#271: Email Marketing Rules You Can’t Break
Are you sleeping on the money-making magic of your email list?
If you've been pouring all your energy into TikToks, Reels, and likes… hold up. Because while social media might be where the buzz is, your email list is where the buying happens. It’s your direct line to superfans, curious retailers, and future customers who actually want to hear from you.
In this episode of Making It In The Toy Industry, I’m breaking the idea that email marketing doesn’t work anymore and showing you exactly why it’s still one of the most powerful ways to grow your toy or game brand when it’s done right.
You’ll hear highlights from a special masterclass I taught on email marketing, where I'm sharing a few of my favorite strategies to help you turn your email list into a sales-driving, brand-building powerhouse. From figuring out what your audience actually wants to hear, to the surprising shift big brands are making in their emails—you’ll walk away with fresh ideas, practical tools, and a whole new outlook on email marketing. Oh, and yes... we’ll talk about subject lines that actually get clicks.
So if you’ve been wondering, “Am I doing enough with my emails?” or “Where do I even start?”, this episode is your ultimate blueprint.
Ready to write better emails, sell more toys, and keep your brand top-of-mind (without relying on social media algorithms)?
👉 Then hit play, take notes, and let’s level up your email marketing game together!
Listen For These Important Moments
[00:01:10] – Discover why email marketing continues to outperform social media in ROI, and how relying solely on platforms like Instagram or TikTok puts your business growth at risk
[00:04:15] – Understand the surprising trend of big brands getting more personal and lifestyle creators getting more professional and how to choose the right tone for your audience.
[00:07:12] – Learn why consent-based email marketing isn’t optional and how to start (or reset) your list the right way to protect your brand and email reputation.
[00:24:24] – Get my go-to email strategies—Connection, Promotional, Abandoned Cart, and Re-Engagement—and how to use them without overwhelming your list.
[00:30:57] – Master my 4 U’s formula (Urgent, Useful, Unique, Ultra-Specific) and see real examples of email hooks that drive opens, clicks, and conversions.
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If you're ready to really master your toy biz marketing, head to thetoycoach.com and book a call with me. Let’s make email your secret sales weapon!
Grab your copy of The Art of the Click—my go-to book for crafting irresistible emails that convert. Get it now at thetoycoach.com/books and start turning opens into sales!
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[00:00:00] Azhelle Wade: You are listening to Making It in The Toy Industry, episode number 271. Hey there, toy people, Azhelle Wade here and welcome back to another episode of Making It In The Toy Industry. This is a weekly podcast brought to you by thetoycoach.com.
[00:00:34] Azhelle Wade: If you are selling your product direct to consumer, email marketing is something you have got to master. If you are selling your product to retailers, email marketing can be a secret weapon that you are really good at that could help you sell even more product. And that secret weapon is one that most likely other B2B companies are not making the most of. So that's why I thought for today's episode, we would revisit a masterclass I gave on the art and science of email marketing.
[00:01:10] Azhelle Wade: We wanna look at CTRs, CRMs, email subject lines, open rates, the things that work, the things that don't, so that you are making the most out of your email list. But before we dive into that masterclass, there are a few things I wanna go over in regards to email marketing.
[00:01:28] Azhelle Wade: There's been a lot of change in the industry of late, and there's a lot of things that work and don't work. I've seen a lot of missteps by people just starting out with email marketing that I wanna make sure that you don't make these mistakes. Okay, so first, let's talk about some of the big changes we're seeing in email marketing.
[00:01:48] Azhelle Wade: A good friend and mentor of mine recently went to an email marketing conference. Now, the key trend that this friend of mine noticed at this conference was that big companies, let's say like the Daily News, are noticing that they need a more personal connection to the people on their email list, and they're noticing that their weekly emails, their monthly emails, their regular emails are not landing quite the same way because those emails are coming from, a faceless person, a faceless corporation whose identity and messaging is kind of getting lost in the sea of other newsletters out there by brands that are also equally large and faceless. So what you're seeing is, from these big brands, they are looking to identify somebody either within their team or the creation of, uh, another character or persona.
[00:02:44] Azhelle Wade: Who can be the face behind their emails, the personality behind their emails, so that they can better connect with the person who is reading them. Now, that's really interesting, because what we're seeing from creators like myself, what we're seeing from lifestyle influencers is we're seeing their emails that are very focused on their personality and their lifestyle are getting quite a bit of engagement and interest, but are they converting to sales?
[00:03:16] Azhelle Wade: So what we're seeing is some of these lifestyle focused brands, or these brands with a, identifiable figure upfront teaching about the product are actually shifting to more of eight newsletter format and shifting away from a personal format.
[00:03:33] Azhelle Wade: But we're seeing it kind of go both ways where these big companies are looking to be more down to earth and more personal. And then we're seeing these more personal companies looking to be a little bit more buttoned up. So, which way will you take your newsletter? Well, I stand to argue that's gonna depend on who is getting your newsletter.
[00:03:53] Azhelle Wade: So the number one thing I want you to analyze as you're listening to this episode is who makes up your newsletter? Are you serving customers directly one-on-one consumers, or are you serving larger corporations either with your services or your product? How do those different personalities need to be spoken to?
[00:04:15] Azhelle Wade: Do they want something that's more of a newsletter format that's not gonna waste their time, or do they want more of a diary entry? Something where you're just sharing a little bit more about your day, letting them get to know you, maybe how you're working on your product, maybe why you do what you do.
[00:04:29] Azhelle Wade: Maybe that's what they're looking for in their weekly email, because messages from you are more about, getting a tone or a vibe or inspiration than it is about getting information. You've gotta decide which angle is best for your brand and for your audience. A few months back, you may have noticed that I rebranded my own newsletter from just the Toy Coach's newsletter to The Play Pattern. I did this for two reasons. One, I wanted to get clear on the goal of my newsletter for myself. I wanted to make sure that my messages to you weren't veering too much into the personal lane. I wanted to make sure that you were gonna take something away that you could apply to your business from. Every email that I send out, much like you can from every podcast that I put out.
[00:05:20] Azhelle Wade: So my decision to change over my weekly newsletter to something that is a little less personal was driven by the focus of who my consumer is, who the person is that is listening to this podcast. That signs up for my email list. I came up with a name, the play Pattern. You can go to thetoycoach.com/theplaypattern to subscribe.
[00:05:46] Azhelle Wade: And the play pattern is a newsletter where you can discover the patterns of winning brands so you can sell more toys. It's a free toy industry innovation newsletter where you can become known for being ahead of the curve and impressing your team with insights they didn't see coming. That is the kind of information I've given in my newsletter since it first started, But I also gave little bits and pieces of my own life what's going on with me, where I'm traveling, and how my business is being affected by what's going on in the world. Whether that was Ai, a shipping container crisis, tariff wars and beyond.
[00:06:26] Azhelle Wade: So now I want you to think as you're listening to this episode, what do you want your newsletter to be known for? Does it need to be weekly? Does it need to be monthly? What do your people actually want from you? Do not give them what you want to give them. Give them what they want to receive from you.
[00:06:45] Azhelle Wade: Now before I dive in, I have to say one more piece, one more tough love toy coaching. If you are just starting a newsletter, consent is key. I'm about to teach you strategies and tactics that will get more people to click and open your emails. However, all of the strategies in the world cannot save you from a lack of consent based email.
[00:07:12] Azhelle Wade: Okay. What does that mean? Consent based email just means that you get permission to email people at the frequency that you start emailing them before you start emailing them. So if today you woke up and you said, oh. Azhelle, I listen to your podcast and now I'm gonna start an email. You must get explicit consent from the people who you are going to email before you email them.
[00:07:37] Azhelle Wade: How do you do that? Well, you do it with an email. You can send an email if you already have the contacts or already. In your email service provider, you can send one max two emails to say, Hey, I am starting a new newsletter. Here's what it's gonna be about. Here's how often I'm gonna send it. Are you interested in receiving it?
[00:07:58] Azhelle Wade: Click here to fill out the form to sign up, or click here to say yes or no if you are or aren't interested. You must do this step and you must only email people that opt in. There is no quicker way to tank your reputation and your brand than by emailing people who do not want to be emailed. Now, if you've already made the mistake and you've done it the wrong way, don't worry, it does happen.
[00:08:24] Azhelle Wade: I myself have had to send an apology when somebody's email got transferred off of the unsubscribed list, the subscribed list for various technical error reasons, and I've had to say, I'm so sorry. We're using a new system. Didn't mean to put you on that list. You are now removed. That might happen. Get your apology ready.
[00:08:43] Azhelle Wade: You definitely want to let people know that their, information is being. Treated with the care and sensitivity that it should be treated with, and that if they received an email in error, that is something that you are going to rectify immediately and not just let sit there. In conjunction with this conversation around consent, you cannot send properly consented emails without using an email service provider.
[00:09:10] Azhelle Wade: We will go into depth as to what an email service provider is in this episode. But you must be sending your emails from an email service provider that will. Automatically insert an unsubscribe link to make it easy for anyone that doesn't wanna receive your emails, but still wants to maintain a relationship with you, to be able to do so.
[00:09:33] Azhelle Wade: You should not require somebody to reply to your email and ask you, Hey, can you take me off of these emails? That is not the way that this is done. It's not professional, not how we wanna roll does not matter what you are emailing them about. Even if you were sending them trends from a recent toy trade show, you do not wanna be mass BCCing people, without their consent and without having an unsubscribe option because when you don't have the unsubscribe option, the only thing they can do is block your email address and then you won't even be able to email them individually, directly for another business opportunity. So be sure you pay attention when we get to the portion of this talk that talks about ESPs. Without further ado, let's dive into the art and science of successful email marketing campaigns.
[00:10:24] Azhelle Wade: Okay, so I hope that you're interested in this chat today because you've been wondering something. You're wondering, am I doing enough with my email marketing? How do I grow my email list and what do I need to sell more products on your email list and of course, where do I even start? Where do I even begin? So that's what we're gonna talk about today. But before we dive in, I wanna introduce myself in case you don't know me.
[00:10:47] Azhelle Wade: My name is Azhelle Wade. I'm known in the toy industry now as the toy coach. I'm one half of a toy couple. My husband, Christian Castro, he also works in the toy industry. Before being The Toy Coach, I worked in the corporate toy space.
[00:10:59] Azhelle Wade: I work for a company called Creative Kids. That was my last big corporate hurrah before I broke out and did my own thing. And I was a VP of brand product there. Since I started doing my own thing, I've amassed a number of students. This is one of my students, Keisha O'Connell. She won the License U competition last year for her licensed brand that we worked on developing together through my program. So throughout my career, I started in 2010. I have seven toy awards, three toy patents. I developed over 500 toy and game products because I worked at a lot of toy companies that were big into mass retail. So I would develop 50 products a season easily.
[00:11:37] Azhelle Wade: I'm also now a speaker and educator in the toy industry. I have had over 140 students take my program, Toy Creators Academy. I've arranged hundreds of pitch meetings for them, from retailer pitch meetings to toy company pitch meetings for licensing, and have helped new creators, gain some retail placement.
[00:11:56] Azhelle Wade: So. I want you to know something. Your email list is the most valuable part of your business, and if it isn't, you're not using it right and you're not using it effectively. My email list built my entire business, and my business is successful and profitable. So here's what we're gonna talk about next. I got a little bit of a roadmap for us.
[00:12:15] Azhelle Wade: First, we're gonna talk about the power of email. Then we're gonna dive into the purpose of email. Why do you need an email, a list, and what should it be doing? Then we're gonna get into CRMs. I'm sure you guys know the term customer relationship management tool, but we're gonna talk about CRMs that I'm used to using that are specific for digital marketing because some of those may be beneficial for you.
[00:12:37] Azhelle Wade: Then we're going to get into my favorite campaign strategies, and finally we'll talk about getting, sales, be it email, and after all that's done.
[00:12:46] Azhelle Wade: Okay? So let's start with the power of email. The power of email, and why you should care about it. There was an article done by HubSpot, November of 2022, they cited many different sources like sia, constant Contact, Campaign Monitor. These are stats you need to know. There's 4 billion daily users of email and that number is still expected to climb.
[00:13:08] Azhelle Wade: I know we think email's a little bit of an outdated marketing tool, but it's not, it's actually still one of the most direct ways you can reach your customer and get sales from them. Email marketing's return on investment is, $36 for every $1 spent. 64% of small businesses, were polled, and they said that they will be using email marketing to reach their consumers.
[00:13:30] Azhelle Wade: 33% of marketers send weekly emails and 26% send emails multiple times a month. If you're not doing that, you are definitely leaving money on the table. Email marketing revenue has been growing almost a million dollars year over year. It's expected to hit 11 billion by the end of 2023, from 9.62 in 2022, and it was up again from 8.4 in 2021. So even though we are all inundated with email, somehow email is. Still an effective tool for us to, um, earn revenue and grow our businesses. So now you might be thinking, but Azhelle, can I just generate sales from social media?
[00:14:09] Azhelle Wade: My TikTok videos get hundreds of thousands of views, and I only have like 3000 people on my email list. So why wouldn't I just post on TikTok? Well, I wanna ask you something. Would you give the keys to your retail toy store, to a toy industry organization and let them tell you how many people deserve to get led into your store?
[00:14:29] Azhelle Wade: No, you wouldn't do. That'd be crazy. Why would you get your, put the keys of your store, your livelihood in the hands of an organization in the toy industry? Well, that's exactly what you're doing with social media. With social media, you are giving somebody the keys to your kingdom, the keys to your revenue.
[00:14:45] Azhelle Wade: If Mark Zuckerberg or the Chinese company that owns TikTok decides we're gonna change our algorithm, or we're gonna shut down, or they just go black, you are losing revenue and you shouldn't put that power in somebody else's hands. So what I think is really effective is when you have content marketing, you have your TikTok, your Instagram, you have all that, but you also have your email marketing strategy.
[00:15:07] Azhelle Wade: You also have a plan for what you're going to do with the people that are interacting with you on social media. 'cause together you can get sustainable growth, you can get sustainable business growth, followers growth, and there's power in being able to own that list of customers. So now that you know why you need to, like what is so important, how it's so powerful email, I wanna talk about the purpose of email.
[00:15:32] Azhelle Wade: So first, you've gotta know exactly what email marketing is. Email marketing is intended to just build relationships with potential customers, maintain relationships with past customers. You should use it to share new product releases, accounts, even events that might be up and coming for your business.
[00:15:50] Azhelle Wade: Now it has to be consistent, but it doesn't have to be weekly. I have a student from my program, Toy Creators Academy, and they send out monthly recap emails. Their product is called Bundle and their monthly recap emails are interesting, concise, have images, so I feel like I'm a part of their bundle journey, building their bundle game business.
[00:16:10] Azhelle Wade: So you don't have to do weekly, but you do have to be consistent. Segmentation is a phrase that has really grown in importance in email marketing. I believe that's because as email marketing has been more widely known by people, heavily used by everyone, people are getting more particular about what lists they sign up for, and they want lists that are specific for them.
[00:16:30] Azhelle Wade: So even if when you first start out sending emails, you know you're not gonna have the time or wherewithal to send a certain email to your toy manufacturers, a certain email to your sales reps, a certain email to retailers. If you know you're not gonna have the wherewithal to do all that. You still want to segment the people that are coming into your list segment means just put them in different buckets and folders.
[00:16:53] Azhelle Wade: There are different ways that we can do that, and we'll talk about that a little bit as we go forward, but I don't wanna get too deep. Email marketing should also feel personal. Segmenting your list, tagging people, putting them into folders so you know who they are and why they're on your list is gonna allow you to, when you're ready, get really personal with your email.
[00:17:13] Azhelle Wade: Last year, I remember reading, there was this influencer I was following online and she posted on social media that she was going to be giving up on social media and she was gonna be focusing on her email list because for her taking the time to dedicate to post every day on social media wasn't giving the return her email gave, so she just completely dropped from social media and gave more focus to her email list. That's how powerful email is. So the first thing we gotta know before we're gonna do an effective email marketing campaign is the purpose of your weekly emails. So you have one main purpose, but there are two things that are gonna help you figure out what that is.
[00:17:51] Azhelle Wade: Your email has to have a clear value proposition for the person you're sending it to. So why is somebody gonna join this newsletter? What's in it for them? Is it deals? Is it education? Is it sales on new items? Is it back behind the scenes stories about your store for your business. And then what's the value proposition for you?
[00:18:09] Azhelle Wade: You need a reason to wanna write these emails. Like are you going to increase your revenue that year? Do you need a better way to announce sales? Are you noticing or having a lot of abandoned carts that you're not doing anything with? People are putting things in their cart online and just kind of leaving it there.
[00:18:25] Azhelle Wade: You need to have that value prop for you. 'cause it'll focus every email you send and it's a metric thing, you wanna be able to go back and check. Is this email thing really working? Which it will, but is it really working for me? And how can I track that? You have to first know the reason you're doing it for me, what do I wanna do?
[00:18:41] Azhelle Wade: This is a product example from a client of mine. Dr. Erica Gurgley, she created the soothing snuggler. This is an SEL product that comforts kids, teaches them social emotional, calming mechanisms. So for Erica, we're working on developing her email list and we're like, okay, what are we gonna do?
[00:18:57] Azhelle Wade: What? What's the vibe? What do we need to say? So for her list, she wants, that wants people on her list to get to know her brand Soothing Snuggler, right? She wants them to get to know the creator behind it, her, and how that brand can help their child. For her, as my client, she wants to explain the reason why she created the product to share product, promos and new releases to generate more sales.
[00:19:20] Azhelle Wade: So an example of an email that we just did. I told her, I was like, Erica, we need to get out an email to promote soothing snuggler, but I want it to be about your story and your life. So she started this email that was all about how whenever her kids go to the pediatrician, they get something to calm their nerves.
[00:19:37] Azhelle Wade: It might be a sticker, it might be a Popsicle, but there's one thing, their pediatrician can't come, and that's when they gotta get shots. But eventually throughout the story you discover that. The soothing snuggler is actually the one thing that Erica knows will work to calm her kids down. The soothing snuggler will keep them calm, even if they're getting a shot because of the mechanisms that it teaches based on her experience as a clinical psychologist.
[00:20:04] Azhelle Wade: Emily says, kid shots the worst. Okay, so now it's your turn. I want you to think about yourself. I'm sure you already have been hopefully inspired and been thinking about yourself, so. First question for you is, who is on your list? Do you have retailers on your list? Do you have manufacturers on your list?
[00:20:19] Azhelle Wade: Do you write to sales reps and check in on them? Who is on your list? So now think, what is the value proposition for them to receive your emails?
[00:20:27] Azhelle Wade: Why would a retailer wanna sign up for your email list? What could they possibly have to gain by being on your email list?
[00:20:34] Azhelle Wade: To answer these questions, I would probably survey the people on your list and find out what has been most the most helpful to emails you got from us last year, and everyone will probably have a different response because they might say, oh, I love that you invited me to that event. But then they also might say, oh, I love that you told me about that program where I could get for free. You know, like they might all have different things, but like you said, it's all about the value you're providing them. I think you're just missing a couple of commas, like the value you're providing them so they can get what, or so they can have more of what those specific things are gonna guide whatever your consistent emails are.
[00:21:15] Azhelle Wade: Next question is, what value do you want to get from sending these emails? You want people to show up. You guys must do good emails. So once you figure out those things, it's gonna be time. If you don't already have one a figure out your CRM platform, you likely already have one and one that works really well for you.
[00:21:31] Azhelle Wade: But if you can step away from Salesforce or anything like that, I wanna give you my recommendations for digital marketing and explain why. So one big one right now in my field is HubSpot. They've kind of taken over, probably perfect for you guys, but a little bit too sales heavy for the things that I do.
[00:21:48] Azhelle Wade: So when I first started out, I was using things like MailChimp and Mailer Light. So Mailer Light, and I think MailChimp both have free versions where you can sign up, test things out, send out some emails and see if it works for you. What's great with these tools is it's not too complex.
[00:22:04] Azhelle Wade: They have like a ton of automation options. The price point's, low. Mailer Light, I remember I was paying like maybe $25 a month and I had like 2000 contacts, which, if you know anything about CRM platforms, that is ridiculously cheap, but that cheapness came at a cost. So when you're choosing your CRM platform, one thing you need to search is something called deliverability.
[00:22:28] Azhelle Wade: Every CRM platform has different deliverability rates that are actually affected by the people that use that platform. So the cheaper of a platform that you're going to use, the more likely your deliverability rate will be lower because you're having a lot of kind of inexperienced people using that platform as well.
[00:22:48] Azhelle Wade: So it's like an affiliation thing. You want to affiliate yourself with a high quality email platform. My favorite right now, and the one I use is ActiveCampaign. The features that you get from ActiveCampaign and how specific and direct you can target people is, it's like almost scary. It's so specific.
[00:23:10] Azhelle Wade: You can tag them based on what they do, where they come from, how they feel. If they click that in an email and then you can send them emails depending on what page they visit to your, on your site. So if somebody visits my contact page and doesn't even fill out the contact form, but they're already in my email list, I can send 'em a message and say, "Hey. Did you have a toy do you wanna talk about?" Like that's the power of active campaign? Now, I believe ConvertKit's similar in that way, but when I got into ConvertKit, I just felt like it was a little too pretty and not technical enough. And I'm a very technical person, so I'm all about active campaign. My top two, I would say, if you're just starting out, you wanna experiment, I would go Mailer Light.
[00:23:49] Azhelle Wade: It's clean, it's simple to use. It's really, really affordable. And then if you're ready to dive deeper. Active Campaign. Active campaign has, um, deal slots just like some of the bigger, like Salesforce. There you can manage like corporate deals, but you can also talk to consumers as long as you segment and separate your list the right way.
[00:24:08] Azhelle Wade: You can do that perfectly in Active Campaign and just need one platform instead of two. Because I know some people will use one platform for their corporate customers and then a separate one for their consumers, like business and consumer. But you can actually do both in active campaign. All right, let's keep going.
[00:24:24] Azhelle Wade: Let's talk about, um, my four favorite email campaign strategies. No matter what CRM you use, you can use these email strategies. So Strategy one, Connection Campaign. So this is the main type of campaign you should be sending either weekly or monthly. This is like your check-in campaign. These share your story.
[00:24:44] Azhelle Wade: These might share behind the scenes. If you don't wanna get personal in your emails, give your brand or your store its own personality and share emails from that perspective. What's going on in your store this week? What was the coolest thing that happened for your store this week? Share with that perspective.
[00:25:01] Azhelle Wade: The way I'm actually planning on using this strategy with one of my new clients, because this, client of mine is really not traditional. What I wanna do with him is have him tell the story of his characters through email. So it's almost like every email for him will be like somebody opening up another page in the book of this like character journey.
[00:25:20] Azhelle Wade: And that's gonna be his connection campaign to connect with the people that wanna know more about his product and he doesn't have to talk about himself. At all the way that I do, so. Let's move to strategy number two , promotional campaigns. So if you've been on my email list and you've gotten a promotional campaign from me, that's what this is.
[00:25:39] Azhelle Wade: Promotional campaigns are different from those connection campaigns because they should happen at most four times a year. I think that the too many promotional campaigns will make people not want to even stay on your list to receive those connection campaigns. So I keep mine to twice a year, but four times a year would really be the, the true max promotional campaigns are much more back to back.
[00:26:02] Azhelle Wade: So like when I do a promotional campaign. We're sending out emails like every three days, and the closer to the end of the sales date we'll send out emails even faster. As we said, like there's, there's so many email users, but there's also so many emails going out, so your email is gonna stay at the top of the inbox for all, but like 30 minutes and then it's gonna get pushed down if even that. So you do sometimes need to send several emails so that you can make sure that somebody will see your email. And this actually reminds me of another great feature of ActiveCampaign. You can actually send out emails that go out at a time that they predict when your customer will open it.
[00:26:42] Azhelle Wade: So it's called predictive sending. And based on that customer's location and the style of email, the email service provider will predict when they should send that email for you and send it for you. So promotional campaigns can be seasonal. One really important thing because we're sending so many emails in a promotional campaign.
[00:27:01] Azhelle Wade: We actually add a header to the top of the email that says, Hey, we're sending promotional emails about whatever we're sending it about. If you want to get removed from this promotional email list about this product, click here and they will be removed from that list. But you'll stay on my weekly email list.
[00:27:19] Azhelle Wade: Then I'll have a section that says, if you wanna unsubscribe from the weekly email list, click here. You'll get off of everything. Promotional campaign should definitely highlight testimonials and always have one call to action. Do not try to promote an event, and then in that email try to promote a product sale.
[00:27:36] Azhelle Wade: Really keep it focused on one call to action. It's gonna be hard, but it'll get you a higher click through rate. Strategy three abandoned cart campaigns. So with abandoned cart campaigns, so say somebody visits the checkout page and they have this item in their cart, you wanna send them a quick cart reminder email within three to four hours of them leaving that cart.
[00:27:56] Azhelle Wade: And that email might say, "Hey. Looks like someone distracted you right before you were about to buy this toy. Did you wanna get it?" Or it'll say something like your cart's about to expire. The second email that you wanna send in these abandoned cart campaigns is a testimonial or review email. So you might want to send something that says, "Hey, did you see what Sheila said about this toy product?"
[00:28:18] Azhelle Wade: And you could have a screenshot of her review for this toy product. You wanna always show a screenshot of the actual review and not like type out a review. Then a day later, if you wanna go this long with your abandoned cart campaign, you can do a sale ending email. So for me, it's a day later. 'cause the one I'm talking about in this example is a three day abandoned cart campaign for a three day sale.
[00:28:41] Azhelle Wade: So for me, after day two, I'm sending one more. Email saying the sale is ending today, or the sale's ending in a day. So buy it now. And then if you wanna go real fancy and if you have active campaign and you have their phone number, you could send a final touch text message to them. So another thing that I love about ActiveCampaign is if you're in an abandoned cart funnel with one client in an abandoned cart funnel.
[00:29:07] Azhelle Wade: You might be saying, well, what if they buy after the quick cart reminder email, but they're already in that funnel. ActiveCampaign specifically has something called goals, and when somebody meets a goal, like purchases a product, they can get automatically pulled out of, that funnel and put at the end of it.
[00:29:25] Azhelle Wade: So that automation just kind of ends for them. So we don't want to keep reminding people of buy something they've already bought, obviously. The last one we have here is a re-engagement campaign, also known as a win back campaign. Some people say it's not worth it. I feel like my emails are very expensive to get, so I think it's worth it.
[00:29:42] Azhelle Wade: So essentially when somebody goes inactive in your email list and they don't respond, or they don't open anything for, I say 45 days. That's when they go into the re-engagement campaign funnel. And in this funnel, I like to offer a gift for one email. I like to ask for feedback, like, what are you not getting from these emails that you want to get?
[00:30:03] Azhelle Wade: And then let them update their preferences. Like maybe they have a different email address that they've switched to using primarily. And they actually want your information there and it's not, so you want them to update that as well. So the question of if winback campaigns are worth it, I think they're worth it for two reasons.
[00:30:19] Azhelle Wade: One, it gives you an opportunity to maintain a customer and maintain a touchpoint. Two, it gives you an opportunity to clean up your list. Cleaning up your list is really important. You don't wanna keep sending emails to people that are not opening because that actually will lower your own deliverability.
[00:30:36] Azhelle Wade: So you do wanna keep cleaning up your email list so that you have higher open rates so that your domain maintains like a good deliverability rate. Now we're gonna talk about getting sales with email. So getting sales with email starts with having really great subject lines. Now, this is my favorite lesson to teach.
[00:30:57] Azhelle Wade: I learned this from a book, which I will share with you at the end. And there are four Us. The four Us of great subject lines are urgent, useful, unique, and ultra specific. We're gonna go into each in detail, but as a quick overview, urgent subject lines have power words, useful subject lines called back to that value prop that you defined earlier.
[00:31:18] Azhelle Wade: Unique ones are unexpected and ultra specific ones use that data that you are collecting. The question we all ask is do we get people to open our emails? Well, let me see what I can tell you about that. So. The urgency. Urgency is really important in an email, especially if you have a sale ending or an event starting, right?
[00:31:36] Azhelle Wade: So when you use power words, that's what helps an email feel urgent, right? Power words are words that evoke a strong feeling, a feeling like excitement, nostalgia, or even shock. So some examples are like. Secret jaw dropping, frenzy, dazzling, phenomenal, silly. Those words are almost like onomatopeia right?
[00:31:57] Azhelle Wade: They give you a visual in your mind and a feeling in your heart, right? So examples of titles that could shock and delight you into clicking into an email just to figure out what's going on, is something like Beyonce just unveiled her twins to the world in the most breathtaking photo, right? Or seven life-changing toy care hacks.
[00:32:17] Azhelle Wade: What do I need to know that is life changing about how to care for these toys or simple, dazzling, affordable, plush, like I need to see what is this simple, dazzling, affordable, plush, right? That's how you use power words to get people to listen into your emails. And the words underlined here are the power words.
[00:32:36] Azhelle Wade: Adorable. Breathtaking, life-changing, dazzling. Those are the power words in these examples. So useful. I said a good subject line is also useful. So what is useful? So useful. Subject lines call back to customer needs.
[00:32:52] Azhelle Wade: They share useful tips or ideas or resources that wait fulfills an urgent need immediately. Yeah, you use. I literally try to use useful, urgent, all the four Us in one subject line. Like that is my goal for every email, like I go in. So an example of this would be like something that's urgent is like birthday gift, emails, fast shipping emails, free shipping emails, or educational event notifications, right?
[00:33:18] Azhelle Wade: So examples of this would be like. You say an email that says like, just scheduled Marketing Automation Masterclass, right? Or Grab your birthday box today, right? Or free shipping on orders over whatever you're giving them specific information for me, and we'll see this email in a little bit. I had an email about, do you need to know about skim inflation?
[00:33:39] Azhelle Wade: That's an useful and urgent feeling subject line. You also need those subject lines to be unique. Unique subject lines are unexpected. Okay. So if Beyonce's dog had a message to share with you, you would be like, what? What is it? Beyonce and her dog. That's unexpected. Okay, so things like adding question marks using emojis, juxtaposition, just going against the norm is how you go unexpected.
[00:34:07] Azhelle Wade: It's a difference between having an email that says something like. My toy wedding or my toy wedding, and literally that's an email I used and it had an amazing open rate, and it was literally just me talking about my toy wedding. And then I said, listen to this podcast episode. So unexpected. You break up the monotony.
[00:34:25] Azhelle Wade: People expect to see something certain in their email so you can surprise them with something new and unexpected. Then we get into ultra specific subject lines. These subject lines use customer data and they call out to your customer with ultra specific data that they gave you when they signed up, like maybe their name, their birthday, maybe their job.
[00:34:46] Azhelle Wade: So when you combine the ultra specific, the urgent, the useful, all of that in an unexpected way, my friend, you're gonna get really good subject lines. So something you can say is name, because it will fill in the name in your email service provider. Can I feature your product in or happy birthday? I have a gift for you.
[00:35:04] Azhelle Wade: Might be something you send because you know, based on your customer data that it's their birthday. You also can use that question mark trick I said. So instead of saying my birthday gift, you could say my birthday gift? And it's just a more interesting email to open and look through. So now what do you do when you get them to open your email?
[00:35:21] Azhelle Wade: Let's look at the format of a great email. 'Cause they're gonna open it. Once you use those tricks and tips, they're gonna just open all your emails. So you gotta make it good inside. Okay? So we're gonna have at the top of your email a hook. It's gonna be a line of text that is intriguing and unexpected, and I'm gonna show you an example, so don't worry.
[00:35:40] Azhelle Wade: Then you're gonna get into the story. Then you're gonna get into the value. Sometimes I like to mix value in with the story, and then you're gonna get into the CTA or the call to action, and we're only gonna do one of those, and then you'll get into your sign off and your signature. Now your hook is actually normally in the middle of a story or the climax of a story, your story definitely needs an image to support it and your value prop. I love bullet points for this because for people that like to skim emails, they can look for your value prop and know that it's gonna be there every week without fail. So let's look in an example.
[00:36:14] Azhelle Wade: So this is one of my top emails called, should You Be Aware of Skim Inflammation, right? That was the subject line. And then the hook was, in 2019, Christian and I booked a one-way ticket to Paris. And you're like, what kind of, is she in Paris right now? No. Like, you know, you're wondering what is going on. So then the story kind of clarifies that.
[00:36:35] Azhelle Wade: So we've been tracking the price of the trip. With this app called Hopper, and one evening we got an alert, uh, that a one-way ticket to Paris was down to just $100. And you're like, oh, she came back. Okay, we get it now. So we were surprised We booked it and we figured out the rest later and after doing all the touristy things, and you can see me and there's the photo built into the story of the touristy things. We're still in story. We hit up a bunch of toy stores across Europe. I was so surprised at how small the boxes were and how high the prices seemed having come from years in the mass market craft side of the toy biz. It was refreshing to see a box filled with more product than air, but it was confusing to see a box size that I would normally retail for $9.99, being merchandised at 19.99 Euros.
[00:37:19] Azhelle Wade: Okay. Maybe I'm over exaggerating just a bit, however, I did expect an unexpected culture shock in the toy aisle. So this goes into story, and then eventually it says, I remember thinking how wonderful it would be to focus primarily on the actual content value of a toy and making the box small as possible.
[00:37:39] Azhelle Wade: Well, careful what you wish Forelle. Simplification has entered the chat, and that's where we get into value. And that's also why I linked it. So now today's podcast episode was about two new terms, simplification and translation. While a joy to say they're not a joy to experience as a consumer or a manufacturer, with my podcast episode today and, and yada yada, we go into the CTA.
[00:38:02] Azhelle Wade: And then you see the sign off. So I love a sign off that's consistent because humans do like things that they know and it makes them feel comfortable and safe. But I do leave room for like an extra sign off where it says, thanks for reading and happy listening that I play with sometimes. Like sometimes I'm like, like have a good Monday, or I'm like, XO xl.
[00:38:19] Azhelle Wade: Like, you know what my vibe is about. So feel free to play with your CTA, your sign off a little bit. Now there are multiple links in this email, but they all go to the same place. The CTA is the same. Even the image is linked. They're going to my podcast 'cause that's the goal. So if you wanna dive deeper into these email marketing tips, I have got some recommendations for you.
[00:38:40] Azhelle Wade: The Art of Click is an amazing book, and I would love it if you would buy it off of my affiliate link. You go to thetoycoach.com/books. There's a link for the Art of Click. You can get it on Amazon. I got the audio version. Like Kindle version. 'cause I thought I was gonna read it, but I just listened to it.
[00:38:55] Azhelle Wade: And I also did a full podcast episode about this writing a clickworthy email subjects lines for your pitch. So if you wanna listen to me teach it some more, you can go there as well.
[00:39:06] Azhelle Wade: And I think you're gonna send better emails. That's it.
[00:39:09] Azhelle Wade: Well there you have a toy people a revisit to one of my favorite email marketing masterclasses that I've given focused on what you can do with email marketing in the toy industry.
[00:39:21] Azhelle Wade: If you have any questions about email marketing, if you want to coach to help you work through email marketing for your toy or game brand, please do not hesitate to reach out to me. I'm @TheToyCoach on Instagram. You can also find me over on LinkedIn. And to get on my calendar today, don't waste any more time.
[00:39:40] Azhelle Wade: Head over to thetoycoach.com and tap the Work with Me button that you'll find at the top. Or it might say, book a call. Let's hop on a call right now and figure out your email marketing. What are you waiting for? Let's do it. As always, thank you so much for spending this time with me today. I know your time is valuable and that there are a ton of podcasts out there, so it truly means the world to me that you tune into this one.
[00:40:04] Azhelle Wade: Until next week, I'll see you later, toy people.
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