The Email Rainmaker Ecosystem

Build a million dollar email marketing system

Apr 15, 2024

Want to build a million dollar email marketing system?

So that you can grow your audience, influence, and income… faster and easier than ever before?

That’s what I’ll be talking about in this post.

My ugly, hand-drawn image above is a bird’s eye view of the ecosystem. This post will provide more details on each step. And future posts will expand on the steps.

This really should be a paid post but I’m keeping it free so everyone understands the Email Rainmaker Ecosystem.

My hope is you’ll use it to make a bunch of money. Then you’ll tell me about it so I can brag about you here :-)

(By the way — if you want my help to set this up with you, reach out to me any time and tell me about your business. I’ll let you know if I can help.)

A lot of folks avoid setting this up because they think it takes too much time.

They think they need to understand all the nuances around email… like segmentation, deliverability, technical set up, design, S-tier copywriting, media buying, etc etc.

But it’s a lot simpler than that. And I want to show you how to get it right here in as little as 30 days.

There are 3 parts in this ecosystem:

Grow
Write
Profit

Grow is about getting traffic and growing your email list.

Write is about writing emails to nurture your list and convert them into buyers.

Profit is about how you monetize your list.

If you do what I cover here you’ll be ahead of 99% of your competitors with your email game.

Let’s dive in.

#1 GROW

To grow your list, you need to offer something useful for free in exchange for your target customer’s email address.

Think of it like you’re going deep sea fishing for Marlin. You can’t put a piece of bread on your hook because you’ll only attract the minnows.

You need a specific type of “Bait” to attract that Marlin.

Same thing goes for your email list.

Your Bait will be the difference between attracting clients who stay for years and buy 3, 4, 5x times… or someone broke, wants everything for free, and gets pissed when you sell something.

So think about what the Marlins in your market want.

Think about…

#1 - What you want.

#2 - What your target person wants.

#3 - The conversation going in their head.

Then, create a Bait that triggers someone to go from not knowing who you are to wanting to know everything about you.

Let’s use a real estate coach as an example…

#1 - He might want people to buy his $5000 remote real estate coaching program. But that’s not what his niche wants.

#2 - His niche is 6-figure earners who want a strategy to buy cash-flowing rental properties out of state.

If he wants to sell his coaching program about remote real estate investing…

And he knows his niche wants to buy a cash-flowing rental property out of state…

What can he create that addresses the conversation in his person’s head?

Well… they might be wondering “what are the best cities right now to invest in SFHs with the highest returns?”

So his Bait could be a 2024 report that breaks this down.

Something like:

“The Remote Rental Report: Top 10 Cities to Buy A High Cash-Flowing Single Family Rental In 2024.”

Do you think his niche would be interested in something like that?

I think so.

And once someone joins his list to get the report… what do you think their next question will be?

“What’s the process for buying a home, renovating it, renting it out, and refinancing it?”

All stuff he can help with in his coaching program.

See how that works?

There’s congruence from the Bait to the main offer he wants to sell.

And the way it’s positioned feels less like a “hard sell”. More like an invitation to work together on the next thing.

(We’ll talk more about offers in the Profit section.)

Once you have your Bait created…

Growing your list is a matter of getting traffic.

There are 3 main ways to get traffic:

#1 - Build it: SEO, content, social media, word of mouth. Slow but effective long-term and brings in high-quality subscribers.

#2 - Borrow it: Present something useful to someone else’s audience that is also your audience, and get them to check out your list. Faster but limited to how many people who have access to your audience that would be willing to do this with you.

#3 - Buy it: Pay for ads on websites, platforms, or other people’s lists to point them to your list. Fastest but leads are coldest and it can be expensive.

The type of people you attract to your list will depend on your Bait, which is why we talked about that first. If you have the right Bait, getting traffic is pretty straightforward.

I use all 3 methods. Started with the lowest monetary risk and moved along as I validated people wanted my Bait.

We’ll go deeper into each of these traffic methods in a separate post.

#2 WRITE

There are 4 parts to your email writing system.

I call it the “Email Cash Machine”.

The 4 parts are:

Live
Flows
Promos
Ascension

Each of these serve a different purpose, so let’s touch on them now.

LIVE

These are your up-to-date, realtime emails.

Think of it like a public journal where you’re sharing live updates of things you’re working on.

Stories, insights, behind the scenes, case studies, experiments, industry gossip or rumors (ooooh). You’re sharing things as they happen.

I write these the day before and schedule it to send. But sometimes I’ll write it morning of if I fall behind or wake up with an idea of something better to send.

The real power with these emails is in the frequency.

Frequency is a key player in bonding. Bonding is a key player in getting people to buy your stuff without resistance, regardless of price point.

As long as you’re staying relevant and useful to your reader? More emails result in more sales.

I email every day and have done so since January 2020. I’ll miss a day here and there, but sometimes I send multiple emails a day, so it averages out to an email a day.

I’d recommend at the very least email once a week. 3x a week is a good sweet spot. Daily is ideal if you can manage it.

Pick a frequency you can stick to without sacrificing quality.

There will be other posts specifically about how to write banger emails.

But here’s a simple framework to get you started…

Yesterday
Today
Tomorrow

You’re simply sharing what happened yesterday, what’s happening today, and what’s coming up tomorrow/in the future.

Write the email the way you talk. I imagine I’m texting a friend or having a chat with them at the bar. Writing this way makes it sound more natural, fluid, and easy to understand.

Here’s an example:

Yesterday I hosted a Zoom training called “G-Doc Sales Papi”. It was about how I sell damn near everything with Google doc sales pages.

Today I’m sitting in a coffee shop, sipping my americano, watching the Q&A session we did at the end. There were tons of great questions, especially around creating non-sales content and digital products on Google Docs.

In 2 weeks from now I’m going to host another training that dives deeper into creating digital products on Google Docs. If you’d be interested in that, reply to let me know.

===

Now that’s not the entire email. I’ll spend time fleshing it out a bit more, adding details and insights, making sure it flows, and making sure it doesn’t sound robotic.

But I hope you can see how simple it is to come up with ideas.

Instead of “writing emails” think about it as if you’re documenting what you’re already doing.

Makes it so much easier to get going.

Ok let’s move on.

FLOWS

Flows are automatic sequences triggered by certain behaviors.

Think of them like little clones of you that that work 24/7/365.

There are 3 main types of Flows I use:

Welcome Flows
Recovery Flows
Continuation Flows

Let’s walk through what these are now.

Welcome Flows

Welcomes new subscribers to your list, as well as new and repeat buyers.

You’ll want to create separate flows for subscribers and buyers.

Who should get it?

New subscribers, new buyers, and repeat buyers.

How long is it?

1-7 emails long.

Goals for new subscriber welcome sequence:

Set expectations about your content, frequency, and day/time they’ll be getting your emails
Introduce yourself/your brand
Share your backstory, what you stand for, and why you’re different
Get people to engage with you
Tell them about what you offer that might help them

Goals for buyer welcome sequence:

Make them feel confident they made the right decision
Tell them how to access their product and how to get support
Tell them what to do next
Tell them how to get more help if they want it (next offer)

Recovery Flows

Gets people to come back and complete a certain action.

Who should get it?

Started to checkout but abandoned cart
Opted in to watch a video but didn’t fill out an application or book a call
Haven’t engaged with you for 30-90 days

How long is it?

1-3 emails long.

Goals:

Get them to come back and do the thing you wanted them to do.

Continuation Flows

Gets people to continue working with you.

Who should get it?

Customers who are a good fit to continue working with you or would be a fit for one of your other offers.

How long is it?

1-3 emails long.

Goals of your continuation flows:

Introduce a complementary product or service
Upsell/invite them to the “next thing”
Tell them about something new you’re putting together

===

I’ll have separate articles on how to write these for your business.

For now — just remember these are the core Flows in your ecosystem.

Look at other people’s Flows for inspo, but don’t rip it!

PROMOS

Promos are campaigns where you’re selling a specific offer.

This could be an existing offer or something new you’re launching. The beauty of a promo is you can sell before you build. I do this all the time with my workshops, groups, and 1:1s.

To run a Promo you need:

Start / end date
Offer
Incentive
Daily content / emails

Start and end date because no one does anything without a deadline.

Offer because you need something to sell.

Incentive because you need a reason to act now.

Daily content and emails because each one moves people closer to the buy line.

I do 2 Promos a month that are 7-9 days each. My incentive is usually a combination of special pricing, bonus access to me or a product, and limited seats if it’s a live workshop.

Promo #1 is for an Appetizer offer. Something low-mid ticket (typically <$500) that I can sell by sending an email that links to a Google Doc sales page or a checkout page.

Promo #2 is for a Main Course offer like my 1:1 or premium group. During these promos I’m getting people to reply back to me to start a conversation. I then ask a few questions and present the offer if I feel I can help.

It’s a solid rhythm to get into because your Promos are when you’ll sell the most.

You can spend time outside of Promos pre-selling what’s coming up.

Also, join my daily email list to see live examples of my Promos.

ASCENSION

Most people focus on the conversion rate from cold to sold.

But you can make a big difference in your profits by paying attention to the conversion rate from first purchase to the next.

Ascension is about customer happiness.

To get someone to ascend to the next thing, they need to be happy with the first thing.

If they’re happy with the first thing, the ascension “funnel” is as simple as inviting them to the next thing.

The invite could be one or a combination of email, DM, voice note, letter, or video.

I’ve closed $50k deals sending a Google Doc to a happy customer with details on the next thing.

Here’s a useful thought exercise…

Imagine you could only ever have 100 clients.

What would the client experience look like?

What would you do to ensure your clients are happy and stay on for the long haul?

How would you design your offers and customer journey?

Another useful thought exercise…

If you have 10 clients… why isn’t each client referring you to 5 other people?

What can you do or change to make sure this happens?

The answer to that is the secret key to ascension.

I know this is about the “email” ecosystem.

But email is just a channel to deliver your message.

In order to run effective campaigns, we must also consider the product development and delivery piece of this.

That’s how you get customers to ascend to clients. And to get them to tell everyone about you.

#3 PROFIT

There are many different ways to make money from your list.

You can charge for sponsorships if you have a big enough list.

You can sell other people’s products or services (affiliate marketing).

You can create and sell your own offers.

Or you can do a combination of these.

95% of my business is from selling my own offers. So that’s what we’ll focus on.

I use a concept I call the “Offer Buffet”.

There are 3 offers in the Offer Buffet:

Main Course (Client)

Your highest level offer serving the high-end of your market
Goal: get paid a premium to work with your highest level people
Price: $3k-$100k+
Delivery:
- 1-on-1 DWY/DFY/Hybrid
- 1-to-Many group coaching/consulting/mastermind

Appetizer (Customer)

Your low-mid ticket offer to find your buyers
Goal: turn a lead into a customer and get them hungry for your Main Course
Price: $5-$3k
Delivery:
- Live 1-4 day Zoom Parties
- Tools, templates, campaigns, assets
- Self-study courses (email, written, video)
- Low-ticket subscriptions like Substack or a membership

Sample (Lead)

Your free lead generation offer
Goal: grow your list and audience with potential buyers
Price: Free
Delivery:
- Ebook
- Ultimate guide
- Free video training / series
- Free email course / challenge

===

To sell your Offer Buffet… push traffic to your list and your “Email Cash Machine” kicks in.

The Order To Build Your Offer Buffet

This depends on your current assets.

Assuming you have little to no audience… the recommended order to build your Offer Buffet is Main Course → Sample → Appetizer.

Why start with the Main Course?

You don’t need as big of an audience to sell and hit your income goal.

For example if you’re trying to hit $100,000 and you’re selling a $100 product, you’d need 1000 sales to do that. At a conversion rate of 5%, you’d need an audience of 20,000+ to hit that.

On the other hand let’s say you sell a $10,000 offer. Now you only need 10 sales to hit $100,000. If you’re selling high-ticket you also do so through 1-on-1 conversation which can increase the conversion rate to 10-20%. Which means you’d only need an audience of 50-100 people.

Also… once your Main Course is converting?

Creating your Sample and Appetizer is simple.

Your Sample can be a guide breaking down your Main Course protocol.

Your Appetizer can be a piece of your Main Course splintered off.

Keep in mind you do NOT need to build your entire Offer Buffet to start selling.

In fact, I only build once I’ve sold because it validates the offer is correct. It gives me the conviction to build the best product possible.

So I’d recommend starting with your Main Course offer first, then building the rest out later.