How to Stand Out In the Inbox - Email Marketing Made Easy with Liz Wilcox

This episode is sponsored by my wonderful friends at Qgiv! I'll be holding a free webinar with them on July 21 - to go https://www.bit.ly/qgivandjulia and register for free! See you there!

Email still remains the best way to communicate with a large group of people at scale – when implemented in a thoughtful, strategic fashion. And while email marketing boasts a high return on investment for the average nonprofit, you should continuously be working to improve your email effectiveness. Did you know that the average nonprofit loses out on around $14,000 per year because up to 12% of their emails are categorized as spam? Yikes.

Enter email marketing master Liz Wilcox. She is an email ninja sent here to help get your emails delivered, opened, and read -and how to build a community anxious to hear from you!

In this episode, you’ll learn Liz’s best tips on:

• How to build your list without using ads;
• How much email to send and what to write;
• How to write a subject line that gets your emails opened;
• Increasing deliverability and click-through rates to make an even bigger impact.

The Fresh Princess of Email Marketing, Liz Wilcox is an Email Strategist and Keynote Speaker showing small businesses how to build online relationships, package up their “magic” and turn it into emails that people want to read and, most importantly, purchase from.

In the span of 5 years, Liz grew and sold a successful blog, got bought out of her second company, and built the third into a multiple six-figure party that just won’t quit! In other words, she now teaches online entrepreneurs to simplify the whole “email marketing thing” and finally master their sales in a way that leverages their personality, vision, and values.

She’s best known for her 1000+ users membership, 20 Minute Newsletter technique, and the Email Staircase framework she’s taught to tens of thousands of creatives, freelancers, e-commerce shop owners, and small businesses across the globe. Offline, Liz lives in Florida, loves to run and is a walking 90s pop culture encyclopedia.

About Julia Campbell, the host of the Nonprofit Nation podcast:

Named as a top thought leader by Forbes and BizTech Magazine, Julia Campbell (she/hers) is an author, coach, and speaker on a mission to make the digital world a better place.

She wrote her book, Storytelling in the Digital Age: A Guide for Nonprofits, as a roadmap for social change agents who want to build movements using engaging digital storytelling techniques. Her second book, How to Build and Mobilize a Social Media Community for Your Nonprofit, was published in 2020 as a call-to-arms for mission-driven organizations to use the power of social media to build movements. Julia’s online courses, webinars, and talks have helped hundreds of nonprofits make the shift to digital thinking and raise more money online.

Connect with Julia on other platforms:
Instagram: www.instagram.com/juliacampbell77
Twitter: www.twitter.com/juliacsocial
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/juliacampbell
Blog: www.jcsocialmarketing.com/blog

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Transcript

Julia Campbell: 0:00

Hi there, I want to invite you to a super special free live training that I am giving with my friends at Q give on Thursday, July 21. All about creating a future proof nonprofit social media strategy. You can register right now for free at www dot bit bi T dot L y forward slash que give and Giulia once again www.bit.li. Forward slash que give Qg I V. And Julia, you don't want to miss this free webinar. You can also go to the show notes of this episode and click the link to register. You're going to learn all about how to navigate upcoming digital changes, the four pillars of social media management, actionable ways to engage your community, and more. See you on July 21. Hello, and welcome to nonprofit Nation. I'm your host, Julia Campbell. And I'm going to sit down with nonprofit industry experts, fundraisers, marketers, and everyone in between to get real and discuss what it takes to build that movement that you've been dreaming of. I created the nonprofit nation podcast to share practical wisdom and strategies to help you confidently Find Your Voice. Definitively grow your audience and effectively build your movement. If you're a nonprofit newbie, or an experienced professional, who's looking to get more visibility, reach more people and create even more impact, then you're in the right place. Let's get started. Hello, everybody. It's a new episode of nonprofit Nation. I'm so excited that you're here with me today. I'm your host, Julia Campbell. And I am fangirling out I have one of my favorite, favorite favorite entrepreneurs, business owners and marketing geniuses on the podcast with us today. It's the fresh Princess of email marketing, Liz Wilcox, and she's an email strategist and keynote speaker, showing small businesses how to build online relationships, package up their magic and turn it into emails that people want to read, and most importantly, purchase from in the span of five years, Liz grew and sold a successful blog, got bought out of her second company and built the third into a multiple six figure party that just won't quit. I love that. So now she teaches online entrepreneurs and quite a few nonprofits to simplify the whole email marketing thing and finally master their sales in a way that this is what I love leverages their personality, vision and values. And one of my favorite lines on her about page if you go to Liz wilcox.com She writes just like in sync is the only boyband for me. Email marketing makes my heart go pitter patter. And I should also say I have been a member of her email marketing membership for quite a few months now. And then I just joined the yearly because it is one of if not the most valuable memberships that I have. So we'll talk we'll definitely talk about that. But Liz, welcome to the podcast.

Liz Wilcox: 3:33

Oh my gosh, Julia, I'm here. I made it. I'm so excited. I love talking to nonprofits. I feel like there's just so much untapped potential. And there's so much room for growth with emails, so I'm ready to get this party started.

Julia Campbell: 3:50

Yes, no, we're not doing video but please tell me what are you wearing? Are you wearing your iconic headband? Are you wearing an N sync t shirt? What are you wearing?

Liz Wilcox: 3:59

Actually, I'm wearing a will have to link to a photo of it. I'm wearing this like knitted, like green and red and yellow hat. And then like a matching green and yellow sweater with actually a black shirt with Harriet Tubman. $20 bills on it.

Julia Campbell: 4:19

Amazing. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Like not only are you email marketing icon, you're a fashion icon as well. Oh,

Liz Wilcox: 4:25

wow. Thank you take that middle school bullies. Right, you made it.

Julia Campbell: 4:32

We've made it see how cool we are now. Well, how did you get into this work? I know you have a really interesting story. So just tell us some pieces of it.

Liz Wilcox: 4:40

Yeah. So if you listen to a lot of other email marketers, they'll tell you oh, I started off as a copywriter. Donna I kind of went backwards. So I started off as an RV travel blogger. I grew up really poor and when I found out like people were making money online, I was like oh my gosh, get Get me in on this. And so I started this RV travel site I, I had moved into an RV honestly, just to save money, you know, our views are relatively cheap compared to the housing market. Then I realized, oh my gosh, you can, this thing has wheels, we could travel in it. And so I started my blog and I started it as a business the same way like when I you know, you start your nonprofit, you know, you need patrons, you know, you need to do fundraising, I was like, I know, I need to make money, I want to get on the road, I want this thing to happen. And so I just started doing the email marketing everyone you know, all the Guru's quote, unquote, all the podcasts and webinars I listened to, everyone would say, Oh, if I made one mistake, it's that I didn't take my email list seriously enough.

Julia Campbell: 5:47

100% that is the number one thing I tell anyone starting out, start your email list before you're ready.

Liz Wilcox: 5:54

Right? And so you know, Mama didn't raise no fool like I'm, I'm a woman on a mission, I'm trying to get these wheels to turn in. And so I started my email list, you know, and then they say, create a product like, whatever, whatever, right? So I ended up you know, I created my first digital product was a book about poop. If I can sell that, like, whatever cause you're trying to fundraise for like, you can do it. I if I can sell a book, if some lady in an RV with crappy internet connection can do it. Like, you know, you can raise money for your cause with email. I truly believe this to my core. So you know, sold, sold sold, I ended up realizing I was very good at email marketing, I went to a conference, I had created a digital course. And I had 141 people on the waitlist. And by the time I closed the cart, I made 141 sales.

Julia Campbell: 6:50

This is like the best. I've heard this story. Love it.

Liz Wilcox: 6:54

Yeah. And you know, every word got around, you know, word spread on the internet streets. And they're like, that's impossible. You didn't do that, you know, not in a nasty way. But like, No way, right? And I said, Well, yeah, I didn't realize that that wasn't what you were supposed to be aiming for. Right? I thought, Oh, well, I've got 141 people the same way like, Oh, I've got 100 people on my donor list. I'm gonna reach out to every one of them. Right? It was that same sort of thought process? And so Heck, yeah, I sold those. It sounds so crazy. But it did happen. And that's when I realized, wow, a lot of people are following advice that's not applicable for them. You know, it's very, you know, niche. And when you're dealing, especially in the nonprofit space, or very business to consumer, right, you have to try different strategies than typical, you know, Oh, tell stories over and over in your emails. Of course, stories connect. But you know, I found a little bit of a different way, a little bit of variation, I guess you could say, that got me into, you know, where I'm at right now, with my membership, like Julian mentioned, you know, sitting here on this podcast today,

Julia Campbell: 8:08

oh, I would definitely want to talk about the perspective of not telling stories in your emails, because that is something I teach my clients, and I definitely wanna talk about that. But I love that perspective. I just want to ask, you know, for people out there that say, Well, you know, we send one email every six months, or we send one email quarterly, like, what is it about email that you love? So much? Like, what's the power of email that we need to understand?

Liz Wilcox: 8:34

Sure. So the framework that I developed, like I was saying about, you know, doing it different is called the email staircase. So first, you have a follower, you get them on your email list, you can turn them into a friend, and then you can turn them into a customer. So when we're talking in the nonprofit space, basically, you know, we can turn them into a donor or a patron, take your pick on the word, right? Y'all know what the heck I'm trying to say. So with only sending out every six months, you know, of course, you are technically a charity, but, you know, people don't like to just be asked for money, they want to feel like they're part of something, right. So if you can turn these, you know, potential donors, potential supporters into friends, if you can open up that relationship, then when it's time to have your fundraiser, you know, ask for a last push for the year, you know, hit your goal. You know, it's more relationship based than like, Oh, here's that charity I donated to one time. I'm not into that anymore. I'm on to the next one, you know, whatever the excuse is, right. But if you can keep them in the loop on happenings, you can make them feel like they're part of a community. That's going to change the game for you. And you can do that with email marketing. When I talk about a friend, I'm not talking about you know, your best friend where you share all your dirty secrets with of course, that would make no sense for nonprofits. But I am talking about three things number one You have to invest your time in them. We all know this, you know, we all picture that, you know that mega giant, you know, supporter, you know, we've got a wine and dine him and, you know, give them the plan and picturing you guys like playing golf together, right? There's, you've got to open up that relationship, right? You are investing time in that person, you can do that with email marketing, invest your time in them, make it obvious that you know, you care about them, you want them as part of the community, and that you've invested your time and then they will invest back into your nonprofit. So the second thing is to share in a relatable way, right? This is where you could tell stories or you know, share different, you know, different. What's the word I'm looking for? Sorry, it's early in the morning at the

Julia Campbell: 10:49

testimonials.

Liz Wilcox: 10:51

Thank you. Amen. Julia. Good, isn't she let's

Julia Campbell: 10:57

early for you. I forgot. I'm sorry.

Liz Wilcox: 10:59

It's hot. Now. It's all good. I let me take a sip of this Coca Cola real

Julia Campbell: 11:04

quick. Oh, you're not drinking your mountain dew that you normally?

Liz Wilcox: 11:07

Oh, yeah. So Julia didn't tell you I'm obsessed with Mountain Dew only from the fountain and my fountain. My typical Circle K that I go to the left side of the fountain machine is like broken. So I've been having to get coke out of the right side. It's a close second. I'll do the trick. It'll wake her up by the end of this episode. But just share in a relatable way.

Julia Campbell: 11:35

That's so hard for nonprofits to do. That's very hard. But I love this, this is so important.

Liz Wilcox: 11:40

We can talk about it. It can be simple. Like it doesn't, you know, of course, stories connect. Right. But you know, when I had my RV travel site, let's think about just even music, right? Or even something happening in the local community, that will be a good translation for nonprofits. So in my RV travel site, of course, that was very, you know, it was people in their 60s they wanted to travel they were retired are very close to retired. within that community, you know, I was sharing in a relatable way, by sharing my travels, sharing the latest up to date, you know, about the RV industry, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Right. Now, I'm in a much different industry, you know, it wouldn't make sense for me to be like, Oh, hey, did you see the price of RVs went up, you know, doubled in the last year, they don't care about that. That's not relatable. So depending on, you know, what your nonprofit is, I'm thinking of one of my very close friends. His name is Warren Carlyle, he runs Octo nation. And he calls it the largest octopus fan club. But really, it's an ocean conservation, nonprofit. And so he's really look him up, like pause the recording, go to Instagram checkout act donation, you will forget so many ideas on how to share in a relatable way. So he's always sharing about, you know, of course, he's picked one thing in the ocean to get people excited about he's kind of a genius at this. And so, you know, he's picking octopuses, he's sharing pictures, he's sharing really cool things. He's, you know, showing pictures of himself, like, learning things at the aquarium, etc, etc. He's asking questions seriously, like, go follow him. This is not a sponsored podcast by Octo nation, by the way, I just think he does this the best as far as nonprofits go, he, he's really tapped into what gets people excited how people relate. And I think that's really going to help you with coming up with some ideas, versus me trying to give you some not knowing what kind of nonprofit you have. And then the third thing, and this is the ding, ding, ding, ding, moment. stay top of mind. Like Julia said, you can't just email every six months, you know, snap, it's, you know, it's Black Friday, or it's donor Tuesday, or whatever the day is giving to play. Yeah. You know, if they haven't heard from you in six months, they don't believe you've invested time in them. They don't believe you know, you're relatable, right? They just think, oh, this person is trying to get money, like I get it. Even if their heart is there, even if they love your cause as much as you do, right? We've got to invest, we have to share in a relatable way and stay top of mind, right? Especially when we're asking people to donate. It's so important. There's so many causes out there, right? There's so many noble causes out there. But if we can stay top of mind, that's going to change the game for us.

Julia Campbell: 14:38

So how often do you recommend sending emails and I think I know the answer. And this is something I really try to convince a lot of nonprofits to do and it's it's like, kind of like pulling teeth but how, how often do you recommend sending emails out to your list?

Liz Wilcox: 14:54

Okay, so think about who your person is like Who who is on on your email list who's on your contact list? How busy are they? And how already italicized? Are they committed to your cause? And so think about that answer. And then how committed Do you want them to be? And then you're gonna have your answer. Of course, the typical advice is once a week, but if that seems too impossible, I'm I'm not going to try to convince you to do once a week right now, what I really want you to do, just give it a go, give it the old college, try, I'd love for you to send out a newsletter, once a month, just make sure you're proving that you're investing time in them, right, maybe you share, like Julie's sent some stats, some data, you show some photos of what you've been up to, people want to see that behind the scenes stuff. So the newsletter can be that typical, you know, what you think of a newsletter as and give a personal a little personal update in your email. And this is like, you know, what's going on on the board? We you know, what recent drive Have you had anything that's going on, people love to see that, they want to see that, you're not just asking for money, like their money, if and when they donate, like their money is going to something cool, something that you know, supports the cause, etc. So any sort of details like that, and then you can share, like what's upcoming. And so if you can structure it that way, once a month, start to you know, invest, share, stay top of mind, I do encourage you to try twice a month after that. But I really, really, really, really, really, really want you to try once a month,

Julia Campbell: 16:44

once a month, I think is very manageable. And the pushback that I usually get from a lot of my clients and a lot of nonprofits is, well, I don't want to annoy people. I don't want to bother people. And I think you've a fantastic perspective on how email can actually be something that people look forward to, and want to receive and actually will open. So do you have any tips on how we can increase our open rates? Like get our emails actually opened and read? Yeah, so first, I

Liz Wilcox: 17:16

want to just reframe this idea of like, annoying, we all I hear it every day. I mean, email is my life. Oh my gosh, list. Email sucks. It's so annoying. I have 10,000 unread. What makes you think anyone's reading emails anymore? I hate emails. You know, no, you don't hate emails, you hate bad emails. we all we all hate spam. And that's why I'm emphasizing you have to show that you are invested. So the inbox works the exact same as the mailbox, right? So think about any donor gifts that you send out, like thank you gifts, right? If you just send out a card, you know, thank you for your donation, it's super mass produced, you know, it's that they're gonna throw that in the trash, right? But if you created something custom, if someone's did a gift, you had a hand written know, or something like that, that's going to stand out in their mailbox, right? Oh, you know, oh, gosh, I'm so glad I donated the, you know, these people got it going on. Right. And the next time you mail them, they're probably much more likely to open it right. It's the exact same thing in the inbox. You know, we all go into our inbox looking for something that we want to open. It's not a mindless scroll the same way as social media, right? We are actively searching for something that we signed up for, right? Like, oh, gosh, that's a bill. I'm going to open that tomorrow. I know it's not due yet. Oh, gosh, that's spam. I thought I unsubscribed. Holy crap. Julia Campbell, I'm going to open that right away. Right? You know, she's invested time she's followed this email staircase to get you to that response. So in order to do that, I really recommend just a proper onboarding sequence. Whenever you get a new lead, whenever you get an new email, you've got to onboard them the same way. You know, if somebody donated to you, you would send them some kind of gift receipt or you know, whatever your process is, after that, right? You have some sort of process is the same when someone signs up for your list. So call it an onboarding, nurture, welcome sequence, whatever you want. But you have to have something proper to get them to, oh, my gosh, Liz, she sent me an email. I'm going to open that right. Does that make sense? I

Julia Campbell: 19:40

can't tell you how many times I subscribe to nonprofit email lists and don't get any kind of welcome email, or any kind of welcome sequence. So that's something I work on with my clients to say, look, if someone gives you their email, but you really have to treat it like gold because think About that we don't give our emails out anymore to anybody. Unless we know that there's value there for us. I try not to get my email out. And then I try to call my email list. But I've several newsletters that I read every week. So we have to treat that person like gold. What I think happens is we lump them into our generic email newsletter list. And then maybe the next thing they get from us is a fundraising appeal, but they still don't even really know what we do. So how long do you recommend a welcome sequence be? Is it one or two emails?

Liz Wilcox: 20:32

Yeah, in general, I recommend four emails. Now, as I'm going through this, I want you to filter this through your capability, your capacity. I don't know you, I don't know your nonprofit. But in general, this is a general framework that works really well. So the first email is just that, you know, welcome, thank you for signing up. If you have some sort of incentive to give them some sort of, you know, link to click on or something, you know, that's fine, but keep it brief. They signed up or maybe, you know, you met them at an expo or you know, an event and they gave you your card and said, Yeah, they'll join the list whenever, right? We don't want to be too overwhelming at first, remember, we're following follow our friend, customer, they're not our friends yet. So we don't want to overwhelm them with a bunch of information. And then the second email, send them some of your best content. So if you create content online, I would suggest if you create any blog post, if you have an Instagram or a Facebook Live, something that puts basically your best foot forward like,

Julia Campbell: 21:41

oh, a lot of people have great videos, a lot of nonprofits.

Liz Wilcox: 21:43

Yeah, yeah, I. So for mine, I actually create a video. And maybe this is what you do. So this is a good idea if if y'all are into video. So I would suggest maybe having you know, someone on your board or something, create a video, you know, just well personally welcoming. And of course, this does, I don't mean for every single person, it's just this one private video that says, Hey, welcome to our world, we're really glad you're here, just giving that personal touch, and then sharing maybe you know, the mission or the values, right? But it's giving your nonprofit, a face that video, if you are into video, and you can get somebody on board, and maybe it's you, you know, something that says, you know, hey, this is our nonprofit, I would imagine even if if you have an office space, doing the video in there. And it can just be two minutes, people don't give your whole schpeel. You know, this is not the time for the story yet. You know, just saying hello, welcoming them. And you could even combine email one and two now that I'm saying that you could just give a quick intro say, Hey, I'd like to welcome you. Here we go. So then the third email, this is the most important Ding, ding ding, I wish I had sound effects. I made a triangle or something I

Julia Campbell: 23:04

know, I wish it was I wish we had sound effects to added. This is

Liz Wilcox: 23:08

where you set expectations. And this is, you know, the same way, if you were giving a presentation, you would say you know, here's the agenda. Here's our overall objective, right? Anytime you run a meeting, those are the first things we talk about, right? So this is the email marketing equivalent of that. So you're going to tell them, hey, I'm going to email you once a month, you know, the first Tuesday of every month, or you know, and you can change that as it goes. If you've if it becomes once a week or twice a month. There's nothing like putting that in your welcome sequence to actually get your butt in the chair to write that email every month. Right? You're going to offer them opportunities to donate, right? This is where it gets really serious. So in the b2b world I'm in I always say like offer, tell them you're going to offer free and paid products. But for nonprofits, I want you to say, you know, we are going to offer you opportunities to donate throughout the year, boom, suddenly, when you send them you know, that opportunity. It's not like, they're just spamming me. You know, I met them one time at this networking event, you know what I mean? Like, wherever, right? But you're telling them upfront, like, Hey, I'm going to offer you these opportunities. And you can even if you have annual fundraisers, if you have that schedule where you you know, you do pig pushes three times a year, whatever. You can even sub bullet that and say, you know, like our, you know, summer 18 hole golf drive. I don't know, I'm making this stuff up.

Julia Campbell: 24:44

A lot of nonprofits have golf tournaments. Big in the sector.

Liz Wilcox: 24:51

Yeah, right. You know, like our, you know, end of the year, you know, fundraiser whatever, whatever our secret santa you know, whatever. opportunities you have, right. And that way they know right upfront the expectation, and they know what is happening within the organization, without you having to tell some sort of story, or, you know, give this long spiel, you can also, you know, our objective is to stay top of mind, if you are doing any sort of social media, this is where you point them to that, you know, stay in touch, you know, like our Facebook page, or, you know, check out our Instagram for I'm thinking of if you're a nonprofit, you do you know makeovers for women with cancer, you know, check out our Instagram for our makeovers, they're really inspiring, you know, something like that you're sharing what you do, you're leading them over to social media, you're telling them when you're going to ask for donations up front, right? You know, and you're telling them when the emails are going to come. And then the last email, this is where the nonprofit space can really shine. This is where you share that story. And it doesn't have to be big and long. It just has to, you know, you just have to share your big why share that passion with people, right? You know, whoever your founder is, maybe you get with them. And you know, you craft a story, this only has to be 600 words, I do not recommend, you know, waxing poetic for pages. It's an email, you know, it's a newsletter, not a novel, I always say, but sharing that passion, sharing a little bit of that founder story, why we do what we do, right? I know going back to that och donation, I'm, I'm gonna butcher the story. But the founder, he really believed, you know, oh, I believe in ocean conservation. But it's so hard to get people to care to rally behind a cause

Julia Campbell: 26:48

and to wrap their brain around, because it seems so insurmountable seems so big.

Liz Wilcox: 26:53

But I know people love octopuses. So I'm going to start this fan club. And because we love octopuses, we are then going to love the ocean where they're going to save where they live, right? And so like, what, what is that passion? You know, behind it, what is that founder story? Why do you do what you do? And really connecting with the person on the other end opening that relationship? Right? I know, for me, I support Mothers Against Drunk Driving, because my brother was killed by a drunk driver. And so the story of how that began, was literally a mother whose son got killed by a drunk driver. And, you know, she decided like enough, we've got to change the legislation. And that, you know, that's at their core, they're trying to change what legislation that's why they want to raise money, so they can lobby with the best of them, right. And so for me, that resonates, hearing that story of how it was created, and what they're trying to do. Like, it becomes when you know, when they read, it becomes personal, and it becomes a no brainer as a donor to Oh, yeah, I want to throw my money at that, because I have a mother against drunk driving, right? I hope that makes sense for folks,

Julia Campbell: 28:16

I want to pull out a couple things that you said. One is that the octo nation, they're not saying, you know, don't support the whales don't. So they're not against other ocean conservation efforts. But they're trying to get their own little corner to get people passionate about one thing, and then educate them on ocean conservation as a whole, which I think is really smart. And also would probably get a lot of kids involved schools, I could see my son loves octopuses, he loves all things ocean. So I think that's a brilliant strategy. But also, what you talked about, I think really will resonate with a lot of the fundraisers out there is to find the right people to find the people that are going to be passionate about what you do. And the people that are going to want to join the movement, join the list and to make it personal for them. And to really share your why constantly, constantly focus on your why we focus so much on the what, and the nuts and bolts and the oh, we serve this many people. This is what we do every day, which is important to showcase that but people give because they're invested in the why and they're invested in the solution. So thank you for sharing that. We could talk for literally days. So I guess my one of my last questions because I have to ask this because I'm a huge NSYNC fan. And I've heard you talk on podcasts about this. What can boybands teach us about marketing? I love these. I don't remember what podcast you were on where you talked about what boybands can teach us about marketing and Who's your favorite member of instinct. So my

Liz Wilcox: 29:53

favorite member of insane Inc is Chris Kirkpatrick. You'll probably have to google him because he was probably the least fun killer, but that's probably why I loved him so much for me and hopefully, listening you'll find this inspiring. So in sync, if you can't remember, you know, that was the group with Justin Timberlake, which I'm sure you know of or have heard of him. And Chris Kirkpatrick was this guy with like pineapple dreads braces, acne. He was wearing like ski goggles all the time, for some reason. His clothes were baggy. But there he was just, you know, belting it out with these, you know, teenage heartthrobs. He actually created the group. He was the original member. And in my little brain, I was like, wow, you know, he just looks like he doesn't exactly belong. But he's very much there belonging, you know, like he's given himself permission to, you know, be dancing alongside Justin Timberlake. You know, JC she has a lance, Joey, you know. And for me, I'm looking at him right now, because I have a poster here. He's he's giving me the smolder. And for me, that was just always inspiring. And also, and this is connected to us sharing our why I loved him so much. Because in the magazines, it was like, Oh, why did you create in sync, and he said, Oh, you know, my mom was a single mom, we always went without, we were really poor. And I wanted to get my mom out of poverty, I wanted her to not ever have to worry again. And she really encouraged me, you know, to not only do that like to live my own life, but to follow my dreams, like I could do it with music, like he tells the story of, you know, I was going to quit college to you know, pursue in sync to go to Germany or something. And his mom, you know, despite still being poor him having this deep seated belief that he had to take care of her. She said that college is not going away, but this opportunity might so you should go try it. And, again, going back to this is why we need to share our why like that, as a kid as a little kid. And as an adult who supports their mother financially. That why like, Oh, my heart hurts hearing it right now, because I just so deeply connect to it. And so that's why it's my favorite and so on to your original question about what we can learn. I think I'll leave it at this the number one thing you can learn from a boyband is to repurpose content, whatever you're posting on social whatever, stories that you shared at your, you know, most recent event, things like that, put those in your newsletter reshare it on social media. If you wrote something two years ago, write it again. Tell your story over and over and over and over again. That why that founder story that you know not? Like Julie said not what you're doing or why you're doing it and get people to rally around that. Just do that over and over and over again. insync has not made an album in 20 something years, and they are still making merchandise. I just bought brand new merchandise from insync. They really are the kings of repurposing.

Julia Campbell: 33:22

They're Oh, they're on cameo. I don't think Justin is but my one of my really good friends for her 40th birthday. Everybody pitched in and got her a Lance Bass cameo. Oh, how fun. I know, oh, trust me, it was I was very jealous. But you're right. It's just leveraging what you have

Liz Wilcox: 33:42

correct. And just putting it out there in different ways. You know, they put out a music video, they put out a single, they turn lyrics into T shirts, you know, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Right. repurposing content is really, really good. And yeah, that's what we can learn from boybands today. You're welcome.

Julia Campbell: 34:03

Amazing. Thank you. And I want you to let us know where people can find you learn more about you. But I do want to just give another plug for the email marketing membership. I found it through Lizzy Goddard and joined immediately. It is a wealth of information. And what I also love about it is I've been pretty good about emailing my list every week. But for people that are maybe hesitant to email that much or need prompts or need like a cheerleader, kind of behind them to say you can do this and here's some suggested language. Here's some suggested email subject lines. It's really great for that. So you sort of get this little pep talk in your inbox every week, which I really appreciate and love and I have a whole separate folder for Liz Wilcox in my Gmail client to save all of your emails, but email marketing membership, it's it's still $9 A month right and you're We're committed to keeping it at that.

Liz Wilcox: 35:01

Yeah, it's my membership. It's like the Netflix of email templates, I call it. Yeah, I actually have quite a bit of nonprofits in there now, which I love because, to me, it's nonprofits need money more than businesses, right? Like we've got, we've got to get these things going. And so yeah, it's $9 a month, you get an email template every single week to your inbox, of course, you know, rewind, 20 minutes ago, when I told you once a month, like if you join, you're gonna get so many ideas, you're gonna understand that email staircase, so much more. But if you're just looking to, you know, dip your toes, you can, I'm an email marketer, I would love to have you on my email list, you can go to Liz wilcox.com. And the top right hand corner, there is a hot pink button. It says free email, swipes is going to show you those four emails that I was talking about. So you can actually like you know, see what the heck I was talking about. You can use those, take them, make them your own. It's also going to give you three newsletter examples so you can kind of see, you know, what's possible and 52 subject lines, so you never have to write from scratch. It's totally free. Just go to Liz wilcox.com, that hot pink button in the top right hand corner.

Julia Campbell: 36:17

And if you do nothing else, go to Liz wilcox.com Just for the incredible 90s graphics, the bright yellow, the pink, the video with your amazing earrings and your incredible shirts. Just Just check out this website because it's like website goals like really it is but obviously sign up for the free email swipes as well. So thanks so much, Liz for being here. I really appreciate it.

Liz Wilcox: 36:41

Thank you Julia. This is so much fun.

Julia Campbell: 36:50

Well, hey there, I wanted to say thank you for tuning into my show, and for listening all the way to the end. If you really enjoyed today's conversation, make sure to subscribe to the show and your favorite podcast app, and you'll get new episodes downloaded as soon as they come out. I would love if you left me a rating or review because this tells other people that my podcast is worth listening to. And then me and my guests can reach even more earbuds and create even more impact. So that's pretty much it. I'll be back soon with a brand new episode. But until then, you can find me on Instagram at Julia Campbell seven seven. Keep changing the world. Nonprofit unicorn