How Email Marketing Generates Sales - Once You Get It [Bobby Klinck Interview]
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How Email Marketing Generates Sales - Once You Get It [Bobby Klinck Interview]
Transcript
Email marketing has been shown time and time again to have the highest ROI of any digital marketing channel, yet many businesses and entrepreneurs do not prioritize it as much as they should.
And there are those that do email marketing just to go through the motion without doing it in a strategic way and then wondering why there is no ROI or how to measure it.
If you are in either of these boats, you will get A LOT out of this interview with Bobby Klinck, author of Email Marketing That Doesn't Suck, who will school you on everything you wanted to know about email marketing in this episode!
Key Highlights
[02:12] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Bobby Klinck
[05:50] How Bobby Began Using Email Marketing
[11:05] Shifting from Legal Industry to Marketing
[17:13] How Bobby Finds Stories to Tell
[17:58] Why Stories Are Powerful
[22:00] How to Know If the Email is Impacting the Business In A Positive Way?
[29:31] Why Email Is Stil the Best Platform
[33:12] The CATCH Framework
[40:26] What Made Bobby Decide to Write A Book
[47:37] Final Advice
[51:17] Connect with Bobby
Notable Quotes
I think just a lot of stuff is recycled down once a thought becomes mainstream, everybody just sort of clings to it. I think it's always, you know, important that we have fresh ideas.
But really, what I tell people is their stories everywhere.
The key is to get in the practice of finding them. And you don't start with a story, your email start with what is the message or lesson that I want to get across?
For most people, what I suggest is you're going to have a few different themes you're going to use over and over again, in your business and your message, whatever it is that you're talking about. Keep story journals about those things, and you don't write the whole story out.
It's hard in this online marketing world where everyone wants quantifiable. Prove to me that this works right now. And this and I'm like, you can't necessarily do that. Because this is true marketing of building brand equity, building that type of thing. So that over time, you will ultimately have a brand where people just buy from you. And that's what you're shooting for.
A really great framework to think about the email as an extension of a relationship as if it was in person. It's not an email address. It's an actual person on the other side of the email address. And how would you engage with them if you were in the same room with them?
It is the only channel where you can really curate The messages like when it comes time to sell the messages you want people to receive in the particular order you want them to receive.
That's what email and marketing are about, establishing that relationship.
Understand that when you make the shift and start thinking about marketing the right way, like selling is just natural.
Guest Links:
Email Marketing That Doesn't Suck on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3wXK0oT [Affiliate]
Learn More:
Check Out All of My Podcast Episodes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download All of My Free EBooks: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffe
Transcript
Neal Schaffer:
0:00
Email Marketing. What if I told you that you could build all of your sales just by building relationships with potential clients? Just simply through telling stories in your emails on a weekly basis? sound like fiction? Well, you're going to find that exactly how someone did that and how they are going to teach you they are going to school you about everything email marketing, so that all you need to do is listen to this one episode. And you will be in the right mindset and be able to replicate their success. Well, you're just going to have to listen in to this episode of The your digital marketing coach, podcast. Digital social media content, influencer marketing, blogging, podcasting, blogging, tick talking LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, SEO, SEM, PPC, email marketing, who there's a lot to cover, whether you're a marketing professional entrepreneur, or business owner, you need someone you can rely on for expert advice. Good thing you've got, Neil, on your side, because Neal Schaffer is your digital digital marketing marketing coach, helping you grow your business with digital first marketing one episode at a time. This is your digital marketing coach. And this is Neal Schaffer. Hey, everybody, Neal Schaffer here. Welcome to episode number 269 of the your digital marketing coach podcast. This is Neal Schaffer, obviously, your digital marketing coach. Welcome to the show. Wow. You know, every time I interview someone, and as you know, 50% of these podcasts are or episodes, I should say are interviewing other people. But I really try to find people that I respect that I can learn from that can raise our literacy on any given one of these many digital marketing related subjects, so that you can be a fly on the wall and learn as I learned from our conversations. So I'm going to talk about this as I introduce the guest very shortly, but it was really finding out about today's guests, Bobby Clink. And while everybody talks about tick tock, or everybody talks about NF T's are the latest and greatest thing in marketing. He talks about email marketing. And as you all know, I am a big proponent of email marketing. It is when you think of Search Social email as one of the three major channels major opportunities for you to engage with others. And I'm really glad that I found the soulmate in many ways you'll find out when you listen to the interview, because Bobby has brought email marketing, I believe, to an art now, I asked him later on, there's a science to it as well, which is the fascinating part. But I think you're really going to get a lot out of this. At the end of this interview, I really proclaimed, this is going to be the definitive episode. If you want to learn more about email marketing, or really, if there's one episode, you can listen to an off recorded solo episodes and email marketing, I'd have to go back and tell you exactly which one you know what I will tell you which one it is. But I came out with an ebook earlier this year, which you should still download Email Marketing Guide, all about email marketing. So it's episode number 250, the why and how of email marketing. And that's how I sort of go into this, you know, definitive guide to email marketing ebook that I created that I hope that you'll check out as well. I think it goes more into the science and the traditional way of looking at email marketing, whereas today's guest Bobby clink is going to look at really a lot of it is the mindset but just an incredible way of transforming the way you think about email combined with actual actionable advice. You're gonna love this episode. So without further ado, and this is a longer episode, I joke that I normally only go 30 minutes and we might a little bit longer. But this is one where I think it's really going to be worth a listen. Here is my interview with Bobby Clink. You're listening to your digital marketing coach. This is Neal Schaffer. Alright, everybody, so I was on Amazon, looking for some new marketing books to consume on some trial I'm gonna be doing in the future. I found this really interesting book about email marketing. And what made it really interesting was the author and let me let me just let you know what it says an Amazon about the author and this is the author we're going to be interviewing today. Sometimes you need an outsider to shake things up. Bobby clink definitely fits this bill. He's not classically trained as a copywriter. No one's paid him to trick out of funnel since reimagine his approach to email marketing in 2008. 18 Bobby's weekly emails have become cult favorites, I would say the rest, but I don't want to give away the rest of our podcast. So Bobby, welcome to the your digital marketing goods Podcast.
Bobby Klinck:
5:10
I'm excited to be here, I think we're gonna have a fun discussion. And yeah, I'm definitely not a typical email marketing, teacher, coach, whatever you want to call it. But I like to say that I am the most conventional rebel you'll
Neal Schaffer:
5:24
ever meet. Awesome. Yeah, I don't think there are many email marketing coaches, even books on email marketing that are out there. It's sort of this. I don't know, people just think maybe just something you do. You just turn on the faucet, you got water, you just send out emails. But obviously, there's a lot more to it than that. But I want to take a step back because your background is not marketing at all. So I'm not going to ask you, you know, where it all started. But how did you begin using email marketing for your business, it probably be a great start.
Bobby Klinck:
5:55
So I mean, I started using it. And just for listeners to know I mean, I, I'm a lawyer by training, I am in no way a marketer. I was a, I don't say boring lawyer, but I played the role of lawyer for about 15 years or something like that. So I did that. And I guess I kind of started using email marketing, but the bad way, the way you shouldn't do it. In my law firm, I would send out a newsletter. I don't know probably monthly that I'm sure no one read. When I first started my list, I added all of the colleagues that I knew and that I had amassed over the years. And I say that I mean, it was maybe 50 to 100 people, I probably out of my family members, we all should be getting. Yeah, but that's how I started but but for a long time, even when I when I got out of practicing law into building an online business. And I started by selling legal templates, and then got into email and teaching business and marketing. But I was at first doing what everybody does. I had a weekly podcast, and I would send a dreadfully boring email that said, In this week's episode of the podcast we're talking about, because I mean, I was like, Okay, I'm supposed to build a list. I'm supposed to email people. No one told me what I was supposed to do about it. And so that's what I was doing. I was doing that. And you know, I would actually use some of the things that copywriters might have liked back then, because I would do a lot of curiosity hooks, I would never tell anybody about what I talked about in the podcast, I would just kind of like say, in this week's episode, you'll learn five amazing things that could change your business or you know, or something like that, that they were just so ridiculous over the top, probably, but boring. And that's what I was doing forever. And, as you might expect, no one ever replied to any of those, I have no idea whether they did me any good. But things changed for me in 2018. So in 2018, I was at an event, I'd sign up for an online business program, and I signed up through an affiliate and this is what was the biggest affiliate there were like 1000 people who signed up to her and I had gotten kind of known in her Facebook group as someone who's just giving a lot of value, because I had learned a lot of marketing in my lawyer days because I had to to build my law firm. And so I was sharing marketing advice, not just legal advice, I was doing these things. And I went to her event. And the night before the event started. And by the way, I was actually working with her and her team on legal issues at the time. So I mean, I kind of knew her in the team, and this at all burgeoned kind of through this process. And so I went to this event the night before with about 100 of the people. And everyone was standing in line take picture with her. So I stand in line, I'm going to take pictures and everything. But I took a picture with her number two, the person who really ran her business on the behind the scenes right there at the front, because I knew her had been chatting with her, but I've never met him in person, because I'm in Washington, DC. So I'm in California, so got a chance to finally do that. The rest of nights blur, I look at my phone at the end of the night back in my hotel room and I find the picture I'd taken with her number two. And this woman, the entrepreneur running the event who's normally kind of has a very, I don't say proper, but like put together persona is standing behind us photobombing us with her tongue out just being ridiculous. And I just laughed out loud because I didn't know what what else to response to have. And I sent that picture to my wife back here in DC. She was long asleep. The next morning, I wake up to something from her from my wife. Her simple response. Why are you sending me pictures of you with random women? This event literally it was me. And I mean like three other guys probably among a sea of women at this event. And it never occurred to me my wife knew I was working with this woman knew about that. She had no idea what she looked like. So my wife who's dealing with like a four year old at the time, three or four year old thinks I'm just out having a great time with a bunch of random women and sending her pictures back. And so I kind of explained it. Well, that day at the event someone was talking about email, and so you should tell stories in your email. And then I was sitting there talking to one the other participants told her about this text exchange with my wife and she looks back at me and says I think we know what your next email is today. And the next week, I sent an email and told that story. And the open rate was the highest I've ever had, even though open rates aren't a great, especially now aren't a great metric. But it was, but also I had people responding, replying to the email and saying, this is like, brighten my day, this made me happy. And I was like, Whoa, what's going on here? I was so confused, because I wasn't used to these things happening. And so I was kind of hooked. And I started just telling stories and emails, and having fun with that. And that really was the moment that everything switched for me with email. And I've been doing it ever since.
Neal Schaffer:
10:41
What I was going to ask you, that was a great story, by the way. Thank you. I was going to ask you just and I have an idea of who that who that entrepreneur is. But anyway, we won't go into that detail. But highest respect for her. But before that you I was really interested in you went from lawyer to creating an online business. It's to me or dude, even though obviously legal templates, it's sort of related to it. What is was there like a trigger point? Did you feel like you knew enough about marketing in the law firm that you could do that? Or is there any backstory there to share?
Bobby Klinck:
11:13
No, I mean, I was running away and more than running to to be honest with you. So I had graduated law law school back in 2002. with honors, the first I would say, eight years of my lawyering career was the kind of thing that most lawyers would just like salivate. I clerked for a Court of Appeals judge, a Federal Court of Appeals judge in Arkansas, who is he's no longer with us. But he was long thought as one of the top liberal judges to never make it to the Supreme Court, President Clinton twice considered appointing him. Then I come to Washington, DC. I'm working for elite firms here at the second one of which the guy who recruited me to go to that firm and who became my mentor. At the time, I called him, Neil. Now we have to call him Supreme Court. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch. I mean, this is kind of my history. Like, that's where I lived. The problem was like, at, at my core, I'm a punk rock kid from Texas, like I played in punk rock bands in college, in high school, all that. And I'm like putting a suit on and going and fighting with people all day. And oftentimes, I was fighting about, you know, is this company or is that company going to be, you know, $100 million, Richard. I mean, that was the kind of stuff I was doing. And it wasn't exactly exciting. So, after a stint as a prosecutor, for awhile, I came back, I joined a small firm, then I had my own law firm. And I was just in those kind of doldrums, and at the time of things, my late 30s, and I was like, I didn't know what was going on. I started working with a life coach. And we spent six months talking about personal stuff, relationships, brands, my wife, my kid, all of that stuff. And then she asked me and one of the sessions, do you like what you do for a living? And for the first time, I admitted to someone other than my wife that I did. I love the law. Let me be clear, the the intellectual challenge the stimulation of it, I love to court, but I didn't like practicing law, and especially the kind that I practice. And so she actually said, Okay, well, what are you gonna do about that? And she then said something to me, I had no idea. She said, Well, I can see you going into podcasts and radio shows and giving advice and tips to business owners about legal stuff. So that's interesting. Well, by the time we met again, two weeks later, I had hired a podcast booking agency. This is back in I think, 2017, or there abouts. And I was like, in full gear, I was just going, and I had no idea what the business was gonna be. But I was like, I don't like what I have now. And I mean, there were a couple of like trigger moments there. My daughter when she graduated from pre K, I had to miss it, because I had a court appearance somewhere. But there was a period twice in one year where my my, my dad basically said, hey, I want to take the entire family on vacation, I'm paying, you don't have to do anything. And one was to go like snow ski, and then another was to go to the wine country. And I couldn't go on either, because I had trial schedule. Now I knew the trials were gonna go away. But I couldn't go because and sure enough, both times it happened. And so at some point, I just said, I don't want this life anymore. And so I went online. And what I discovered was, I'd actually learned a lot of marketing, kind of in my law firm base, but also my dad ran businesses growing up. And I had learned kind of through osmosis how to run a business. And I want to say I'm a conventional rebel, like in the online world, I seem really weird. But that's because I'm running my business. Like my dad ran his brick and mortar businesses where I put my customers first I'm saying, How do I serve them? How do I figure out what makes them happy? And I just that was just natural to me. And so because of that, I think the marketing made sense and I kind of leaned into that, but that's the story of how it happened.
Neal Schaffer:
15:00
Wow, that's really, really fast. And thank you for sharing that few similarities. So what were what were your favorite punk rock bands growing up?
Bobby Klinck:
15:06
So I mean, there's there's a few that always stick out. You know, I love rancid and operation IV before and so those are some of the ones I truly love. I was a big fan of no effects back in the day Bad Religion, a lot of the really old stuff and I say old I mean, it's not, you know, well, that's
Neal Schaffer:
15:26
my Well, yeah, so my generation is that older because I grew up as a Southern California punk rocker, Black Flag, Bad Religion, fear TSL. I could go on and on and on. So in fact, I would meet Henry Rollins at a local donut place in Hermosa Beach Rex used to trade bootleg tapes, I don't know why I'm telling an ex lawyer that but anyway,
Bobby Klinck:
15:47
it's funny because like I literally one of the emails now that people get if they come in through my my legal freebies, like I share a bunch of stories about stuff that was stupid that I did. And we recorded in college, we recorded a record and we did a lot of sampling. And why don't we like sampled almost the entire speech from John Lithgow, his character in in Footloose, where he's up at the pulpit talking about the dangers of everything. And like it kind of like ends with him saying, you know, in this obscene rock'n'roll music, at which point the guitar kind of comes up in that, but I was like, Don't do that. That's called copyright infringement. And we literally just took this whole thing and put it into our record, you can't do that.
Neal Schaffer:
16:26
Exactly. Very cool. And the other is, yeah, you know, my background is not I don't have a traditional marketing background myself. And I think that gives you an advantage, in that you can look at a lot of things, I think just a lot of stuff is recycled down once a thought becomes mainstream, everybody just sort of clings to it. No pun on your last name. But yeah, I think it's always, you know, important that we have fresh ideas I want to move forward to, you know, you have a legal template business, you found an email that worked. It's all about, you know, storytelling. So there's two things I want to ask you first is, how do you find stories to tell on a weekly basis when sometimes there's no story to tell? Well, what is that inspiration that keeps you going that you recommend other people? So first of
Bobby Klinck:
17:13
all, I have to say, this is again, this will make me weird, because most people who teach anything related to marketing act like what they do is like everyone can do it, and everyone has the same skill. My skill set naturally is as a storyteller, but not just as a storyteller of seeing connections like that is like if you take the Gallup strength, finders test, literally, there's a section in there when I did it, and it says something like, you naturally tell stories from your personal life and your business, it says something like that. And so that's within my wheelhouse of doing. But really, what I tell people is their stories everywhere. Most of the stories I tell are not like that one I just told about my wife's text, most of the stories I tell are there those fleeting moments in life, that there is a lesson you can pull out of it. And the reason why stories are powerful is number one, they personalize and allow you to connect with your audience, but also their parables and their small parables. But there's little lessons that we can find. And everything I've sold towards told stories about getting an email from my daughter's school, her first or second week of kindergarten with the subject line was just lice. And it was about there being a confirmed case of lice and her class. And me spending four hours going into the depths of the Internet to make sure that we did not get lice in our right and so but I, you know, I can come up with stories from everywhere. And so can you the key is to get in the practice of finding them. And you don't start with a story, your email start with what is the message or lesson that I want to get across? If it's weekly content, if you have weekly content we're putting out and that's what your email is about. You pull a lesson from or a message from that and say, Okay, so for example, mine might be about the status quo advice being garbage, because I talked about that a lot. And so if that were my message, I would say, Okay, let me try to come up with a place where I ignored the advice someone gave me and it worked out well. Or another case, where somewhere where I followed the advice that everybody told me to do, and it didn't work out well. And so I just come up with those. And so that's kind of how I frame it. For most people, what I suggest is you're going to have a few different themes you're going to use over and over again, in your business and your message, whatever it is that you're talking about. Keep story journals about those things, and you don't write the whole story out. But just on a daily basis, a weekly basis, whatever it is, however often you need to do it, so that you actually can capture these things, ask questions like, Who did I talk to today? Where did I go today? Who did I interact with today? Those types of more specific questions and you're gonna go through the list and you'll be like, okay, yeah, now there's nothing there. But sometimes you'll say, oh, I can relate this back. To my rebel theme, or I could relate this back to, you know, whatever themes you have, and you just then jot down a quick note. And again, I say journal, a lot of people are going to do it just in a phone and their notes app or something like that, that'll work perfectly, but you just need a place that you're putting these things down. And the thing that I want to tell people is, this is a case where like, I jokingly say that I set out to write a book about marketing. And then I decided to make it about email. And then it really is about marketing. So it was kind of this big journey. Storytelling isn't just about email. If you're a marketer, you should tell stories. I mean, in everything you do, it is one of the most powerful things you do. So you just need to get in this practice of coming up with these stories to tell. And again, like just like, you know, we were swapping stories a second ago, it's just natural to people who've been doing it for a while, but it takes getting used to. And I really wasn't great at it at first because I struggled with it. But that's how I suggest doing it. And also, I'll tell you, they should be about you. This is where depending on kind of what advice you're hearing, like everybody talks about how, oh, well, you shouldn't be the hero, you shouldn't be the center and all that. And yes, and conversion copy. That's right. But on a weekend and week out basis, people are trying to figure out, do I like body? Do I want do I want this guy to be the person I listened to when it comes to marketing. And one of the best ways for people to make that decision is let him get to know me. And so that's why my stories are almost always personal.
Neal Schaffer:
21:25
That's really fantastic advice. It reminds me, you know, one of my heroes, Pat Flynn, he talks about having a story bank, but he uses it for speeches. But as you say, you can use it for email, you can use it throughout podcasts, what have you. So that's really, really a great reminder that anybody can be a storyteller. But my second question, this is a great sort of leeway into it. So you found that you're getting more responses. So I have my own answer that I'm gonna I want to test if you would say the same thing. But how does all that then relate to the business side? How do you know that it is impacting the business in a positive way?
Bobby Klinck:
22:00
Well, and here's the thing that the people who love numbers hate me when I talk about this. And what I mean by that is, I tell people, open rates or open rates were trashed before, but But now with iOS update, you can't rely on open rates anyway, click rates, again, people get fixated on Oh, how many clicks Am I getting, but it really depends on what your type of email is. And so part of this is, again, luck of happenstance, my weekly emails were about my podcast. Well, people don't click on a link, to go to my website to listen to podcasts. That's just not how people work. So I don't expect and I never really expected people to click that link. And so I was never really tracking that. And so people hear they're like, Oh, my God, but you've got to so there is some level of feel to it, you will have a feel of if your audience is engaged, but the way it translates to business is that you're building the know, like and trust factor. And what you're ultimately trying to do with emails is create a situation where you're no longer a random person on the internet, you are a friend and trusted advisor. So then when it comes time to sell, when the person is ready, they don't even think twice like my customers. I mean, I don't know. I mean, I'm sure there are people who sell legal templates more cheaply than me. But I'll simply say most of my people don't even know. Because once they find me and they like me, if I'm their person, they're never looking anywhere else, when they need a legal template, they come in by mine. And that's the kind of thing and I'll just tell you that when I've done these things, I kind of like what inspired me to teach people email. Yes, my weekly stuff was always what I thought of as the core of what I did. And what made me very different than most email marketers. But back in 2019, I was starting to really get a lot of traction in my business and online. And I was like, Okay, great. And I had this big idea. I'm gonna do website launches for my legal template pack. I'm one where you get all of it. And so I was gonna do these website launch, I was gonna do one every quarter, and I was going to double each quarter. And so I did the first one, and I hit the number and it all went well. The funny thing is, I looked at the ads, I was like, huh, like 60% of the people who bought during this thing, never signed up for a touch the webinar. They just got my emails as well. That's probably something right after I did that launch, though, some things came back to life and my law firm. So all of a sudden, I had to say I just can't do these big mega launches that I had in mind. And so the people I was I was in business, masterminds with said, Okay, what could you do? I said, Well, I could do some email only launches. Oh, cool. And so at this point, it was me and a via that was it in my business. And I did email only launches, and I could just do it periodically send four days of emails, make $50,000 refurbish for 44 days, emails, $50,000 in revenue, and it just happened like clockwork and I was emailing 4000 People at that point that was about it. And I said, this is working. And so the pre have ultimately is in the pudding. But, you know, on a day to day basis, what I look for is how many people are responding because when I know that it's happening, those people become my brand advocates. And again, this is another one of the things I'll tell you a lot of times when you see the, the cycle of customers people talk about, they have to buy from you multiple times before they'll become a brand advocate. I always thought that was the dumbest advice ever. I've had brand advocates who never bought a single thing from me, because they weren't ready yet. But they knew that when they were ready, they were going to buy from me, and they told everybody out there about and so that's kind of what you're doing, and building that up. And it works. I mean, it's, it's, it's hard in this online marketing world where everyone wants quantifiable. Prove to me that this works right now. And this and I'm like, you can't necessarily do that. Because this is true marketing of building brand equity, building that type of thing. So that over time, you will ultimately have a brand where people just buy from you. And that's what you're shooting for.
Neal Schaffer:
26:04
Yeah, I'm just thinking back to your your father's businesses, the brick and mortar, you weren't there every day counting, oh, we had more people, we had 10% more people coming to our store today. It's not the way forward. But
Bobby Klinck:
26:15
more importantly, like there's all these stories that my dad has told me. So like, and this is like, my attitude towards business that like one of them. He tells us this hilarious thing that he was in his office on a Saturday and his office was upstairs from the main store by the end there was so it was a drugstore chain nicer than a CVS or something like that. But but you know, all those things. And it had like really nice perfumes and a perfume counter that stuff behind the counter. And he got called down on a Saturday by the woman who first there was a buyer who was like the cosmetics buyer was there rain on a Saturday and she had gone downstairs. And also he gets called and he goes down. And there's this woman who had he was on the Mexican border who come across from Mexico to do a shopping trip. And she came and said, I bought this two things that have some kind of like shaped like really expensive $10 Shave Cream. And this was back in the 80s. I mean, so really expensive. And she said, but I got back to my hotel room and it wasn't there. And the person who's behind the counter, the manager who was there said we we show that we had two in stock, and they're not on the shelf. So she must have gotten. And the woman said I didn't get it. And so my dad looks at him says Do we have any stock in the warehouse and I said yes. And he said, Go get him. And the guy he gave them to him hand her back, he goes upstairs and this cosmetics buyer who saw the whole thing went into his office, it was just the two of them and shuts the door to yellow to say I can't believe you just did that. That woman is going to take advantage of you she's going to come back she's going to do this. And they actually kept literally a paper journal back in the day of anyone who did a return without a receipt or something like this. And so my dad said to me said, I don't think she will. And then this other one was the buyer says you want to bet? sure how much you wanna bet, when was not a better settle better a dot, that, you know, within the next two years, she'll come back and she didn't take advantage of me. So they used took a dime. And they taped it to the safe. Five years later that that woman retired and the person had still not come back to take advantage. So my dad, like taught me these kinds of lessons of when you treat people, right? Guess what, they'll treat you right? And so I view email as an extension of that I'm just treating people right, and treating them how I would want to be treated. And when I do, guess what? People will talk about Bobby Clinton has legal templates and Bobby clink and his coaching program, Bobby clink and his email book, and then all sudden I don't even have to market I don't have to sell because everyone's doing it for me.
Neal Schaffer:
28:44
Yeah, that's, that's fantastic. And I think that a lot of marketers, and, you know, this podcast also is entrepreneurs and business owners listening. They get that they have to build a list. They get that social media and Google search results is borrowed land. But they're missing that final connection. Why got the list? What do I do? And I found myself that there isn't a lot of content out there even in the blogosphere. Nevertheless, you know, on Amazon, that really, you know, sort of handhold you through Well, what should you do once you have it? And I think you'll have a great sort of template. Once again, no pun intended, but a really great framework to think about the email as an extension of a relationship as if it was in person. It's not an email address. It's an actual person on the other side of the email address. And how would you engage with them if you were in the same room with them?
Bobby Klinck:
29:31
Yeah, and I think like email and look, there's the whole borough land versus own land, which look all of that makes sense. And I tell everyone, at some point email will stop being the best platform right now. Study after study shows it is still the best but realistically the reason why that that is is because it is truly permission based, right? They have raised their hand and said you can mark it to me and it is the only channel where you can really curate The messages like when it comes time to sell the messages you want people to receive in the particular order you want them to receive. Because on social media, you can't do that. I mean, I'm annoyed if you're gonna see this post or that post, and you know, reach is so junky these days. Whereas with email, you have this somewhat intimate relationship with people. And that came through to me. So in. I created a course about email marketing, which I now give away for free, but I created it and launched it. And my launch was happening in March of 2020. A very wonderful time to be launching a program at least it was an online program. But I think I think my think was my email announcing the webinar was went out what I call like that Wednesday, I don't remember what day it was. But it was the Wednesday that the NBA canceled its game, Tom Hanks had said he had COVID. And President Trump gave his speech, and said, We're closing the borders to Europe this Friday. So it was a kind of a weird period. But also, like soon after that, and I didn't, it didn't, you know, I kind of thought about it, but not really, I sent an email, because my number two, my integrated on my team, we were going to have like a day or two days, all day meetings for the end of the quarter. And so I sent an email in the subject line was pray for Kate, people kind of get to know my teammates, and people got pissed at me, because they thought they just assumed I was saying she has COVID You need to pray for. And I'm just saying when you think about like that level of intimacy that the people on my list assumed that I would share that. Now first of all, I wouldn't share team members medical, but they just thought of me at that level of friendship, which I mean, I guess you could get on social, if you are one of the Uber very active all the time people. But with email, I mean, I spend 30 minutes a week on it, I don't spend a ton of time on it. And people have that perception that I'm their friend. And that's why it's so powerful versus the other kind of communication channels that we have available to us.
Neal Schaffer:
32:00
I'm curious, and thank you for that. And I couldn't agree more. You know, it really solidifies that relationship in a way that nothing else can. I'm just curious though, outside of this, we're going to get into more geeky marketing stuff. I'm also assuming, though, that outside of the weekly emails that you might have some, and I just want to give, you know, actual advice to the listener, you might have some, thank you for attending this webinar. Thank you for downloading the link manat what we would call sequences. So is there a dose of automation that you use in your email as well? And then what role does that play in relation to those weekly newsletters?
Bobby Klinck:
32:36
Yes, so definitely, when someone comes onto my list, they're going to get depending on how they come onto my list, anywhere from six weeks to maybe up to eight weeks of kind of automated stuff before they go on to my weekly emails. And it starts with and this was like one of my big frustrations. It starts with that very first email that I send to them the very first time they sign up. And I had heard people teach well, you need to have a confirmation email with feeling or like they would say like, don't do, here's your freebie, here's your thing. But they didn't really tell me much else from besides that said, Well, that's great, but how am I supposed to do it. So I came up with what I call the catch framework. And it's, it's an abbreviation. So it basically walks you through the structure you send in that first email. First just I congratulate them on whatever action they took, downloading the freebie joining my list signing up for a webinar, or whatever it is, then the A is you acknowledge the frustration. So I acknowledge and this is the magic of this email, I'm basically speaking into the struggle that my audience has. And by doing that I'm building trust. Because if you can describe the pain point and frustration of your audience, well, they're naturally going to say, Wow, Bobby gets the problem. I betcha he has the solution. Now, they don't think that consciously but subconsciously, that's happened. So I do that I acknowledge the struggle, the pain, etc. And, and especially with the legal stuff, it was, like, you know, like, one of my classic ways to do that was to say that there is a lot of fun and sexy stuff when it comes to building an online business. But the successful business owners are the people who don't just focus on that. Because there's a lot of not so sexy stuff, right? Then after the A is the T, this tells me about you and this is like me basically saying you joining my list downloading this freebie, etcetera tells me that you're going to be one of the people who overcomes that frustration. That's just kind of building them up, make him feel better. Then the next C is credibility boost. It's a short little, you found a good guide, and here's why. But one to two short sentences, I start adding personality there so that people get to know me. And then the H is hooked to the next email if you know what the next email is going to be because everyone will go to the same sequence. You use some kind of curiosity hook so that they will want to read that email. And so that first email sets the stage and I do that then they go through what I call a nurture sequence which no Normally, it could be trying to sell them something, but oftentimes, it's just helping them get value from whatever they download it. So I mentioned earlier where I talked about the copyright infringement email, I had this sequence that walks through five big areas of legal stuff that online business owners need to be thinking about. And so each one starts with something dumb, I did relate it to it, and then a lesson. And I actually have a checklist that has all those plus one more, one of them I didn't talk about, which like set up an LLC, that would be horribly boring email, we're not going to do that. So, but it's like, so I'm just kind of going deeper and helping them get value and make sure they kind of digested the information about that. So that's kind of a nurture sequence. Now, then I have a welcome sequence, which I think of as the ABCs of me, or the orientation into my world. So they can figure out is this guy, the guy that I want to follow? And so there's a couple of things that I do here. One, I tell my origin story, I talked about how I came to do this thing. And by the way, mine is way more convoluted, because I have kind of two different sides. How did I become an online business owner? And then how did I go from legal guy to marketing guy, so I break that up, but most people have one origin story. And oftentimes, if you're a few steps ahead of the people who you're helping, the best way to do this is in two parts. Part one is all about the hell you walk through your frustration, you living through the same struggles that they're walking through now, and how, you know, it was bleak, dark, etc. And then you say, luckily, I made a big shift. And I'll tell you about that next week. Or I'll tell you about that my next email or something like that. And so then the next one is, what was the shift? And what's happened since then? And how is that improved business life, whatever it is that you help people with. But beyond that origin story, the welcome sequence should help people know, what do you stand for? Like, what are the core values of your business of what you do? So they can decide. And this is one of those things a lot of people struggle with, and I struggle with it early on, but we don't need to be for everyone, we need to be for the right people. And my example, that is, look, if you don't like a few four letter words, you probably shouldn't be in my world, because I don't use them all the time. But every once awhile, I'm gonna drop them. And I think you should know that. Because I've had people like, before I started telling people this in advance, they would, you know, they would send I think this is so unprofessional. And it shows a lack of education, which I thought was funny. And I have a Harvard law degree. I mean, you know, I'm pretty educated. I simply believe that sometimes, a curse word is the perfect work. And I never curse. But anyway, so I tell people that. But also I tell people that I believe in being a radical giver, that I believe that business should be fun. So I tell people, these kind of core things in the way I approach business so they can figure out hey, do I want to learn from Bobby, do I want to be in him? Or is there someone else that I'd rather get these resources from? Then the last big group is how can you help people. And this includes both your free content and your paid content. And that welcome sequence should help with that. And I learned this lesson the hard way. Because before I did this, the first time I did, it was an email only launch but a launch on my big at the time. $1,000 you get all my legal templates pack. I did this email launch. And I did afterwards after I closed it. It was an open closed cart, like most people do online. And at the end, when people hadn't bought I sent the do you hate me mail, which you're in the email marketing world you know about this? It's an email you send that literally you can send it with a subject line? Do you hate me? It's joking, gotta be cheeky, but it's basically Hey, why didn't you buy is what you're asking. And so I sent that. And the funny thing was, I got so many responses that said something like this. Well, yeah, your your stuff sounds great. But I don't need all those templates. I wish you sold them individually. I'm like, I do. Apparently, I haven't communicated this very well. So again, people after they get through my welcome sequence, now know how I can help them so that they understand all those things. And so that's a big part of it. So like I said, that is a very my welcome sequences, 13 or 14 emails. The nurture sequence, depending on how they come in can be six or eight. So all of that happens before they're getting any of my standard weekly emails because I want them to come in educated and kind of knowing all of those curated things, and some of my best stories have now worked their way into those emails.
Neal Schaffer:
So do you go from the Welcome to the nurturer? No,
Bobby Klinck:
39:17
I do the nurturer first, okay. And then the welcome because the way I think about is the nurturer is more tied to the freebie they got so it's less about you. Yeah, yeah. It's, it's less about you, it's more about the thing to kind of what you're doing is you establish trust with that catchy mail, then you're you're hoping to build a little more trust by helping them get value from that thing. Then you move on to building the know and the like. And so it's all that we call it know, like and trust, especially online, you got to build trust before you have any chance to the other two. So, and that's one of the differences. A lot of people don't think of it that way. But that's the way I've done it for, I don't know, four or five years now and it's working
Neal Schaffer:
40:00
So Bobby, I am assuming that we're now into the territory of your book, email marketing, it doesn't suck, have fun writing emails your subscribers want to read, and they'll actually make you money. And this book actually, according to Amazon came out April 19 2022. So it's only it's been less than a month, which is really exciting. Two questions. So and and then, you know, we'll sort of wrap up here. First question is what made you decide to write a book.
Bobby Klinck:
40:26
So this is a big long story. So you thought we're gonna wrap up quickly. Good luck with that. But so we did. I ran a virtual event in 2020. And we did this big aside from doing a virtual event, it was the first weekend of December, we had come up with a pretty audacious idea. My team and I, which was we were going to create this program called bomb you badass online marketing University, and we were going to give it away for free. Instead of selling courses or courses, we're gonna be free. And we were just going to have this thing because we couldn't figure out it was like it started by this discussion of how in the world like, if we hired someone who didn't know this world, how would I even get them to understand any of this stuff? That was the impetus for this idea. And so we announced this program at that event on day two, and I played, I played pranks on people, they were literally saying, where to put my credit card and where to put my credit card and where to put my credit card late, what they were trying to buy the whole time. And then I announced at the very last session, unless that was free. So we did sell somebody, we sold a coaching program, we close 30% of the room. Wow. And into a $7,000 coaching program. And so afterwards, we're on our group chat. And I said, because I've been joking about writing a book for a while. And so I said to my number two who's just like, like, we were just blown away by this. And I said, Can I write my book now? She said, go eat your cake. Because we have the saying, I gotta eat my vegetables before he my cake. And so at the time, it was not gonna be about email marketing. Like I said, I was gonna write this book about being a surf first entrepreneur, and what that really means not the, the lip service that a lot of people say, but honestly, putting your clients first and what does that mean? And what does that translate to? And so I did that. And then I signed up with the book team and started to work with him. And I just said, You know what, I'm not ready to write that book yet. It's still percolating. And so I said, let's write a book about email. And that was kind of how it came about, which is funny because I now don't sell an email, I don't have a product, I can tell you about it.
Neal Schaffer:
42:29
I went on your website. It's like, he doesn't even talk about email. And he wrote a book on it. So I get the disconnect
Bobby Klinck:
42:34
now. Yeah. And it's because like, I mean, it's now it's part of my marketing my bomb you I have a course in there it was, it was the thing that people loved. And they really enjoyed it. So it's part of it, I have that. But it's free. I mean, again, I have a coaching program membership. But that's not directly about either one of them. But that's how it came about. But also Chapter One of the book is, is really a mini version of me saying that, that when most people online use the word marketing, I'm having this moment, you don't seem to know what that word means. Because you're talking about sales, or you're talking about advertising. And marketing is something more fundamental. And so I'm kind of doing that in chapter one. But that's how the book came about. And we just we said, look, it's a book, that's fun. And that would be entertaining to write. My big problem with writing the Surface Book, honestly, was, I tend to have kind of two voices. People either get a very snarky kind of the kid in the back of the class who's causing trouble, but saying some smart things kind of stuff. That's my typical voice. Or you might say Han Solo from from Star Wars, I have that kind of Avatar about me. The other side is I take people to business church, and that people have said that oftentimes, it sounds like I am preaching from the pulpit. The problem is like that, sir. First Book, at first was gonna be like that second voice. I'm like, I don't think that's a good first voice to come out with, because I don't know about you, but I don't really, you know, people who know me love it, people who are in my world enjoy it. But that's because I'm preaching to the choir. Right? And I was like, I'm not sure if doing that to a general audience is the best way to start. Now, since then, I figured out how to do the snarky version. And so that probably will be my next book. I'm, I'm now I'm working slowly on Katie, my number two, like When can I start the next book? When can I start the next book? She told me, I think I gotta wait at least six months. So you know, I've got a timeline, at least.
Neal Schaffer:
44:36
And you talked about, for instance, that sequencing and you know, welcome and nurture sequences, so I'm assuming that those who buy the book will be able to learn more about that framework that you have as well as any other sort of not to give the whole book away. But what else can kind of listeners learn from reading your book?
Bobby Klinck:
44:55
Yeah, so So the book is broken into two parts. Part one is more I don't want to say mindset, but it's an approach it's how do you think about email is the first part. And that's where you'll have very much of this, you know, kind of deeper discussion about what is marketing? What are you trying to accomplish, etc, then part two is more tactical. And I walked through, I tend to think of emails, a five phase journey, but it's kind of, it's not like, once they're done, they're done. So we walk through the catch the nurture, the welcome sequence, the weekly emails, and then sales sequences, and how do you sell with email? And that's another thing, like, and I don't know what your experience has been, but when I took a lot of programs online, they're like, oh, yeah, you're gonna you're gonna do a launch. Okay? You got to send some emails, and like, oh, you might send what about this? You might say, what about that? But there was no real, like, what are you trying to accomplish? What messages and so I kind of walk you through very specific ordering, and why you're doing it in that order to help you understand what you're trying to accomplish, kind of, I don't wanna say sales psychology, because I'm not a trained psychologist, I don't even know if it's a real thing. But from a logical strategic standpoint of hitting the right notes at the right time. And so there's in that, but let's just be clear, I mean, there's only so much you're gonna have in a book. And so the jaded, jaded online marketers expected, here's where I'm coming for the money, but I'm not. I got all kinds of free resources, I got the course. That's where I get more nuts and bolts into the nitty gritty. But again, that's totally free, because I'll just always keep that updated. But yeah, that's, that's how I help people with email.
Neal Schaffer:
46:31
Well, that's awesome. I totally agree with that point about the sales sequence. I think that, you know, there's all these courses and books and you know, they talk about, hey, how to launch or what have you, but they never go into the detail. Email is almost like the afterthought. Yeah, you just do it. Yeah. Just send out, you know, a sequence five days, well, yeah. What does that look like? What are the details? Why do you do what you do. So I'm really glad that you created a resource that's really badly missing in the world, but, but in a way that says, hey, at the end of the day, it's really about the relationship. And if you build a relationship, you're going to be able to sell things, almost like I've always had this approach to social media where you don't have to, like do something x times a day, or x times a week, if you have nothing to say, they don't say it, right. But if you have something to say, say it and you know, don't sell. And if you share great stuff without selling, then when you need to sell or you have something to sell, you've already built that audience, you build that trust, and you basically related that to the email world. So I thank you for, you know, today's interview and writing the book, any other things, I think we got a whole comprehensive view. And I'm sure if people go into your course, they're going to go into the depths of this. Any other you know, final advice for our listeners about email marketing that we might not have covered.
Bobby Klinck:
47:37
So I mean, what I'll tell people is, and again, this kind of relates to what you were talking about there about selling and not selling, and I sell a lot more than a lot of people. But no one thinks I'm salesy. Because I don't do it in an aggressive way. And so the funny thing is, and this is the other thing I'll tell you, kind of a final thought I'll tell you is like, I hear a lot of people who will go out and pay a lot of money to hire a copywriter to write their sales emails. But they're not doing anything the rest of the time. And I'm like, if you'll do the other stuff, right, you can write a pretty mediocre or crappy sales sequence, and people are gonna buy because they're ready to buy from you. And that's, that's what email that's really what marketing is about is establishing that relationship. And this is not me saying it This is This is Peter Drucker has this great quote, it's in the book, and where he basically says the point of marketing is to make selling, obsolete or superfluous, like when done, right. The whole point of marketing is that you know, your audience so well, that you can create a product that fits your audience so well, that you say, Here's my thing. And they say, I want it. And that's what I want people to be thinking about when they're thinking about marketing with email and anything else is understand that when you make the shift and start thinking about marketing the right way, like selling is just natural. You don't even have to think about it, and it takes care of itself. So I guess that's the final thought I would leave people with.
Neal Schaffer:
49:05
Yeah, I'm going to I'm going to translate that that thought into an interesting podcast interview I heard recently, with an NFT artist. She's just an artist. And she had always put her stuff up on Instagram had some followers. And then she decided, You know what, I'm just going to convert this art into sort of like a moving image and go to open sea and create an NF T. And she just would post Hey, I have this new NFT and she said, I'm just going to do one a day and see how it goes. Well the first one it's sold. So if she went from 0.1 or if there M to 0.2 or three did it again, like seven days in a row? She sold one a day and you know she reached out to the people who bought it What Why did you buy the well we were following you we love your art so she didn't have to sell it. She just and the interviewer said what you didn't do any promotions or and she goes no, I just posted online on my account that I have a new NFT and that's it right? She didn't have to sell so it's so much to your point, you know, relating it to something else but it is sort of the universal truth. And I agree with you when you mark it. Well, you know, I have a background in b2b sales, but I really got interested in the marketing, because I know if you did it well, I'm not gonna say it sells it's the product sells itself. But when marketing is done well, it's sort of it sort of has that sort of, you know, it's, it's, and again, I
Bobby Klinck:
50:18
think people when they hear I think it does sell, sell, but what it means is it sells itself to the right person, right, a lot of what's happening is people are trying to sell products to the wrong people. And you know, I don't care how good your market I mean, a really great marketing communications, like advertising and copying that, yeah, you can get some money to buy. But that's not how you build a business long term. And so, but yeah, I mean, that's the thing. And I've just said, I mean, people love my sales emails. But oftentimes, they're just like, well, you know, I knew I needed it. And who else would I buy it from? Okay, cool. That's, that's, that's the goal of every business owner, I think.
Neal Schaffer:
50:54
Totally. Bobby, thank you so much. You've been really before we got started everybody. I'm like, Bobby, these are normally like, 30 minutes. And yeah, we've we've almost got like 15 minutes, but I couldn't stop. This is really great information. This will be the ultimate email marketing podcast episode from my podcast, at least. So thank you for your contribution. Other than finding your book on Amazon. Once again, email marketing doesn't suck. I'll put a link to in the show notes. Where else can people go to find out more about you sign up to your newsletter, and then check out your email marketing course.
Bobby Klinck:
51:24
So it's a go to Bobby clink.com Ford slash email. So that's kind of our resource book that's cited in the page. But we did a fun thing. It's also kind of a hub page, there's, we did an entire podcast series. So there's an 11 episode, which I almost think of as like a mini audio training that is there. But we also have a bunch of lessons. So we kind of took that and put it in written form. So if you'd like to read it, you can get there. You can get swipe files, you can get framework files, all that stuff about me think.com Forward slash email, it'll help you kind of go deeper and figure out how to do email marketing right?
Neal Schaffer:
51:56
Well, there you have everybody this is one episode if you listen to the end, this is going to serve you far beyond you know, just listening spending the hour together with so So Bobby, thank you so much for one punk rocker to another I never started I ended up becoming a drummer later in life. Just curious. What instrument did you play?
Bobby Klinck:
52:11
I was a bass guitar player I played stand up based in orchestra growing up and so I became a bass guitarist. So you know, I was the the behind the scenes part of the kind of the rhythm part of the band.
Neal Schaffer:
52:25
Well, as a drummer, I had a really good friend who has a basis as Neil, listen to any band. It's the bassist that makes or breaks the band. So full respect, my friend. All right, well, thanks again, Bobby. I really appreciate it. And I can't wait to see what you come up with for your next book. Yep. Thank you. All right. Hopefully, you are going over to Amazon, you're going in the show notes. You're pressing on a link? Yes, it is an affiliate link, like all my Amazon links are, but you're going to check out even if you don't click on the link, go to email marketing doesn't suck on Amazon, go to his website, Bobby king.com/email. Definitely check out all these resources that he has. And yeah, you know, there's a guy. When I interviewed Terry Nakamura A little while back, we talked about this site called Empire Avenue Empire Avenue was a social network where you invested in people in virtual currency. Yes, it sounds a lot like cryptocurrency and NF T's Trust me, there's a lot of analogies there. And one of the guys there who actually got involved in cryptocurrency was a guy named Michael Q. Todd, actual ex lawyer, just like Bobby, based out of Tokyo, he's a key, we get green hair, you might have seen his profile if you were in social media or on Empire Avenue back in the day. And he came out with a term that he called his company called Abundance marketing. And the idea is that there's no competition out there. You know, you're gonna end up doing business with a lot of people over the course of your career over the course of your business. And if there's a Neal Schaffer, that I hope you do business with, well, there's a Bobby clink that I hope you do business with. And there's a lot of people that I hope you do business with, because guess what, the vibe attracts your tribe. And some of you listen to me might be attracted him, some of you who listen to me might not be attracted to him. Some of you that listen to me might not yet be attracted to me, right. And it just comes down to this core fundamental of doing business with people and entities that we like no interest that is timeless. And I love bringing up these timeless analogies, because it's something that we miss out on, when we go deep into digital and content, and influencer and social media marketing, but it is the core principle. And as I continue very, very slowly, picking up my next book, it is this analog way of thinking about business and people is really the undercurrent that I believe will bring you success. So that's why you know, I'm really excited to hear what you think about this episode. If you're enjoying this podcast, hopefully, if you don't have like no interest for me yet, you hit that subscribe button. If you do, I really hope you'll go out there. Just you know if it's Spotify, You can just do a five star rating, I guess you could do with Apple podcasts as well. You know, there's a place write a review, you know, leave five stars, I'd really appreciate that it really does help other people get exposed to this podcast in the way that the algorithms work. And if I can be of any help to you, I don't do a lot of selling as you know, but I do have this membership is limited to just a small number of people so I can give you all the individual attention that you need. It's a membership community called Digital First, you can go to Neal schaffer.com/membership. If that can be of any help to you and serve you it would be an honor. Alright, everybody, make sure that you keep your eye on the goal until the next episode, and this is your digital marketing coach. Neal Schaffer signing off. You've been listening to your digital marketing coach, questions, comments, requests, links, go to podcast dot Neal schaffer.com. Get the show notes to this and 200 plus podcast episodes, and Neal schaffer.com to tap into the 400 Plus blog posts that Neil has published to support your business. While you're there, check out Neil's Digital First group coaching membership community if you or your business needs a little helping hand. See you next time on your digital marketing coach.
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