Fitness Business School – Email Marketing

Full Transcript

Hey, Pat Rigsby here and in this episode, I wanna talk with you about my experience with email marketing. Let’s get to it.

Welcome to the fitness business school podcast. The show for fitness business owners who want to grow their income, increase their end impact and improve their lifestyle. Be sure to listen to the end of this episode, because we have a brand new special offer exclusive for listeners. So stay tuned.

So I’ve been sending daily emails for about 18 years now. We’re, we’re about 8,000 daily emails in. And frankly you know, it’s probably more than that. It’s just in fact, I know it’s more than that because there were a number of years I was writing emails from multiple brands simultaneously. And,
you know, it, it’s helped me tremendously. It’s allowed me to connect with people I never thought I might connect with. It served as the catalyst to help create two award-winning franchises to build or grow over 30 different businesses.

It’s been responsible for tens of millions of dollars in sales through all sorts of different channels, right? Like everything from low-cost info products and membership sites, all the way up to licenses and franchises. And, you know, it’s, it’s been pretty interesting because, you know, I’m, I’m recording this as
I’m preparing for a workshop, and so it, it’s a good time for me to kind of reflect on everything that’s worked, some of the things that maybe haven’t when it comes to email. And so I wanted to give you kind of a quick snapshot of why I think my approach to email has worked out relatively well, because I
don’t necessarily know that you have to use email to, to accomplish these things. I think the, once you understand what you’re trying to accomplish, you could probably adapt this to a number of different platforms. But the truth is email works.

Heck, I remember back when I was probably just getting a little bit of traction with the email newsletter. I was probably up to three or 4,000 subscribers instead of like the 17 that I started with. And there was all of a sudden, you know, just like with so many trends online, people were touting the
emergence of social media or whatever else. And so it was like, email is dead, email is dead. And ever since then, every year or two, there’ll be this kind of flood of messages going out saying email is dead. And I kind of laugh because, you know, all these social media platforms that everybody asks us to sign
up for, what does it require for you to sign up for it? An email address. So email’s not dead, email’s not going anywhere anytime soon. I mean, an email address at this point is almost like a home address, right?

Like, if you don’t have one, it really kind of precludes you from opening a lot of doors. You know, I believe when I just signed up for that chatGPT thing the other day, I mean, it required email, right? So email is, is kind of hardwired into our world. So now, does that mean that that’s the must use
platform for everybody? No, but it means that if you’re going to find a marketing tactic that you’re gonna use or an overall marketing approach, you need something that has a little bit of staying power. The, that somebody, Hey, they’re going to be here. I can connect with them. This is not, oh, I just
downloaded this TikTok thing to see what it’s all about. It’s like, no, I mean, people have been listening to podcasts for a long time.

Are you, you know, I mean, can you do that and be consistent? And can you get a listenership there? Yes. And there’s probably gonna be listening to podcasts for a long time in the future. Now it may, some of the mechanics of it may change a little bit, but it’s still probably going to exist, you know, five, 10
years from now. So the, the three steps to email marketing that I think about, and I’m sure there are other ways to organize your thinking on this, but as with most things, I try to make it pretty simple. I mean, it’s really the way that we actually buy and it’s, you know, you connect with somebody, there’s a
bit of a follow-up process, and then there’s conversion, there’s a movement. Like when I think of conversion, it’s a movement from prospect to client. You know, it’s not an end point.

It’s not you know, beginning, midpoint end. It a in my mind, a conversion is there’s a prospect journey, and then it converts to a client journey. So the way we actually b buy are those three steps. And for me, I’ve just always kind of tried to take offline relationship building online. I think of what would happen if I
met somebody. I, you know, in the, the last episode I recorded, I referenced a live event that I went to. And, you know, so I went to this convention and it’s all the same stuff. You know, I, I might connect with somebody. There were the handful of people I was introduced to, so they were invisible to me. I was
invisible to them prior to that, and we were introduced through like a third party or whatever, right? And then there’s a follow up in a lot of cases, when you go to an event like that or a trade show, the follow up is, Hey, we’re gonna schedule a time to get on a call or a zoom, and that’s the follow up.

And then, you know, through that follow up, whether it’s that, that meeting or call or multiple meetings or calls or whatever else, sometimes they turn into a conversion from connection and prospect to actual client. Well, that’s the way it, it’s traditionally worked for as long as I’ve been around any sort of selling,
whether it be, you know, business or my time as, you know, a baseball coach in recruiting. And I mean, it, it seems so simple, right? I mean, that is precisely how it worked in practice there. So all I’m trying to do with email is kind of mirror that journey, but in a virtual fashion or an online fashion. So
that, that connect stage, it is pretty simple, right? I’m trying to make invisible prospects visible to me and vice versa. Because at some point we all are probably unaware of our prospects.

We may know the general pool they reside in, but individually we don’t know ’em, we don’t know who they are, we don’t know who has the desire, who has the means, whatever. And then at some point, we’re probably invisible to them. If they’re not looking, then we’re just not that relevant to them. So
when we connect, we try to be, you know, to create visibility on both sides. So how do I create visibility of me and what I do? Well, I need to be present, right? I need to be present where people are. And so I look at this trade show, like this conference I went to in the trade show that I was at. If I
wouldn’t have been in attendance, I couldn’t have met those people. I got an introduction from other people and I couldn’t have met them if I wouldn’t have been there.

So the first rule of visibility is presence. We have to be present. And if you are talking about online, well, we need to figure out where people are online. Are they, you know, on Facebook, are they on Instagram? Are they on a different platform? Are they searching on Google? Are they frequenters of
other websites? Are they members of free Facebook groups? But we need to be seen where they are. So we have to be there. And then to become, you know, visible to us, we need to do something that gets them to kinda raise their hand and say, yeah, I’m interested in this. Now in the offline world, a lot of
times that comes from, you know, either you having a presence with some marketing materials. So like if you’re at a trade show or a health fair or something, there’s a booth and you have a display of things that might get somebody’s attention.

Or if you’re at an event like that, somebody who is aware of what you do may introduce you to somebody else in their life that is unaware, but they feel like might have an interest. So that’s how visibility occurs from that side. Well, online we simply need to be present and display something that
would be of interest and value to the person that we’re talking to or aspire to talk to, right? So typically that’s a lead magnet for me. I have used books more than anything else, but I’ve used all sorts of things. I’ve used bundles of newsletters. I’ve used a full blown certification course. I’ve given away videos of
pre-recorded, like, of a events that I had done. I’ve given away checklists and cheat sheets and guides and you name it. But all that would kind of get somebody to raise their hand and say, Hey, I’m interested in that.

And that interest in some way would be an indicator to me that they might be a fit, right? Like they might have a desire to solve a problem that is, you know, the, the topic of the book, or they may download some newsletters that suggest that they have a business and they, they want to improve their
marketing follow up. So, you know, something like that, right? So now we’ve got that stage of it, and then there, there’s follow up, right? Like follow up is simple. We’re just trying to move somebody from interested to ready. So we’ve got their attention in the online world, they give us their contact
information exchange for that thing of value, and then we follow up, we try to educate, we try to motivate, we demonstrate how we can help. And so we close that gap from where they are to where they want to be.

We want to be able to show them kind of this roadmap of where we can go on together to solve their problem or achieve their goal. And I do that through daily emails. And then more recently over the last, you know, 2, 3, 4 years, I’ve done that by integrating the podcast as well. And for me it becomes this
very kind of authentic thing. I try to be the opposite of what a lot of people do in podcasts or email marketing or whatever else where, you know, it’s almost like they, they put on this persona that is different than who you would get if you did a call with them, or if you met them in person. And you
know, it, it’s almost like the sales copy version of that person is who you see in the marketing. Whereas in my emails and on podcast I mean, I am precisely the, the same person you’d meet if you were sitting at my house today as they are putting it on new roof.

And you know, and, and I’m working from home. So for me, I just send that daily follow up. I try to, you know, kind of show people what I, you know, that, that somebody believes in ’em, that where they’re trying to go is possible that they can do it. Educate them by providing some tips
and tactics and guidance and advice and experiences demonstrate that I can help through a variety of mechanisms. But trying to give them things that, you know, might be things that typically they would have to pay for in a book or a course or a program. So it becomes clear, okay, hey, this is possible.
Hey, I can actually do this. Yes we can, that that gap is closed. I see the roadmap to go from where I am to where I wanna be.

And so then there’s the convert stage, right? It’s just basically, how do I move this to a conversation or some sort of small kind of investment or, or collaboration, if you will. So, you know, I use that super signature little Ps at the end of my emails that say, whenever you’re ready, here’s how I can help that I
learn from Dean Jackson. I use a lot of invitation emails, basically saying, Hey, I’m gonna take on a few new people. Would you be interested? And then, you know, I use deadline driven offers where there’s some incentive to do something. Now if it’s a product or a workshop or something, there might be a
deadline because the workshop, Hey, it’s Friday, so if you wanna attend live, then this is your opportunity. Or if it’s a product, maybe there’s a discount or a bonus or something, or you know, there’s just maybe a deadline.

When we’re onboarding new coaching clients you know, we kind of try to throttle the number that come in at once so that we can get them started and give them the appropriate amount of attention through onboarding and stuff. And so that’s convert, but it’s really this moving somebody from just,
you know, a one-way conversation where they’re consuming some information to a two-way conversation where we’re figuring out if it’s a fit. And the more offers you make, the more business you generate. So that’s it. I mean, it is drop dead simple. That’s how I think about email marketing. And I
figured I’d sum it up for you in this podcast. Now, obviously, the workshop that I’m gonna be doing that by the time this is released will already have been done. I’m going into much greater detail. I’m talking about the mechanics, I’m showing people examples, that sort of thing. But I mean, this is kind of the philosophy. This is the, the framework. And if you use this, I promise you it’s gonna help you grow your business.

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