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Show Notes:
If you fear bothering people with your marketing, this is for you.
I recently got the worst email I’ve opened in over a year.
I’m gonna share the actual email with you and I’m gonna share my internal reactions and the decisions I made after.
In the context of life, this email is really NOT that bad at all. No trigger warning necessary.
I’m sharing this because I know many of you are really afraid of getting an email like this.
I’m hoping hearing about my experience will help you feel less afraid of getting an email like this. I’m hoping that you feeling less afraid will help you make aligned decisions. I’ll explain all of that in a moment.
The email I’ll share was a response to one of my sales emails promoting Create Your Program, the high touch program I run 3 times a year.
Here’s what the email said:
“Way too many emails with not much info. Blocking your email and please remove me from your waitlist.
Feels like clickbait.”
I said “ouch!”
My partner looked over my shoulder and said “that’s not nice!”
I had a moment of panic. I thought: Am I a fraudster? Am I a villian? Am I a jerk who never provides value?
AND…Does this person hate me?
And then paused and I said to my partner: “No it’s OK. She’s right to tell me. She’s annoyed.”
Now I did feel a little peeved with the email sender. I thought: “She could have just unsubscribed. There’s a link in every single email to unsubscribe! Why didn’t she just unsubscribe? Why be like that?”
And I wished I could write back to her and explain about unsubscribing and also say I’m sorry you didn’t get value…and maybe you should check out this or that free resource I provide.
But I couldn’t write her back because she told me not to contact her.
But you know what? She might not know that unsubscribing works. She’s totally within her rights to tell me about her experience and to set a digital boundary. She was clear. She did not call me names or behave abusively. She let me know that she’s withdrawn her consent to be emailed.
I very much WANT people to be able to withdraw their consent.
So as she asked, I went into my email platform and deleted her from it.
Then while I was there I looked into what emails I had sent her, so I could better understand her experience.
She had signed up for a free workshop through an instagram ad that I run. Then she’d gotten follow up emails reminding her to watch that free workshop, and then some sales emails about my program.
It’s likely that she didn’t actually watch the workshop…which is totally understandable. I’ve signed up for a free workshop or class and then not hit play on it.
She also signed up for the waitlist for Create Your Program.
She received the maximum amount of emails someone could ever get from me, about 2 a day for a handful of days. That’s because she signed up for my free workshop and then my waitlist, all during a launch of my program,
I took a step back and considered…is there anything I want to change about this email flow going forward?
In this case, there’s not much I wanted to change.
I want people who are new to my list to have a chance to jump on the wait list for CYP, which functions as an interest list. Often people find me right when they’re looking for a program like mine, and it’s important that they CAN sign up right away if that’s what they want. I only run CYP 3 times a year right now, so I don’t want people to have to wait months to have a chance to jump in.
I did make one change to my email flow.
I already have an opt OUT email that I send to my list when I’m launching. It basically says: “I’m gonna be promoting my program for a couple of weeks. If you want to stay on my list but you don’t want to hear about CYP this round, click here. I’ll be quiet for a couple weeks.”
I learned this opt-out approach from Kelly Diels, and I always hat tip to her in that email.
Here’s the change: I added a quick opt-out option in just about every sales email.
Now if someone on my list opens ANY sales email before the final day of enrollment, they’ll have a chance to opt out of receiving more sales emails in that round.
This change took about 10 minutes. Done!
I feel pretty great about how that went.
When I get criticized, I’m tempted to either collapse into shame OR get mad at the person who criticized me.
I felt really good noticing that I didn’t do either in this situation.
I felt twinges of shame and anger, and then I quickly found a more grounded spot.
On the shame side I felt: “Hmmmm. this feels upsetting. But also, I know I’m a good person who’s striving to do good work.
I don’t need to collapse into shame.”
On the anger side I felt: “I’m irritated at the person who sent the email. BUT also I know she’s standing up for herself as best she can and I KNOW that’s exactly what people should do. So I don’t really need to be mad.”
When I teach people about email marketing and guide them to create a practice of emailing their list regularly, they often tell me they’re terrified of getting a response like the one I got.
Here’s the thing: If you email your list, you might get an email like this.
But probably not very often. This is the worst email I had gotten in several years.
The people I work with and the people who listen to my podcast and read my emails are here to do important work. They’re NOT just here to make money. They want to make good money AND they are invested in creating meaningful work that helps people.
The people I work with are critical of any kind of tactics that are manipulative. The people who want to connect with Rebel Therapist LOVE consent.
So when people like you email your lists, you’re probably doing so thoughtfully.
The good news is that when you send emails, you’ll probably enjoy a LOT of feedback telling you that your work is helpful.
When our team member Taitlyn saw the email, she said “this is the FIRST time in the year I’ve worked here that I’ve ever seen an email like that.” What a good perspective.
I also noticed that on that same DAY, I got an email thanking me for the valuable free content and naming a specific takeaway they got from it.
If you’re increasing how much you’re communicating with your email list, or you are getting more frequent or more bold with your messaging, and you’re fearing some kind of push back…I’m here to tell you it’s probably gonna be OK.
You’re going to be able to consider the feedback, take useful stuff from it, leave the rest, and keep doing your important work.
Before I close this topic, I need to tell you where this kind of thinking doesn’t apply:
I have gotten some really mean and abusive comments on social media. Like someone recently sharing that I am hideous. That feels bad of course, but that kind of comment is so clearly NOT something to let in. It’s coming from a person who is trying to harm a stranger by insulting that stranger’s appearance. I inherently don’t believe that’s a good thing to be doing. When people are dehumanizing in their communication with you, I DON’T suggest you consider their feedback. Fuck that. That’s not feedback.
Want to get help from me to create your signature program? Get on the interest list for Create Your Program. You’ll be notified first when we open early access registration.
In CYP I work with you and a small group of ethical therapists and healers to create signature programs and start working and making money in new ways.
—> Get on the list. ( https://rebeltherapist.me/create)
Yes, that’s the very interest list this person requested being removed from. You can easily unsubscribe at any time.
