Top tips from Scott Bywater.

1. Survey your list.

I would do is survey your list. And if you haven’t, if you haven’t mailed for, for a while, don’t just go straight out for a survey, start to just supply some great content, creating great content to them that they’ll value. And then maybe after half a dozen emails, then send out a survey. And as I ask them, what their challenges are with your industry, ask them what questions they would ask you if they could all of that sort of thing.

2. Build special reports and landing pages around that.

The second thing I would I would do is I would suggest is build special reports and landing pages around that. Because what a lot of people what happens with a lot of people with email is they, they’ll get there. And that’s where the love letters come in, is that they’ll get the ball up to the up to the up to the box, but they’ll never kick the kick the goals. And that often happens, you see this on social media and that people posting content all the time, but they don’t have any way to move that relationship to the next level.

3. Start writing regular emails.

The third is just start writing regular emails, and too much too many is far better than too little.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

email, people, ai, copywriting, business, terms, bit, clients, call, list, writing, put, marketing, give, email list, copy, work, years, funnels, generic

Debra Chantry-Taylor  00:00

Is that something that’s possible yet where they’re almost humanizing the, the old workflow automation, but in a slightly more humanized way, I suppose.

Scott Bywater  00:10

I’ve seen it being used. So for example, I know one lady she’s put her book into into the AI or just got written a few books. And then she’s got it so people can ask questions, and it will reply as her using all the information from the books. I’m not across that technology, but I know it can be it can be done. So it’s very, very interesting in terms of the in terms of some of the stuff it could do.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  00:41

So Hello, and Welcome to another edition of Better Business Better Life. Today. I am joined by Scott Bywater who is actually based over in Sydney not too far from where I used to live in Sydney. And he is the creator of a simple email ROI system course and over the past 21 years, he’s written for gurus and leading companies like Cohen Rei Jay Conrad Levinson, guerilla marketing, fame, mercola.com, and the Learning Annex. And he’s probably one of the most sought after marketing copywriters in Australia. So super thrilled to have you on the show. Welcome to the show, Scott.

Scott Bywater  01:13

Yeah. Thanks, Debra. Great to Great to be here.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  01:15

Yeah, absolutely. So we had a really quick discussion before you came on board. And you’ve got quite an interesting story because you weren’t born a copywriter. As such, where did you get into the world of copywriting?

Scott Bywater  01:28

Came out of the womb with a typewriter you. Before computers, so? So yeah, so really, my story in terms of how I got started within copywriting is I come from very much a direct sales background. So I started out in door-to-door sales are the corporate sales. So I managed a call center did all of those sort of things. And then when I was around about early 20s, anyway, I went to a Brad Sugars event, and he’s like, start up a business and get it for free, build it up, and then sell it. I said, Well, that sounds good. So but I was very green at the time. So it was a bit of a baptism by fire. So we did okay with the marketing, but we struggle quite a bit, you know, with with not much experience. So then I was I was sort of, I left that and I was like, What am I going to do next. And I took a classified ad, which I took on credit because I was I was struggling a bit at the time that the classified ad was not expensive either. And I put an ad out called, which said marketing genius, proven results. And I got one client, I got to another client got another client, but I was still sort of struggling doing that. And then my girlfriend at the time, who’s now my wife saw an ad for a copywriter and said you should go for this job, women’s intuition or whatever you might call it. So she she knew and I went for it. And long story short, the copywriting manager really liked me because we had to write a letter in there. And I’d been writing quite a bit of copy for clients and all that sort of thing. The HR manager didn’t because my career wasn’t exactly steady at that time. And I didn’t get the job, but I got the confidence and my income. As soon as I positioned myself as a copywriter, my income jumped probably 10 times. So it taught me a lot about the power of positioning the power of niching. And that you can have exactly the same skill set. But if you position it to a market at the right time, then it can make a huge difference. And I know young people today and they’re like, oh, maybe I should get into copywriting and I’m not always necessarily a fan of it. Because it works really well for me now, because I’ve got 20 years experience and all that sort of thing. But the market has changed. And particularly with AI and all that sort of thing. So it’s it’s all about right market, right time where there’s a there’s a bleeding neck problem, and there isn’t a lot of people to solve it is really where you want to be be positioning yourself.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  04:05

Sure. And we’re going to come back to the AI thing and in a short moment, because that’s really important in terms of changing the way these things are done. But I always ask my guests, because it’s really nice to get to know a little bit better, what is the thing you’re most proud of professionally? And what’s the thing you’re most proud of in your personal life?

Scott Bywater  04:19

Yeah, absolutely. I think having proud of professionally is the fact that it’s just growing the business, but also within that, like becoming far better with people and relationships and that sort of thing. So what I’ve found throughout my career is that as I have become better relationally it’s made a big impact. It’s made far more flow in the business, but also it makes the business so much more enjoyable. So years ago, I started up a group, which almost happened by chance, but it’s now Yeah, has a lot of a top top marketers from Australia and that sort of thing. And yeah, it’s something that I, I really love doing. So that’s on a professional level on a, on a personal level, I think, you know, just like it would be, you know, a lot around family. So like the time I’ve been able to spend with my son, and being able to guide him and that sort of thing has been super, super valuable. And also just sticking to my sticking to my guns over the years, despite Yeah, even if it went against social approval or what you should do, or that sort of thing. So lifting, integrity over and above, it’s a public acceptance of social approval, that sort of thing. So I’m very proud of that from a personal level.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  05:50

Perfect. As you mentioned, I mean, your girlfriend became your wife. So that’s a pretty it’s been a good journey as well. Yes. Tell me how big is the business now?

Scott Bywater  06:00

So yeah, so So in terms of the size of the business, so it’s like I run it, primarily myself, then my wife does all the, you know, the accounts, finances, all of that sort of thing is a is a huge, huge support there. And then I’ve got several team members who I will work with and outsource to and all of that sort of thing. So yeah, yeah. So it’s, it’s it’s a small business, but it’s, yeah, there’s a lot of there’s a lot of support surrounding that. Yes, surrounding cases. So yeah.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  06:36

Cool. And so as guests will come on to want to talk about your expertise in a moment. But in terms of actually running a business, what have been the biggest lessons you’ve learned in running that business? And have you hadn’t had any big challenges thrown your way as you were growing?

Scott Bywater  06:49

Yeah. So I think that I think the biggest the biggest challenge has always been been from a scale perspective. And I think the challenge is to let go of things, when in order to buy back your time, so to speak. So I think that’s really critical. And I think that’s where a lot of people get stuck. Because as a business owner will only grow, and this has been probably one of my biggest learnings will only grow to a point of pain. And then we’ll stagnate ourselves. So I see this with a lot of people in the marketing space, because a lot of marketers could grow a much bigger business because you understand marketing, you understand how to get customers, right? But if you’re, you’ll always put be putting the foot on the pedal. If you’re not, if there’s too much pain in that growth, if that makes sense. So it’s like, okay, I’m chewing up a lot of time on the admin stuff. Can I get someone who can take five hours off my plate, you know, on delivery, can I get someone who can take eight or 10 hours off my plate so that I can focus on what I am great at, which for me is sales, strategy, marketing, networking, and the more the more I find, I put my energy into that, the more money I make, which means the business can grow, and then it becomes it becomes far more enjoyable as well.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  08:13

It’s one of my philosophies. We call it delegating, elevate. And so we’ve got this unique ability, which is where we what we love and are really great at and actually where we add the most value to the business as well. And so if every single person, your business is working in that zone of genius, and really doing what they love, and they’re great at, and you’re delegating everything else down. You know, that’s how you build a business, but it’s hard to let go sometimes, right?

Scott Bywater  08:34

Yes, yes. 100% 100 was saying, yeah, yeah, I think I think that’s the entrepreneurial struggle, isn’t it? Yeah.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  08:44

So you’re here as an expert today, and I guess we know one of the things I saw you do a whole range of different talks and things but we’ve been talking a lot about AI and business. So I run like a midsize community midsize business community group with myself. And I was obviously we’re the yo and EOS. And we’re always talking about you know, AI. And as far as AI and marketing is the biggest thing, but AI and business overall is just massive in terms of what it can do. Tell us a bit about how you’re using it now, with your clients and what that looks like and what are the the pros and the cons just give me a bit of an overview of AI.

Scott Bywater  09:18

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So AI I’m finding is I started my journey last year before it was, you know, all the rage. And I was primarily using Jasper as the as the technology. And then this year, I chat GPT just went wild, and I’m like, Ah, I gotta learn something else. You know, it’s like, it’s crazy. The learning curve never, never stops. But what the way I’m the way I’m sort of using it and I’m loving Chat GPT bt the way, because within copywriting there’s quite a bit of research so understanding the customers, their fears, their pains, their desires, their beliefs. No matter what target market you’re in, so you can brainstorm all that. And AI is actually faster at brainstorming stuff than we humans can think about. We’re far better with critical thinking. But the AI is very, very powerful with all that. So it’s great. You can go I’m a, what does an accountant, what are accountants, clients biggest pains, and they’ll they’ll go, bang, remember, prioritize them great, and so on. So it’s very powerful from that perspective on finding. And then when it comes to when it comes to the writing, it’s incredibly powerful, but you need to know how to prompt it and help play with it. And what I’ve found has worked work particularly well is in using transcripts with the AI. So rather than just going rather than just plugging it in and saying, Hey, write me an email from an accountant to their clients about how to save tax as an example. So it’s taking another step back and going using the AI to go one of the fears paints his eyes beliefs of this person. Okay, we’re going to pick one pain, what is what is 10 articles, we can actually write 10 email articles, we can write about that pain. And then you get one pain right about paying tax, maybe it’s there, maybe it’s the the, the, the headaches of, of having to go through all the you know, all the numbers and all that sort of thing. So yeah, okay, around that. What are the what are the key five points you got? Brainstorm this one on one, what do you want to talk about? And then then you’ll go back, and okay, if I’m going to talk about that, I’m going to touch 1234 data points, okay, that’s a framework for what you’re going to say, Now, I’m going to interview you. And you’re just going to talk about that. So then you will talk about that will transcribe that. And we’ll plug that into the AI. And I care to write an email based off a successful email format that we’ve got. So there’s stuff like that you can do, which is incredibly powerful. And then if you’ve also got access to someone’s, let’s say, their Instagram feed, or the blog posts, or that sort of thing, it can really deliver the language in a way which is particularly personal to them. So yeah, it’s,

Debra Chantry-Taylor  12:13

That’s what I was wondering about. Because I mean, I think a lot of the stuff that I see coming out of it can be quite generic. But if you can combine, it’s a little bit like Facebook marketing, right? If you can kind of go hey, these are our our audience that we’re looking at, you know, show us other people that are like this, that’s what the AI is doing is it’s taking your own personal personality, your tone, the way you do things and overlaying it on what it’s discovered to be the things that people want to hear about.

Scott Bywater  12:37

Yeah, and the whole thing is like, the thing to be really wary of with AI is that you don’t want to sound like a robot, who’s just because there’s going to be more and more content going out there. It’s like when the iPhone came out, and there’s, there’s all of a sudden videos everywhere, so then it’s harder to cut through, right, because everyone’s shooting video. So it’s supply and demand. So you’ve still got to make it quite unique and quite special. And by the transcript, it’s actually it’s actually, you’re using the transcript to create the email, which means it is in your voice, it is your skills, it’s not, you’re not just handing it all over to the AI and getting the AI to just create generic, generic nonsense in your, in your area. So and I think that’s a balance. And I, I look at AI it’s a little bit I’m the iPhone is a great example, right. So I know people who can work who can create magic with the iPhone, in terms of liner videographers, who go the AI is amazing with the edits, and I can create Hollywood type movies using an iPhone. But I can’t do automation, because I don’t have those skills, but it’s the same tool. And I think AI is going to be very similar. You’ve got to take the time to know how to use it if you wanted to punch out stuff that just isn’t generic fluff sort of thing. So yeah, it’s really.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  13:57

Interesting, because I forget this. I mean, my father was a professional photographer. And so in his spare time, and we have a full-time job as a salesperson as well, but he was he kind of taught us how to actually frame foot photographs and things and, and so we got a lot of the background about what makes a really great photograph. So when I take a photograph with my iPhone is pretty much always a good photograph, not because of the iPhone, necessarily, but it’s because of the way I frame it. And I can give that exact same iPhone to my assistant whom I absolutely loved dearly. But you know, she never she said to me, all your photos look amazing. And mine never quite looked that. So same same example, right? It’s not actually we’re both using exactly the same tools. It’s just that I have back in the day been taught how to do that. So therefore I approach it in a slightly different way.

Scott Bywater  14:38

Yes, yeah. 100% 100%. And so it’s a skills right, I give that. Another analogy I give is like a chainsaw. It’s a really powerful tool. But if you don’t know how to use it, you can chop your arm off.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  14:52

And actually, I haven’t really thought too but you’re right you’ve got to it isn’t it is another tool in the toolkit that you have to learn how to use properly and how to use effectively to get the best results from it, otherwise, you’re just going to get very generic blah, kind of stuff out. Or actually, for some people, I think they try it and go, that’s not really not what I want. And they give up. Whereas in actual fact, it’s, it is just a computer after all, it has to be told what to do, it has to be directed in terms of where it needs to go, we can just think of that a million times faster than we can.

Scott Bywater  15:21

Yes, yeah. And another thing that’s really good at and I’ve used it for this, like I had a, an email series I did recently, and the tone decline was like, the tone is just it’s not quite right in terms of, you know, what we want. And so anyway, I plugged the copy into the AI and said, make it sound more, more professional, more conservative, all of that sort of thing. And it just did a brilliant job. But it took the same copy. And it was tweaks to the copy. But it made it far faster than I could have. So it’s it’s it’s just a there’s so many different variations in terms of the ways you can use it. Another way I use it, I had someone come to me. And they were they had their an agency in the Facebook ads weren’t converting for for as well as I wanted to for business opportunity. And I thought I wonder, in fact, because I don’t know if you’re familiar with Chet Holmes, he had that advertising strategy for getting like top salespeople. So I put into the AI. Do you understand this? Advertising? A lot? Yeah, like Chet Holmes is advertising for getting salesperson. They’re like, Yes, I do. We got Okay, great. Well, can you apply that to this ad, and anyway, just punched it out. So it’s really punched out and was really good. And I made a few tweaks, and then we could then test it. But there but it couldn’t do it. If I didn’t know that framework. Understanding frameworks and being quite strategically knowledgeable, is really important. Because I couldn’t do it. Like, as a coder, I know, I can do incredible things for coding. I couldn’t do what a coder could do with AI, because I don’t know anything about coding.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  17:06

Or, you know, I saw a really good example this other day, where you can actually have it produced complete spreadsheets for you, that does all the things he wanted to. But again, you’ve got to understand how to ask it to do that. So if you’re not an expert in sort of spreadsheets, or how they’re structured, it can still be a little bit difficult to get that the right input to get the right output is fascinating. And what I want to know, though, I mean, email, surely email is dead. I mean, you know, and I look at my email inbox and the amount of emails I get, and the fact that I put them all to spam these days. I know it’s not really but I want to just sort of, you know, put that out there to you. What do you say to people who say emails dead? It doesn’t work?

Scott Bywater 17:42

Yeah, it’s a great question. Because I would say 100%, categorically wrong. Like intense. Dead. So. So and I’m a big fan of email. Because I built my I built my business on email. In the beginning, it was, it was a very simple model, it was like, get people on your email list, email them really good content, and make offers, not all the time, but make offers. And it’s the same now like, according to litmus.com, I think it’s an email gets, I think it’s a 36 to one return. For every dollar invested, which is far greater than Facebook, Google, YouTube, any of these sorts of sort of things. Obviously, if you want to scale Bing, you need to use the cold traffic mediums. Because you might have an email list of 500 – 1000 people, that sort of thing. But if you’re not using it, it’s almost like, it’s almost like you’ve got this T acres of diamonds story, you’ve got these diamonds in the backyard, and you just all you got to do is dig them out. And they’re there. And that’s what I look at with with email. And most people who’ve got an email list, even if it’s only a couple of 100 clients, or 500, even if it’s 50, you can actually get and you can communicate with those 50 people all at once. And they already know like, and trust you we know the story that it’s five times easier to sell to someone who’s already bought from us and to get a new customer. It’s so powerful. And so I’ve I’ve found for actually booking my calendar, email is so so powerful, and it leverages every other medium. So if you’re using if you’re selling a reasonably high ticket item, like like, we are like with coaching services, and it requires education, that sort of thing. Number one, get them on your list. Number two, build credibility. Number three, you know, get them to book an appointment with you. And it’s and it’s a very simple, very simple formula. And I think it works better than I think it’s the most underutilized opportunity in 2020 2023. And yeah, I like to zig when when everyone else is hugging.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  19:52

It’s interesting. I’ve actually got I’m a marketer from way back that was actually my some original training was in sales and in marketing and I always found seems that people had kind of flipped it email because it was an easy thing to do, but they weren’t using it really effectively. And I’ve actually found that going back to good old fashioned sending somebody, something like a physical something is actually quite a good way to get in front of people who go, oh, but why would I do that when you know, I can send out an email to 100 people, and I can only afford to let 20 people, but it’s actually if you use the right tool for the right job, you get the best results. And I think that’s what it comes down to, isn’t it?

Scott Bywater  20:27

Yeah, and particularly if you’ve got a high ticket, high ticket clients that you’re going after, like, how do you send out like people go on, you know, I get so many emails and I delete them. And don’t get me wrong, like email is not as powerful as it was 20 years ago, because nobody was getting any emails in their inbox. There wasn’t all this competition, but nothing’s as effective as it was. But again, that’s even zigging and zagging to another degree is doing lumpy mail, in the mail, like if your clients if you’re, you have 1020 3040 50,000, why would you spend, you know, five or $10 to get something in the mail? Where they go? Wow, I’ve never seen anything like that before. So yeah,

Debra Chantry-Taylor  21:08

and I do have some clients. And as I say to me, like if they’ve got, you know, services with a lot more than that, why wouldn’t you even spend like $1,000 to get $100,000? Client? Why not? You know if that’s going to work? Anyway, we’re digressing. I think the problem with email from me is I’ve seen a lot of people really abuse it. You know, people who just literally protect and, and not just email, but you have a LinkedIn messages where they connect with you. And immediately you suddenly get an email, and they just want to talk to you about who they are and what they do. And please book a call for me. I’m pretty much guessing that’s not the right way to try and attract somebody because they’re the ones that I actually completely delete and ignore. Yes, yeah, you’re looking at different way of emailing people, aren’t you? Yeah. And

Scott Bywater  21:48

I think I think people fall into two traps with email. So one is what I call what you just described, which is a scorched earth approach, right. And I’ve seen companies do it over the years. And it does work for a while, but it’s a little bit like, yeah, it’s a little bit like blowing up the reef, you know what I mean, to catch some fish. So then, then it’s like, it’s not worth anything, because you’ve just like, you’ve killed your list, so to speak. The, the other one I call the other one is a love letters approach, where all you do is you send out amazing content, and you never ask for anything. So So you know, which is which is great. And you build incredible relationships, and trust and all that sort of thing. But at some stage, you’re running a business, so you need to ask, so I, I use a methodology I call the third way, which does both. So occasionally, you might send out a scorched earth type email when you want to get a result, or you’ve got an event coming on out or a webinar or something like that. But for the most part, what you’re doing is you’re actually combining the two within the one email series, you’re leading with value. And then you’re doing a small segue at the end for those who are interested to maybe download a report. And then after they’ve downloaded the report, you ask to your request, a meeting or something like that. So it’s or you’re sending them to a sales page, but it’s their choice to actually click on it. So it’s like the 9010 sort of thing where it’s 90% value, and then a 10% segue at the at the end. So and I find that that really that’s incredibly, incredibly effective. And amazingly, like the whole, getting them to download, ask someone to download a report, I’m a big fan of having multiple special reports like most people might have one, whereas one I’d have 1020 3040 50. So whatever email topic you’re talking about, you can direct them. Let’s say you’re running a digital agency to report about Google AdWords or Facebook ads or tick tock or whatever, whatever the topic is, that that particular prospect might be might be interested in.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  23:48

And that’s what’s going to ask next is like, you know, is AI being used because you’ve got the initial kind of copywriting and getting stuff out there? But what about being able to use it to actually, then put people in the right direction respond to them in a certain way? Can you do that? Is that something that’s possible yet, where they’re almost humanizing the, the old workflow automation, but in a slightly more humanized way, I suppose.

Scott Bywater  24:11

I’ve seen it being used. So for example, I know one lady she’s put her book into into the AI or just got written a few books. And then she’s got it so people can ask questions, and it will reply as her using all that information from the books. I’m not across that technology, but I know it can be it can be done. So it’s very, very interesting in terms of the in terms of some of the stuff it could do, is that sort of what you meant in terms of

Debra Chantry-Taylor  24:43

Because we think that the classic kind of old workflow automation was you know, it was almost like one of those old decision charts where you know, if they respond this then pop them down there if they respond this, but it was very kind of set in stone in terms of that’s what you did, but I’m thinking a I must be able to learn a little bit about you on the way and pick up on, on what you’ve clicked on. And then how could you present some? I don’t know, I’m just thinking there must be some real opportunities to get much more personal. And I just know that when you when you use chat GPT, for example, when you talk to it, it is almost like talking to a human like it respond like when you know, it responds to you in almost a human way. I wonder how far that technology will actually go in terms of responding like a human and giving you a really personalized answer, as opposed to just a generic one?

Scott Bywater  25:29

Yeah, yeah. No, no, it’s a it’s a, it’s great. I know. I’ll have to check in with a friend of mine. He runs one of the leading sort of decision tree companies called Lead Hook and Nick Thacker out. And he, he’s right across everything that’s happening with AI. So I have to ask him how he’s doing it with how AI is incorporating with the workflows, because years ago, it was sort of like it was decision tree? And if they said, Yeah, like, you would ask them a question. And you could go and have like, 57 different powers if you wanted to, but there was specific questions on each path. So it would be interesting to see if the AI can actually read it. And then And then really direct them and personalize it, depending on what they said, or have something. Yeah, yeah.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  26:15

And also change, change the lingo and stuff too, right? Because, you know, we’re talking, it’s very casual. And so that, so if somebody responds in a certain way, I wonder if it can pick up and kind of, you know, take on board that kind of the way that they’re speaking as well. Anyway, we’re digressing. Back to email back to copywriting. So it’s great to use as a tool, but it’s not the be all and end all we know that you’ve got to know how to ask the right questions, you’ve got to, I’m assuming also, you don’t just take what it says copy and paste and go right. That’s it. It’s done. You’re looking at it and going actually, Does this meet the real needs? Is there anything that’s kind of obvious, because at the end of the day, there’s a computer that can make mistakes? What are the kind of key tips for people who are thinking about using email and using AI in their business?

Scott Bywater  27:02

Yeah, so it’s a different way of writing, like I’ve been playing around with it as much as I as much as I can, just because I know I’d need to be across this new technology, because that’s where the future is heading towards. And it does, it does save a bit of time, it doesn’t necessarily just wipe out and you’re, you know, you press a button and the whole job’s done. So you’re going in, you’re sort of editing those. So for example, I will use it for headlines, subject, subject lines, all of that sort of thing. And it’s pretty amazing. I can spit back 12 suggest you put an email in or speak back 12 suggested headlines, and then you can choose the best one. I will rarely very rarely use the AIS headline, exactly word for word, but I will use it for inspiration. So I’ll go that’s, that’s really good. And if I can find this and that and yeah, that’s, that’s a really good headline. So it’s still that human intuition. But it’s a bit like having a brainstorming buddy, right. So if you could have someone there, and but it’s quiet, and it doesn’t, it doesn’t distract you, which is beautiful. Because if you had some brainstorming buddy there, when you when you’re talking about writing, you’d be talking for half an hour to create this subject line. And that’s not practical in a business sense. If you if you just try and come up with a subject line and get it out. So you can come back and gives you 12 to 15 ideas, or you can ask her for 50 ideas if you want. And then you just go bang or choose that one. Let’s get Yeah, let’s go sort of thing. So it’s, it’s very powerful from from that perspective.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  28:34

Cool. So the work that you do with clients. So you know, what is it you do? What do you do for companies? For companies?

Scott Bywater  28:42

Yes, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So, so I’m very, I’m very good in terms of turning email is one of the specialties i is turning email lists into money, or grow or helping to grow that email list as well. So if you’ve got a if you’ve got a smaller list, and you want to grow it, but I really like focusing on email first, even if we’re doing a whole heap of other strategic things with copy and building out funnels, and all that sort of thing, I love working on email first, because I find it’s a fastest paced path to the sale. So in the last month, I started working with a client he had about, I think he had about eight or 10,000 on his email list. And we started running webinars to it, and we created over $50,000 in the first in the first month. So that’s a nice, that’s a nice win, where I can enter and go, Hey, here’s a quick win, bang, the trust is established. And then we can work on other other aspects of the of the business as well. But there’s nothing else because as you know, a coal campaign. It takes time to get it to work to split tests to measure it. All of that sort of thing might fail a few times before you get it to work. Whereas email they’ve got you’ve got the trust, which is the hardest thing to do. You’ve got the relationship and then you can overlay it So I’m shooting when I come in and work with an email is, it’s like I’ve got the ball. And it’s in. If you imagine a soccer field, I’ve got the ball in the box. And it’s much easier to kick the ball. And then if I’m trying to shoot it from the other from the other side of the field, so that’s why I love to specialize in that, or to focus at least initially on the on the email side, and it’s really the copy and the strategy. You know, to get that you have to get that campaign executed.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  30:26

And here’s an interesting question just kind of popped into my mind. I mean, quality versus quantity. So you know, you’ve talked about sometimes we’ve only got small email marketing lists, other people have got massive email marketing lists, some people just add you, as soon as they’ve met you, they pop you onto the email marketing list, I get emails from people that I’ve met at a networking event I certainly haven’t asked to be communicated with by them. And they just put me on the list, which means I’m very quick to unsubscribe. Because what I don’t even know why I’m there. So yeah, quality versus quantity. What do you have to say about that?

Scott Bywater  30:57

It’s a great question. Because I learned this years ago, because I had a I had a paid newsletter, where people were paying, I think there’s about 200, people paying $67 a month or something at the time, and I did a I did a launch for $1,000 product. And we made just trying to remember how many sales we made. We made 42 sales at $1,000. My list at the time was about 7000. And I just sent the emails to everyone on the list. Then I broke down I looked at who bought and 80 to 90% of those buyers were came from my paid List of 200. And like 10 to 20% of the buyers came from the other 6800. So you can see that that those that list of 200 was way more valuable than the other 6800. So it’s definitely a quality versus quantity. I know another guy and he does a lot of joint ventures with different people who will email to him and he’ll run webinars, and he can sometimes get away, he got a better response from a guy who had a list of 33 people then he will get from someone with a list of 10,000 sort of thing. So because those 33 Like they were existing clients, he had trust, he had relationships, and maybe the 10,000 had been scorched earth so many times, and they just didn’t care about the person who was sending them. So

Debra Chantry-Taylor  32:17

Yeah, I think that’s absolutely right. I mean, having that trust in the beginning actually is going to help you hugely in terms of that conversion rate. So yeah, okay. Definitely quality over quantity. And that in that example. Okay, we can probably talk all day because I’m a marketer from way back. And I love all this stuff. I love a I love technology. But if for people who are listening in who kind of are in their business, and they’re going on, I have got this email list, I don’t really quite know what to do with it, what are the three top tips that you would give them? Or actually, any top tips you might have human, you’ve run a business as well as they happy to share anything that you’ve learned in your life and your journey and your business? Or around what you do?

Scott Bywater  32:53

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I’ll zone in on email. Because I think I think that’s quite specific, quite specific. So in terms of email, the first thing I would do is survey your list. And if you haven’t, if you haven’t mailed for, for a while, don’t just go straight out for a survey, start to just supply some great content, creating great content to them that they’ll value. And then maybe after half a dozen emails, then send out a survey. And as I ask them, what their challenges are with your industry, ask them what questions they would ask you if they could all of that sort of thing. And then base your content calendar on that. So that’s, that’s the first thing is survey your list. The second thing I would I would do is I would suggest is build special reports and landing pages around that. Because what a lot of people what happens with a lot of people with email is they, they’ll get there. And that’s where the love letters come in, is that they’ll get the ball up to the up to the up to the box, but they’ll never kick the kick the goals. And that often happens, you see this on social media and that people posting content all the time, but they don’t have any way to move that relationship to the next level. So start by actually hiring a striker and getting those reports done getting those landing pages done all of that sort of thing. And then third is just start writing regular emails, and too much too many is far better than too little. So my understanding I was Yeah,

Debra Chantry-Taylor  34:24

Explore that further. Yes, because I have this thing about consistency. And, and people always say to me, and I’m always amazed because I send out this newsletter every week, every week without fail. And I very rarely get any feedback from it. So I think it’s just a waste of time. And then every once in a while I’ll bump into somebody or something, actually, when I go to somebody’s Melbourne Airport, and then when you’re different you want to sorry, do I know who you are? And I listened to your podcast and I read your newsletter. And it’s like they you know, they are actually sort of paying attention. So I do wonder about this whole Yeah, regularity. Does it work?

Scott Bywater  34:58

Yes. Yeah. No, I think it’s I think it’s is really critical. I have recently at least with email, I think this applies podcasts, email, everything. But I heard I heard recently, I was chatting with someone because I heard someone had this massive list, he had an amount of five years. So I called up a guy I know who’s quite technical and understands the technical aspect. And he’s like, you know, what, since after four months, when you try and mail the the CRM, they don’t like it. And often you can just get blacklisted. So if you if you ignore your list and this was a big list, I’m like, he’s just like, go over it just literally potentially flush millions of dollars down the down the drain like that was like, because I think I think email is a gold, right? So. So if you don’t mail it, you and plus you lose a relationship, you’ll lose a trust. It’s like a friend you haven’t you knew at school they haven’t chatted with for 25 years, and then you call them up and ask them to join your Amway business, they’re not going to be happy about it. It’s like so so so that keeping in touch is really critical. So I tend to him I emailed my list every weekday for over a decade, and had very little people love people loved it, because you almost become the if it’s the right type of content, you almost become the you know, it’s like talkback radio. Yeah, you’re just you’re just in there every day, they start to like you trust you. And, yeah, it’s a beautiful thing that always, the call to action is critical, though. Because if I find if you don’t have the right call just calls to action, you don’t get nearly as much feedback as if you do that, that pump properly. So yeah.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  36:37

So is there a magic? You know, specials? All the frequencies? Where’s our magic frequency? I mean, is it daily? Is it weekly? Does it depend on who you’re talking to? I mean, what, how would you answer that?

Scott Bywater  36:49

Yeah, it’s a good question. So it depends somewhat like on the industry, like, let’s say, if I was doing a funnel for plumbers or something like that, I would have the emails going out really, really quickly, because I know they’re going to make a quick decision. Whereas if it was for builders, then it’s probably not as important to be as consistent, or as Yeah, as regular because they’re going to make a decision maybe over three months, six months, 12 months, two years, whatever, because it’s a big decision. So that’s something to keep in mind, I think, once a week is, is is probably a really good sweet spot where you’re comfortable, where most people are comfortable doing it, like most people they hear once a day, or a few times a week, and they sort of, they freak out and go, that’s too much. I’m gonna annoy people, I’m gonna get unsubscribes all that sort of thing. So and then once a month at an absolute minimum, I would say because otherwise, they just, they just forget who you are. If it’s less than that, and then and then when you do mail them six months later, they they go, who are they and they think it’s spam. And they complain about it to the to the ISPs and you get a bass, you get a bad reputation. So yeah,

Debra Chantry-Taylor  38:02

you actually like sort of thinking I have got some emails that are literally come in every day. And then they’re short and they’re sharp, and they give it a bit of value. And I actually enjoy sort of having a quick skim through them. And you don’t mind because you know that there’s something in there that you might want to actually look at. Not not email is just about telling people about who you are and what you want to sell them.

Scott Bywater  38:22

Yes, yes. 100 was saying, yeah.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  38:25

Oh, cool. Well, I’m sure there’s a whole lot more we could learn about it. But is there some way to be open go to to find out more about email and AI and what you guys do?

Scott Bywater  38:35

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So what I’d encourage if anyone’s listening and they want a, some cheat sheets, just on the on the on writing with AI, if they go to simple email, roi.com forward slash AI, and they can download my ultimate AI email writing cheat sheet. And there’s, there’s three prompts in there, which will allow them to whip up emails in minutes, even if they’re a non writer and without being salesy. So yeah, that’s probably a really good place to start.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  39:10

Fantastic. That’s really cool. And if somebody wants to have a chat to you personally, how would they get ahold of you?

Scott Bywater  39:15

Yeah, so if you want to, if you want to get in touch with me personally, probably the best way is to shoot me an email just to Scott@copywriting.sells.com.au  so that’s Scott@copywriting.sells.com.au.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  39:31

Oh, that’s fantastic. Hey, Tommy, do you have an ideal client? Like, who do you love to work with? Who’s your favorite kind of client?

Scott Bywater  39:37

Yeah, I mean, I did generally falls under two categories. So one is one is if you’ve got a decent sized email list that you’re not leveraging, then I can I can turn that into money generally, if it’s a quality list fairly quickly. So that’s number one. And number two, if you’re spending spending a fair bit of on ads then we can leverage that fairly quickly to by either changing the ads, changing the funnels, all of that sort of thing. So and the reason those two is is because there’s the most, there’s the most leverage in those sorts of businesses where we can get quick results. So they’re sort of the sweet spot if you like/

Debra Chantry-Taylor  40:20

Tow-hanging for it. the stuff that you can actually kind of turn into money pretty much quickly. Yeah.

Scott Bywater  40:24

Yes, yes, exactly. Exactly.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  40:27

Perfect. Hey, well, not it’s been a real pleasure. I’ve learned quite a bit of taking a few notes here. I would definitely I’ve just had a quick look at the cheat sheets too. So got a simple email roi.com forward/AI. And that is where you will find the ultimate AI email cheat sheet. You can also obviously get in contact with Scott. And Scott, I just like to say thank you so much for spending the time with us and sharing your knowledge and your journey.

Scott Bywater  40:51

You’re welcome. It’s been a lot of fun and thanks for hosting me on your on your podcast.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  40:55

Absolute pleasure. I look forward to seeing you again soon. Thanks.

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Debra Chantry-Taylor 

Professional  EOS Implementer | Entrepreneurial Leadership & Business Coach | Business Owner

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