If you’re on my list, you know that I’m prone to go silent for a few days at a time.
I do my best… but sometimes, I get kinda busy. Usually, though, I’m not gone long enough for people to notice or care.
But if you go radio silent for, say, at least a month, it may help to acknowledge such an event when you eventually mail your list again.
Furthermore: If you weren’t mailing because you were putting in serious work on new products, features, or other things that give the customer value…
The “reconnecting email” offers a FANTASTIC opportunity to sell those new products/features/other things.
Doesn’t need to be super elaborate, as you’ll see in today’s Email Breakdown below…
About The Ways to Wealth
The Ways to Wealth is an big online personal finance blog covering a range of topics, including:
- Paying off debt
- Saving money
- Making money (getting raises, side hustles, etc.)
- Work-from-home opportunities
- Reviews of apps and services
- Signup bonuses/promos
And basically anything else personal finance you can think of. It publishes guides, how-tos, best-of lists, comparisons, and more.
The Ways to Wealth was founded by RJ Weiss, a Certified Financial Planner (CFP). He has a background as a financial planner specializing in insurance planning for young families. He launched The Ways to Wealth to share his personal experience with personal finances and infuse his professional expertise.
Soon enough, the blog grew enough to become a full-time business.
This site is also a former client of mine. I am listed as a past contributor:
(From The Ways to Wealth’s About page)
Plus, you can find my byline on at least one article over there.
Great people to work with! I highly recommend you check out their blog. But before you do that, read this Email Breakdown:
The Email: Reconnecting With Your Email List
This email aims to reconnect with The Ways to Wealth’s email list after a longer period of little to no emailing:
Not too long or complicated, as you can see. Let’s zoom in on the email and pick each section apart…
The Subject Line and Preview Text
If you’re going to reach back out to your email list after a period of silence, any communication is better than none. But for the best results, have a reason for why you were silent.
The subject line does that in a straightforward manner:
Ah, so that’s why my inbox was lacking The Ways to Wealth emails. They must’ve been busy working on some good stuff.
The preview text reinforces that by essentially reiterating the subject line.
One way to make the preview text even better here would be to hint at one of the updates without giving it away.
Something like “You’ll love #XYZ” (the # would be the update number, such as the third update they’re adding) or “Business resources, travel advice, and AI…” (introducing the topics without giving away what the resources are).
But what they have now certainly doesn’t hurt.
The Body Copy
RJ gets email marketing. You can tell because he writes this email from him, not from The Ways to Wealth:
The email is upfront, acknowledging and apologizing for the lack of emails. That’s good and all, but it’s more to set up the segue into introducing the new resources.
That segue, of course, is the reason they were so quiet. They’ve been hard at work on new resources. It was all hands on deck.
Oh, and an implicit CTA to the blog never hurts. Many readers will return to the email after to see the resources. Not to mention that site traffic is a top metric for blog-focused businesses.
Speaking of those resources:
Simple stuff: List the new resource, hyperlink the test to its corresponding page, and add a benefit-driven description to get the click.
Adding multiple CTAs works well here. Customers can pick the one they’re most interested in and start exploring.
Further, adding all three resources creates segmentation opportunities. For example, a customer that clicks the Automated Business Ideas link could be placed in a segment that receives email content about side hustles.
The Ways to Wealth then mentions how they’re hard at work on more stuff…
Stirring up curiosity and excitement for the future… while also setting expectations if they go silent again.
I’m pretty sure (but don’t quote me on this) that customers, at a bare minimum, must have a way to unsubscribe from emails in the email.
However, explicitly mentioning they’re free to unsubscribe always increases trust. Shows you’re doing this for the customer’s benefit, not your own.
It can even improve list health.
See, people who don’t want to see your stuff anymore will eventually unsubscribe. This just encourages them to do it sooner.
A quick signoff almost brings us to the end:
Again, always great to see that the email is coming from a person, not a company.
*Billy Mays voice* But wait, there’s more:
Encouraging replies is a plus in the customer’s eyes — they know the brand owner cares and that they can play a part in shaping the brand’s future.
Plus, replies can = deliverability. It tells Gmail or whoever that people want to get your emails and that you aren’t just spamming them with useless sh!t.
Takeaways
Here are some big takeaways:
1. The Copy Mechanics
Nearly every “line” takes up literally only 1 line. That’s excellent for readability.
There are also plenty of implicit CTAs since, well, The Ways to Wealth’s business model is blogging/affiliate marketing. More on that in the strategy section.
We could make this email even better by adding bold, italics, and underlining (besides the hyperlinks). That can emphasize key pieces of info, enhance the readability, and make it even more conversational.
2. The Email Structure
The structure’s pretty simple here. Start by apologizing for being quiet for so long, but then immediately introduce the reason why.
This provides a great segue to introducing the new resources and driving traffic to the site before closing the email.
Of course, the PS encouraging replies at the end works great in this email. Gets customers involved and boosts deliverability.
3. The Overall Strategy
Reconnecting emails can go to most, if not all of your main list. Even customers who haven’t bought in a long time.
Reconnecting emails like this one offer a great way to casually launch new features, products, or resources as well. Oh, and this email offers segmentation opportunities to hit particular customers with messaging personalized to their interests.
One last bit: Multiple CTAs don’t always work, but they do for The Ways to Wealth’s business model. The Ways to Wealth is primarily a blog, so it lives and dies by site traffic. As long as readers click through, they land on the site and boost its SEO — helping it climb Google’s rankings and bring even more people to the site.
For this reason, casting a wide net with CTAs can almost always help. Capturing the interests of more types of customers = more visitors.
What to Do Next
- Get on my email list using the signup form below.
- Reach out to me if you want help writing emails like this one.
- Share this post with someone who would find it helpful or insightful.
- Check out The Ways To Wealth for all sorts of good info about saving money, paying down debt, starting side businesses/hustles, and many more personal finance topics!