Writing Intentional Emails with Melissa Seideman

Melissa 0:00

And I also think just be intentional. You can't just sell to them every single week, you got to give them value of teaching them about something or taking a blog post and repurposing into an email or giving them a freebie, mixing it up. If you get freebies every week, they're going to keep looking for that every week. And then when you go sell them, they're not going to want to buy from you. So I think mixing it up is really important.

Kirsten 1:21

You're listening to the creative teacher podcast, a show for busy teachers looking for ways to engage, inspire and make an impact in their teacher businesses. I'm Kiersten, a teacher business owner who is all about simple and actionable tips, strategies and resources that result in wins, big or small. If you're looking for that extra spark of creativity, you've come to the right place. Let's dive in together.

Hello there and welcome to another episode of the creative Teacher Podcast. Today we have another special guest. And Melissa is going to talk all about email marketing. I think that she has a lot of great insight. So I cannot wait for you to listen in side this conversation all about email marketing and tips that you can use to utilize for your own TPT business.

All right, we have a special guest, Melissa Seidman, welcome to the show.

Melissa 2:37

Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here.

Kirsten 2:39

Yes. Go ahead and tell us about yourself and your teaching experience. What did you do as a teacher? If you were an educator?

Melissa 2:48

I'm actually still in the classroom. I'm a history. So yeah, I'm still a history teacher. And I've been teaching for 15 years now I have my admin degree. And I have a master's in special ed. So I've a variety of repertoire within my teaching belt and valent email marketing. Like just naturally, I love doing it. I took a course. And then I like it took off with my own store. And I just love doing it. And then all of a sudden it just started be like people wanted to hire me, which is kind of yeah, that

Kirsten 3:19

is pretty cool. What grades did you teach? Or what grades do you currently teach? I should say,

Melissa 3:24

I currently teach 12th grade. Okay, government and economics. And I plan on leaving actually this June. Oh,

Kirsten 3:31

wow. That's awesome. That's great that you're able to do that. So talk to us. I know you mentioned like, you're, you're a teacher, you're a TPT seller. So go ahead and talk to us about your journey as a seller on Teachers Pay Teachers, and then also how you kind of it kind of led you into VA services and helping other TPT sellers as a VA.

Melissa 3:57

Yeah, so I've been selling on my website for quite a few years. I'm only recently actually new with TPT. Just kind of interesting. But I've been selling on my website. And I've been using email marketing for a number of years now. I think it's my fourth or fifth year. And I took focus Success course. And I took Lisa Fink's email marketing course, and I took it off, I basically took off with my store with automations and having things go out automatically with emails, and all of a sudden and some people started questioning Do you want to run my email campaign and I never even thought that was an option. And I got really excited about working with other sellers and then all of a sudden I niche down into being only email and only SEO for blogging and I have absolutely loved the experience of working with other sellers and seeing their emails come to life and increasing their click rates and making more money and I love seeing the success of my clients. Yeah, that's awesome.

Kirsten 4:56

I love the idea just I feel like it is It's in other niches as well. But just the idea of being able to collaborate, like if you know, email is not your strong point or product listings are not your strong point, you can always hire help or ask for help from other TPT sellers. And you know, just being able to hire out the things that you're not really strong yet is always a really great way to work smarter, not harder.

Melissa 5:23

Yeah, no, I, when I first started, I was actually trying to be a VA for like, all these different things. I was trying to do Instagram and Facebook and Google Docs. And I realized quickly that I was not good at those things. Yeah, email was my thing. And I, once I started, really focusing on that I've taken off, I've taken a bunch of professional development courses. And I just absolutely love it started as like a hobby for me. And now it's become a complete passion for

Kirsten 5:49

me. That's awesome. So you, I know, you're clearly you know, very well versed in email marketing. And we're going to kind of step back and kind of open up, you know, for the audience members who may not really know what it really entails. And we'll get it a little bit deeper. But for you, what does email marketing mean? Yeah, email marketing,

Melissa 6:12

to me means being consistent, being organized and building rapport with your customers. So for me, it means sending an email the same time, the same week or the same time, every single other week, depending on when you send your emails, but being consistent with emails and building rapport with the teachers that you're working with. Yes, that's

Kirsten 6:31

a great definition. Because I know, like, I am on many email lists, but I can remember, like, I can recognize when certain email marketers or certain people that I follow sin emails, they send it the same time each week. They're very consistent at it. And so it's like, even though you know, I'm not like, oh, this person is gonna send it on Monday at six. And you know, I can always anticipate them always coming in my inbox. And so that's really

Melissa 7:00

look forward to him. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And I think email, you got to think of as like a long term strategy. It's not something that's going to happen overnight, you're not going to get like people get upset with me, why can't I get more subscribers? But the reality is, it takes time to build that trust, build that rapport, get people to trust you enough to give you their email, I mean, email is very personal to a lot of people, and that you don't give it out to someone just randomly. You're intentional when you give out your email. Yes,

Kirsten 7:27

definitely. So one question I have for you, why is it important to be intentional with emails that we send to our audience? What's the whole idea of being intentional with what we send? So

Melissa 7:41

with everything with CBT batching is extremely important. And I think batching your emails is also very important. So if you sit down every single week to write the next week, email, you're going to be struggling to what do I write, but if you think of it as a month in advance, or a couple of months in advance? Well, what holidays come up, what sales are coming up? What do I want to market, particularly in the next month? I have my clients try to plan out what is the month ahead? So they're not just thinking on the fly? What do they want to email? being intentional with emails is like really important to think of like, what what what are the teachers facing? What challenges are they facing? What holidays are coming up? What really sold? Well, for me last March, or April, and what do I want to then market in those months. So it's really important to think of that. And I also think, just to be intentional, you can't just sell to them every single week, you got to give them value of teaching them about something or taking a blog post and repurposing into an email or giving them a freebie, mixing it up. If you get freebies every week, they're going to keep looking for that every week. And then when you go sell them, they're not going to want to supply from you. So I think mixing it up is really important. Yes, that's a really good point. Because, like just having some type of strategy, not just every week sitting there like okay, this week, I'm gonna

Kirsten 9:00

write about the sale happening, or the next week, I'm gonna write about a blog post, but really kind of just what you just said, just having a plan, as you are planning ahead for each month on what you're sending to your audience, because it can definitely make or break people who are just tired of seeing, you know, all the sale emails every week, they're just gonna unsubscribe, it's

Melissa 9:21

Yeah, so and the big tip I have for that is like, no matter what you use, whether you're a paper planner person or your digital planner, person, get somewhere where you keep on email log. So as you think of things throughout the month, oh, this would be great to send in March, just add into your email log, I have a Trello card where I just keep track of what I want to send an email, but like plan ahead. So then when you have to go write that email, you have a bunch of ideas from the month before of what would have been good because you're gonna think of stuff when you're in the shower, or you're gonna think you're driving your car. You're gonna think of it whenever. So just keep a list wherever you are, whether it's a notebook or digital planner, and that helps I think to currently

Kirsten 9:58

my ideas go go into my notes app on my. Yeah, that works. Just you know, that's where all of my thoughts go in that app. So I know you have experience working with many teachers, sellers out there have, you know, varying degrees of experience from those just beginning starting their TPT. Store, to those well established and have been on TPT. For years. Throughout, I guess, the time you've been working with TPT sellers, what is the biggest challenge or mistake you'd notice they're making when it comes to email marketing.

Melissa: 10:37

I think not being consistent is one of the biggest challenges. They'll send an email, some sellers will just send an email every sale, and then think that they're fine when they send emails, but all of a sudden, the people don't want to buy from them. So I think being consistent with emails, and setting a goal, like I want to send an email once a month or one send email twice a month or once an email every week. That's important. And I also think another challenge that sellers are not utilizing is automations or sequences for views flow desk, it's called a workflow. Those are huge moneymakers. So imagine you give a freebie. And then you have a series of emails to follow up with it. Typically what I do is I give a freebie, and then I give a teaching email teaching them about the freebie, then I give an upsell email. And then I give a hard upsell email. So typically, an email automation is four emails trying to upsell that product. And a lot of sellers I see even big and small, do not have automation setup. And the benefit of doing that is that you're making money when you're playing with your kids, when you're going for a walk when you're going to bed. When people sign up for an freebie, they then get a series of emails to upsell the bundle that goes with a freebie.

Kirsten: 11:44

Yeah, and I know like tagging in a dish, I'm sure flow desk has it. I know ConvertKit has it but just tagging appropriately for what they are opting in to can really help guide you know what your audience is interested in, so that you can send the appropriate. So you're not just sending blanket emails to everybody, every time you send out an email, you can be strategic with what you're sending, if it's a certain resource or product line. So I like that, you know, as well, just being able to do that.

Melissa: 12:16

I have some big sellers who are doing having a lot of success right now with writing a weekly email to everybody. And then if someone clicks a link in that email, they then get an upsell to that freebie or the upsell to the email. So it's just an extra email a week. So imagine, then you're taking this cold list, making them hot, because they had an interest in it and then send them an email to follow up, you would love this product. So it's kind of an interesting idea. Yeah, I have a we're gonna have to

Kirsten: 12:42

test that out on for my own email list in the next couple of months. That's a really great idea. Yeah, so um, as far as you know, we know like, it's important to be consistent email, like being consistent every year, even if it's every week for you are every however often it is it needs to be consistent at it. But what about like the actual content in the email that can be a little tricky as well to think about, like what exactly to write about to your followers each week? So how could teach your authors write email copy that drives traffic to TPT resources? So so they're like, you know, I'm imagining that they're clicking on the email, they see the subject, and, but they're not going in and clicking the links to the TPT resources, how can we get them to go and you know, click on those links to drive traffic to their store.

Melissa: 13:41

I think having timely resources that relates to the time period, so like teachers right now are completely overwhelmed in the classroom. So trying to think of a problem that they're countering in the classroom. And then your solution would be what the product you have. So writing about how challenging it is to do X, Y, or Z in the classroom and then say, but it doesn't have to be challenging. This is what you can do to improve your classroom environment or do something related to that. So I think think of it like a problem and a solution. And your product is always that solution. I also think using blog posts and repurposing blog posts into the emails can drive traffic to your blog, and also drive traffic to your resources that way, because emails shouldn't be long, a lot of sellers do get into the habit that they should be really long paragraphs and they really shouldn't be there just to be snippets. Click here to learn more type thing.

Kirsten: 14:32

Yeah. And I know like, you know, there's big marketing gurus out there that like, even in I noticed, and their emails are super long, but I feel like we you know, we can get those really good advice from those marketers. But just knowing our niche and our audience, I don't think teachers are gonna really have the time or patience to go through all those long emails and find at the bottom, you know, a link to click on so I feel like teachers would be like short and sweet. Lead, make it really visual, you know, make them want to click,

Melissa: 15:03

I have, we have really great open rates just because a lot of sellers, I know you're not supposed to get too many images in the email. But we get great click through rates when people put images because images do really sell our products. So I think that makes a big difference. Putting a couple images in each email. But be careful you don't put too much there's like a fine line. Yeah.

Kirsten: 15:20

And speaking of that, I know there's a lot of like templates in flow desk and Convert Kit. Are you a fan of those like utilizing that? Or are you a fan of just, you know, HTML, like regular text with adding images?

Melissa: 15:36

I do whatever my clients want. So some clients have a template. Some clients don't some clients want plain text. Some clients don't want the layouts. It really depends on the client. It really depends on who you listen to. It's crazy, like Amy Porterfield was one thing. And then Jenna Kutcher was saying completely other things. So it really depends on who you're listening to. And what you want to do. I usually do what the sellers want, in terms of like open rate and click rates, I have sellers that do and don't have email, like land and not landing pages templates. And it doesn't make a difference, usually for click through rates. I do think recognizing a brand is important. But I also think like a template can be overdone. So you gotta be there's a fine line with that, too.

Kirsten: 16:16

Yeah, just be careful with that. So that's good to hear that, you know, you hear like different sides. And it's not really quite clear. But it's good to hear that there's not really a significant difference as far as click through rates and all of that. So that's good to hear. So you have a ton of great tips. I think this I know a lot of these listeners are going to be able to incorporate this week in their email marketing plan. So where could we learn more information about email marketing from you? Yeah, I

Melissa: 16:49

have an email marketing Facebook group that is tailored just to teacher printers. So I have some like tutors on there. But it's mainly teacher authors from TPT. You can go to facebook.com/groups/email marketing that works, email marketing that works. Or you could just search email marketing for teacher printers. I'd love to have you and you could also find me on Instagram at not another virtual assistant. All right,

Kirsten: 17:13

guys. Well, thank you so much for being here on the creative teacher podcast. Thank you so much for having me. All right. Well, I hope you loved the conversation that I had with Melissa. I know she has a ton of great tips that she shared with us during our conversation. So your creative action tip, as always, when I have a special guest is to make sure you take one of their actionable easy, quick steps, see what you could do to implement her tips into your business if you incorporate email marketing, which I totally recommend everybody do. Alright, well, that is the end of the episode. I hope you have a wonderful day and I'll talk to you again soon.

Thanks for tuning in to the creative teacher podcast. If you enjoyed listening to today's episode, feel free to subscribe and leave a review. I'd love to hear your feedback. You can also find me on Instagram at the southern teach. I cannot wait for you to join me in the next episode for more tips and inspiration. Have an amazing day.