Lessons

Lesson Info

Getting Inside The Mind of Your Customer

So now I wanna dive in to thinking about getting inside the mind of your customer, because here's what we have to remember: when we are sending emails were talking to real people. It's so easy to forget that, right, when we think about our lists in terms of numbers. We think, oh I have to send it out to my list, but every email is read by a human, by a real person. So, in order to maker our emails better, we have to start to get inside the mind of our customer. So, I wanna give you guys a little bit of and exercise and I want you guys to start to think about this idea that writing an email to you list should feel like writing an email to a friend. Do you guys feel like that right now when you sit down to write to your list? Does it feel like you're writing to a friend? Does it feel like you're talking to the air on the Internet? (laughs) Right? I think it sounds like maybe more of the second one. So I want to get you guys to this point where you're thinking about your emails, first of ...

all, a little bit more conversationally. No one wants to read a marketing copy. That copy is not fun and, of course, we can get around a lot of this by putting in some pretty pictures, but at the end of the day, we still need a little bit a text to tell people what to do. So the first thing that I want you guys to do in this exercise is I want you to draft an email to a specific friend. So think about a friend. Ideally think about a friend who's a shopper, right. Think about (laughs) how you need to make friends with some shoppers, we gotta get you some new friends. Tawny rolled her eyes when I said that it was like, who do I know that shops, okay. Ideally, maybe your friend who's like least averse to shopping. Alright, so think of a specific friend, like name him or her in your head, okay. And I want you to draft an email to them telling them about a product that's not yours. I find that this exercise is easier to start by talking about something that you didn't make. So maybe, it's that you want to tell them about something cool that you saw when you were out shopping the other day. Maybe you wanna tell them about the earrings that I'm wearing, 'cause that's just really easy, and I'm standing up here talking in front of you, right? Whatever it is, think about a product that's not yours and tell them what you love about it and what you think they would love too. But we're gonna keep this short. So this is not like write a novel about why your friend Susan would think that my earrings are awesome. Alright, this is like writing a sentence or two. So think about what do you love about the product? Why do you think your friend would love it? And, if you were telling them about it what should they do to get their hands on it? Should they go buy it at this store? Should they do to this person's website? Tell them how they should get it 'cause if you're telling them that you think they would love it, then you're assuming that they need to have it, right? So I want you to do this exercise. Is anyone kinda formulating something in your head? Can you picture it? Kaylin, you're kinda picturing, do you have a friend in mind? Tell us who you're thinking about and what they would love and why? Oh so, my friend Kathleen is kind of a dry sense of humor and she also's not super happy about her job right now and I was thinking about a mug that I saw that says: "I don't work here." (Laughs) And so (laughs) I think she would love it. That is awesome, and I think I might need that to give to my husband (laughs) (laughs) So that's perfect and then you could send her say, I think you should buy this here. Yes. Right, if you were really a good friend you just buy it for her. Yeah. (laughs) But in this scenario we're thinking about like this is where you could go if you wanted it, perfect. Alright so when you guys do this exercise the next thing I want you to think about is how is the way that you talk about a product different from how you talk about your own products? So a couple a years ago, I did a workshop down at the Savannah College of Art and Design and it was actually a workshop about pricing, but we started out by having them bring in an object that they loved and I made them talk about why and I listed all of these reasons and all the things they loved about it, and then I had them do the same with a product that they had made, and everything that they had made was all tech talk, right. But the things that they loved, it was all about how it fit into their life. So when you're doing this exercise the reason that I like to have you start with a product that someone else made is because it gets you out of your own head. The problem that makers have is that we tend to talk too much tech, right? We wanna talk about how something is made 'cause we're really comfortable talking tech, it's what we know. But your customer doesn't know or care a lot a times 'bout how it's made, he might care about the really broad strokes but mostly they don't know what it means. I started making these new designs and I was wearing these earrings the other night with friends and they were like, how do you even make that? And I was like, oh with a jewelers saw, and they're like I don't know what that means. I'm like well you pierce it out and I'm like trying to explain and they're like, yeah I don't care. So like they're cool earrings still but the rest of it's gibberish, right? So how is the way that you write to your friend different to how you've been writing to your email list? Those of you who've been emailing your list what is it look like? Does it feel friendly and conversational and casual? Or does it feel markety and pressurey or does it just feel kinda awkward 'cause you're not really sure what to say? How is it different from the way you'd write to a friend? So now we're gonna do the exercise again and I want you to draft an email to a specific customer, but if you're still stuck on this one then draft it to a friend, picture a friend again, right, telling them about a product that you love and that you think they would love too. So I want you to start by picturing your customer or again, if you're totally stuck, picture a friend, maybe it's easier to start there, right? Who is she? What's her name? I want you guys to start--do this with me, visualize for a minute, right. Who is she? What's her name? What does she look like? What is she wearing? Where will she be when she reads your email? She gonna be at her desk at work? She gonna be on her phone? Where is she gonna be when she opens that email? What is she obssessed with right now? What would she get excited about? What's going on in her life? Does she have anything big coming up? Or even anything small coming up that's just kind of worth noting? And now is there a product that you think she would love? Is it a new product? Is it a bestseller? Is it something you're about to launch? And what about this product do you love? 'Cause hopefully you love what you're making, right? Hopefully you love what you're selling. So what is it that you love? What excites you? And then what about this product does the customer love? Why would it fit into her life right now? So I did this exercise just to show you guys what it looks like. So, Who is she? What's her name? I decided I was gonna think about my friend Amanda on this one. What's she wearing? She's wearing leggings and an oversized shirt, she really likes, she likes to be comfy but cute. Probably has her hair in a top knot. Her little daughter has her hair in a matching top knot, so cute. Where will she be when she reads your email? She's gonna be on her phone watching TV with her husband, after her daughter goes to bed and she's gonna check in on her emails for the day. What's she obssessed with right now? Big Little Lies, which actually does not really help me because I don't have HBO, so I've never seen it, but she is obssessed with it, so I feel worth noting, but she's also been talking about throwing this Memorial Day Kegs and Eggs Party to watch the parade so she's obssessed with that right now. And then, what's going on in her life? Does she have anything coming up? She works at a school, she's an administrator, so she's got the end of the school year, but she's thinking about summer vacation, so this is kinda the frame of mind that she's in and you can see how if you don't know these things about your customer it's easier to start this with a friend right, 'cause then we can kind of advance from there. I don't know if my customer is watching Big Little Lies but I know that Amanda is, she told me about it like 12 different times. Are you watching that yet? No Amanda I still don't have HBO. So, you can start there and then you start to think about, is there a product you think she would love? Okay I just designed this new pendant I think she would really like that something new. What do I love about it? I, personally, am excited that it's like a new shape, a new technique I'm trying, I think it's kind of a fun design. But then what I do I think Amanda would love about it? She would love that it's long, she only likes to wear long necklaces, she hates things up around her neck, that she can toss it on and go that it's gonna look great over pattern or print, that she can wear it with her work clothes but it's also gonna look really good with her casual summer outfits. Those are the things that she's gonna love about this. And full disclosure, this is actually really easy to do because I made this necklace for Amanda for her birthday last weekend. I was like this is the necklace that Amanda's gonna love, but this is a really good way to think about this, right? Because if you're thinking about giving someone something that they're gonna love, it's easy to think about then turning that into an email that your customers might respond to. So then if I'm doing this exercise, this is what this looks like. Hi Amanda, I'm so excited to share my newest jewelry design with you, the Monstera long pendant. You're going to love this necklace because it's incredibly bold, the pendant is almost three inches long and comes in a 30 inch chain and yes I realize it's starting to sound a little markety because that's what I do and it's hard for me to not write like that, but you get the idea, right? But it's so easy to just toss on and go. It's the perfect piece for summer days at work when you'd rather just be outside and summer parties that last well into the night, so I'm thinking about what's going on in her life, what's coming up and then in this case I wanted to talk about why I liked it because it's something a little different, it may be a departure from my normal designs, but in reality it's just the next evolution of the leaf shape I've used. And then this is what it is and this is where she can get it. So you see how we suddenly went from just thinking about a person, that's an email I can send to my list, right and it would hit all the key things. Now you don't have to do this exercise every time you send an email because first of all as you can see yes, this is a little longer. We don't always have to write emails this long. In this case, if I was sending this to my list I would because it is a bit of a departure from my work, I wanna give that little glimpse of backstory, but sometimes it's just, hey this thing is cool, you can go buy it. So you don't have to do this exercise every time, but it's really good to do when you get stuck like when you don't know what to write think about a friend or a particular customer. Ask yourself what's happening in her life right now so you can write an email around that. And really most importantly, I want you guys to remember that your emails are being read by a person so you're gonna always write as if you're talking to a person they're going to be so much stronger.