an attachment to the outcome, then my goal is for you to take that content and run with it and do the things with it.

So it really again comes back to that okay what is the intention behind this, in terms of being able to shed your light.

So talk to us how to get started with a profitable email strategy.

We have to have a platform you have to have a home base, Gmail does not do the things, so make sure you have your home base or your platform.

I personally recommend ConvertKit, depending on your business and your business needs.

The secondary thing you want to do is you want to have an idea of what funnels you need to have in place.

So for some of my clients is very simple, we just have one opt-in, we have a nurture sequence, and then we have a fulfillment sequence, and those are the three main pieces that you need.

You have to have a way to draw people in, you want to have a place for them to be nurtured, and then a place to be fulfilled, to then go into the next offer.

Essentially, it’s very easy to just have those three sequences, but it does get confusing when you have three different opt-ins, you have a couple different nurture sequences, and you’re trying to nurture them into six different offers.

Think to yourself, “What sequences do I currently have?” You can figure it out by taking a blank piece of paper and just mapping it out.

So in my welcome sequence I have email number one, what is the primary thing I’m talking about email number one, what is the call to action. And what is the open and click rate.

Now until you get to about 100 subscribers within a funnel, usually I’m not necessarily looking at the opening click rates just yet.

The reason why I like 100 is 100 people, when I think about it, there’s a good chunk of people right? And that’s a good amount of people to kind of test and see, “okay, is this resonating or is this not resonating.”

This also allows for different sources, so it could be that you know where these 100 people came from: 20 came from your podcast, 20 came from a Facebook group, another 20 could just come from your website.

It gives you the ability to also look at the sources and where are these people coming from too.

And so, you’ll go through, get that all mapped out know exactly what’s going on in each of your funnels.

Then the next step is, where are the holes? How can you personalize it, how can you create more relevancy, how can you tweak these, is there an email that you send out your weekly emails that you’ve been bringing in, then maybe other content piece.

Does it make sense for people to get that email at that current moment? That’s usually the biggest thing is timing and understanding, you know where people are in their journey and then providing that content based on that.

Finally, you know we have when we broadcast the different campaign side, and kind of planning out and understanding what are the flow of those.

So, considering sending out three value-based emails, and then one that’s going to be more promotional, and that way, you can start to play and get things into action and then have that sounding home base for you to be able to do the things.

Do you find that people actually go through the nurturing sequence?

Nurture sequences work for a couple of reasons, but it all starts with expectations.

So, your welcome sequence, your number one goal in your welcome sequence should be for them to complete your opt-in.

I mean I know for me I’ve downloaded eight bazillion opt-ins and not finished any of them right.

So your goal is to get them to do that first step, you want to walk them through that process. And so you want to hold them accountable to that.

Your nurture sequence is supporting like resources materials content around helping them get to their after state.

When you have a business that’s extremely clear in terms of with you help people, it’s so much easier to write a nurture sequence and to be able to put that into a journey where you’re actually sending emails that make sense.

A lot of times, emails get ignored, they don’t get read because they’re not relevant to your subscribers.

You’re getting emails about you having your first 1k month and you’re like, “Okay, well I’m already at 10k so I don’t even care about that.”

It could be that you’re just like, “Well I’m already in a program so why am I receiving emails for a program that you’re selling that I already purchased?”

So there are little things that you can do to make yourself more relevant to your subscriber, but within that you have to also earn that spot in their inbox, and that comes through being consistent, that comes from providing actual relevant information that they care about, and that is actually helpful and not full of fluff.

And within that’s all about establishing that relationship with the person on the other side.

What do you think would be some first steps that someone can take right now to improve and begin creating more profits in their emails?

If you’re currently not sending any emails out, get committed to doing it at least once a week, once every other week, whatever that is, pick your frequency and become committed to that.

Tell your subscribers that you’re committed to that.

That would be the first thing.

The second thing is that when you’re writing emails, definitely clear the fluff.

That is like something that is super incredibly important when you’re writing emails that are like 80 pages long, but like super super long emails don’t get read, because we’re scrolling. We’re just trying to find the good stuff we want to know what does this has to do about me.

So make your emails shorter and really focus on making sure you drive home, one like call to action in each email.

There’s a huge debate on should we have five call to action or one call to action.

I like to keep things simple and just have one call to action per email because then I know there’s one expectation per email to be met.

Is there anything going on with you that you want us to know about? Where can we find you?

I’m also super active on Instagram as well too. So you can find me at Ashley Kay DeLuca, I share a lot of behind the scenes and just like random thoughts and all the really good stuff and you’ll obviously see Nick as well too.