by: AskPat 261 Episode Transcript
Pat Flynn: What's up, everybody? Pat Flynn here, and welcome to Episode 261 of AskPat. Thank you so much for joining me today. Today we have a great question from Kris.
But before I get to that, I want to thank today's sponsor, which is AWeber.com, which is the email service provider that I use to collect email addresses on my website, and then send emails to all of those people or segments of those people and even use an auto-responder sequence to follow up and keep in close contact with those people over time. It's a great way to not only build your email list, which can then potentially become your customer list, but then I love it because I can build a relationship with those people, which you'll hear about in this question coming up from Kris in just a second. So, if you'd like to try out AWeber for 30 days for just $1—that's right, 30-day $1 trial—head on over to AWeber.com/askpat, and that's it. Check it out.
All right, and now here's this question today from Kris.
Kris: Hey, Pat. My name is Kris Sheppard from the Successful Performer Cast at SuccessfulPerformerCast.com. You mentioned that a great way to interact with and make a more human connection with people on your list is to send individual emails to them inquiring how they're doing and to find out what they're personally challenged by, et cetera. I've tried this, but I don't get any response from them, and I'm thinking they might think it's still an email sent to everyone on my list, even though I say that it's not. Is this something that you've experienced? How can I make it seem more personal to them in order to get them to respond and get a dialogue going? Thank you for all you do, Pat. I really do appreciate it.
Pat Flynn: Kris, thank you so much for the question. And I want to make sure for everybody out there listening that they know what you're talking about. So, really quick, Kris mentioned that I had mentioned in a previous episode that a great way to understand what your audience is thinking, what they're going through, how they feel about your site, and give you in a way, understand that honestly what they're thinking about is to reach out to actual individuals who are on your email list and start a conversation with them. Just perhaps get on a Skype call with them, perhaps just an email conversation to discover from the words or the fingers, if you're typing, of somebody in your audience, what they're thinking about: what you do and what you could do better and those types of things. It can help you so much, and I do this once in a while. I reach out to people on my email list and just say, “Hey, thank you for subscribing. I have a couple of questions to ask you if you don't mind. I'd be happy to start a conversation and let's chat, and let's get on Skype and let's talk.”
And that always surprises people, so that's the first thing I'd mention, Kris. If you're looking for ways to personalize this a little bit, that's the first thing I want to mention, is to surprise them. Offer to get them on a Skype call. They would immediately know that you wouldn't do that to everybody on your list, because that would just be insane for you to do that. So if you can find five or 10 people, send them all an email and say, “Hey, I'd love to get on Skype with you in the near future. I'm not doing this with anybody, but I want to make sure that I have a chance to chat with you as a subscriber to see what else I can do to serve you.” That goes a long way, and that right there helps get rid of anybody's insecurities as far as, “Okay, this is just canned email.” Maybe that's more so for me, because they know I have a large email list of 120,000 people, and that would be obviously impossible for me to field all those questions. So, let me give you a few more tips you can use here to again make sure that people who are receiving this personalized email from, you know that it's not just an autoresponder email or something that you send out to everybody. You know, to make them feel special.
So here's what you can do. Beyond what I just mentioned, you can just add a message saying, “Hey, this is really just a message just for you and a few other people. If you reply, I will reply.” That saying alone helps you understand, or helps the people on the other end understand that you are serious and you want other people to ask for help, and sometimes people will test you. They'll be like, “Okay, this is what he says. Let's see if it actually happens.” And they'll reply and you can start that conversation from there. So again, adding a little message: “Hey, if you reply to this, I will reply. I'm waiting for your response. I'm looking forward to it.” That will help.
The second thing is to send it—I've done this a few times for people who I really wanted to talk to because I knew they had something of interest to share with me based on a conversation or a comment that they had elsewhere. I send this message from my personal email address—and again, this message isn't going out to everybody, it's just going down to a few people. So when it comes from my personal email address, something different from what they normally get, sort of piques their interest a little bit and helps them understand that this is not just an email for everybody. And you can even say in that message again, “This is coming from my personal email address—you know, I don't share this with everybody,” and again, that makes them feel special, helps make them understand and just pay attention to whatever it is that you're asking them to do.
Beyond that, you can—and this is probably the best tip out of all of them—find them on Twitter first. Find the person you're about to email on Twitter and send a quick message saying, “Hey, I'm going to email you really quick,” or maybe you can just start a conversation or retweet something of theirs, something that you can then use in the email to connect to that tweet. For example, you retweet this person's last message, or you just say a quick message saying, “Hey, I just want to thank you for being a subscriber.” I mean, that's pretty cool on its own, and that's something you can all do to just make those kinds of special moments for your audience and help generate that sort of sense of having raving fans in your audience. We just love those special moments. I love surprising my audience and doing those small little things like that that just takes five seconds to do. It means so much for you and your brand and the growth of it. How many people just want to become raving fans and help spread the word. I mean, the little things matter so much.
So, find this person's Twitter account, send them a quick message saying, “Hey, thank you for being a subscriber.” And then whoop-de-do, you send them an email. However many hours later or minutes later even, and just say, “Hey, I just messaged you on Twitter,” which they will remember, and you say, “I have a couple of questions to ask you.” That can't be a canned email, so that will help on its own.
If you're having trouble locating that person's Twitter, a few things you can do is, if you're using Gmail, you can install an app called Rapportive. That's R-A-P-P-O-R-T-I-V-E, which I love because it gives you insights on anybody's email address who you hover over—anybody's email that you open up or even if you're just writing an email. You hover your mouse over the email address; on the side bar, Rapportive will pull up a report on who this person is, show you a picture of them, any information on where they're at on social media so you can grab their Facebook or Twitter from there and then start that conversation. You can also have them understand—you can connect your AWeber account to Rapportive and have them show you what the last email they got was too. So that's a cool conversation starter: “Hey, I saw you got the email that I just sent about this. I have a couple of other questions to ask you.” That could be pretty cool too.
Another way to find a person's Twitter address through email is through Twitter's own “Find friends” feature. So, if you go to the search area on Twitter, there's a button or a little section that says “Find friends,” and then you can connect your email account to Twitter and then they'll find people. Obviously, you'll have to have those people in your contact list, so putting them there first and then connecting it with Twitter will help you find them or of course, you can just find that person's name and see if it connects with sort of the other things that they do already.
And the last tip I want to give you is follow up. If you send an email and they haven't responded yet, follow up. Just make it really quick and simple. That alone will also help you just stand out from everybody else who might be sending them canned emails. I can't tell you how many times just a quick one-liner follow-up email has made such a big difference in getting a response. Sometimes people don't even see that first email, and then be like “Oh, follow-up? I didn't even get the first one,” when it was just buried in their emails because they got a whole bunch at the same time, and they'll go and find it and respond. Or they might say, “Wow, okay, this person's serious. They have something important to share, and they actually followed up. I'm going to go check that email and reply.
So, there you go! So, I hope that answers your question, Kris. I can't wait to hear how this turns out for you, and thank you again for your question. For having it featured here on the show, you're going to get an AskPat T-shirt headed your way. My assistant will send you an email to collect your information soon after this episode goes live. And for those of you listening, if you have a question you'd like to potentially be featured here on the show, just head on over to AskPat.com, and you can ask right there on that page.
As always, I want to thank today's sponsor, which is AWeber.com. Again, we've talked about emails, so that's perfect. AWeber is the perfect email service provider to start out with. I recommend heading over to AWeber.com/askpat. That's A-W-E-B-E-R.com/askpat. You'll see a little video testimonial from me there as well, and it's definitely my recommended email service provider if you're just starting out with building your email list. So check it out: AWeber.com/askpat, and thank you again, for if you listened to the previous episode, you would know that I had lost my voice over the past few days. Just getting it back, and as you can tell probably in a few moments in this episode that I almost lost it again.
So, I'm struggling a little bit, but I want to be there to provide the show for you as scheduled, and we're closing in here, which is great. At the end of each episode, I end with a quote, and today's quote to leave you with the rest of your day comes from Douglas Adams. He says, “To give real service, you must add something which cannot be bought or measured with money, and that is sincerity and integrity.” Love that. I'm going to read that one more time, because I really love that quote. Again, this is from Douglas Adams. He says, “To give real service, you must add something which cannot be bought or measured with money, and that is sincerity and integrity.” Cheers. Take care. I'll see you all in the next episode of AskPat. Peace out.