If you're more a reader than a watcher, then keep reading. I'm going to outline each of the stories you need to include in the sequence.

The ACCESS Email Stories Framework

The email marketing framework I use is called ACCESS. It allows you to easily create each of the emails, understand what each email needs to achieve and how the entire client pathway flows. This is where we nurture and invite them to work with you.

C – Cause or Why

This is where you share your “Why” story and reveal yourself as their guide to finding success in the area they most need. People want to be led, and this is your opportunity to share why you're worth following.

The other reason we need a "why" story is for connection. You've likely heard the Simon Sinek quote by now that "people don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it".  You need them to see why this business is so important to you.

Inside the Storytelling Map I share a prompt to inspire a strong "Why" story that's perfect to use in this email.

C – Current Belief System

Ever visited a sales page for an offer you have a bit of an interest in, but then you start telling yourself a heap of reasons why you shouldn't buy it? You hover once more over that buy button, but then that one big belief about why this isn't a good idea takes over and you leave the sales page.

When someone is on your sales page, those same stories are going through their head too.

Our goal here is to break that belief system, which is generally a limiting one, and rebuild it with a new belief system that allows them to see why your offer is such a great step for them to take. The way we do this is through our business storytelling.

There are actually a few different beliefs people tell themselves and what those are depends on who your ideal client is and what your offer is. This is something I work through with clients in a coaching session to ensure we're highlighting the right internal stories that stop them pressing the buy button.

For the purposes of this blog post, I want to highlight one of the most prevalent stories is that they've tried this before and it didn't work.  For many of my clients, the person they most want to work with has actually already been dabbling in your area of expertise trying to solve their problem for a while. This means they're pretty skeptical about you being able to solve it, since nothing has worse thus far.

There are a myriad of different story angles you can use to shift someone's belief, but a good one is to look at an area of your life where you found yourself in the same situation as they're in and the positive outcome you had.

E – Endorsement

One of the most important elements of persuasion is trust. Many of us are trying to connect with our ideal clients via online only, so trust becomes even more important than in the offline world where you can often speak to someone face to face in their store.

One of the best ways you can increase that level of trust is to show them you've helped someone who is just like them.

You need to prove to them you can get them a result. You build that  trust in your abilities, through sharing a case story of working with someone else. If you don’t have a case study, you can use your own personal experience of using your system to solve your own problem. Although it's not quite as powerful.

If you're just starting out and don't want to use yourself, another option is to offer your services to someone for free in exchange for feedback.

A little tip to gain powerful case studies and testimonials for your email sequence is not to look for your most impressive results you've gained someone. Sometimes showing big, grand results can actually scare off your ideal client, because they don't think that's going to be achievable for them.

Instead, you want to use case studies that your ideal client can relate to them with people who are just like them. So a good question to ask yourself here is: "Which of my current clients would I love 10 more of in my business?" and start asking them questions.

S – Soulful Sales

In the final two emails we're being a little more obvious with our invitation for them to work with us. But I don't want you to get scared off by these two sales storytelling emails.

We still want to start with a story they can relate to – either a client story or hypothetical story - and then introduce your paid offer as the hero, selling the features AND the benefits of that offer.

Please don't shy away from sending this email. if we do all the wonderful work of positioning someone to be ready to take up our offer and then don't actually ASK them, then our previous work has been pointless.

Unlike many email sequences you may have been through, you don't need to be pushy or manipulate people into buying your thing. You simply need to grab their attention with a captivating business story and extend the invitation to work with you. This is why storytelling is so important.

S – Simple Sales

Why do we need two sales emails? Well, technically you don't. But if I've learnt anything from email marketing it's that not everyone reads EVERY email you send out. So inviting them twice ensures more of the people going through the sequence will see your offer.

This is a short, simple sales based email that reminds them of the offer and highlights the incentive to buy now.

For additional urgency, it's worth letting them know this is the last time you'll be sending that extends the invitation to them. This just compels them to take action NOW, rather than putting it on their to-do list to do later. Because we all know where on that to-do list it's going to be added... To the bottom! Which means they rarely ever come back to it.

 

So this is the ACCESS framework. Sometimes it runs exactly like this, but most often it ends up shifting slightly based on the stories we uncover during the Storytelling Map, the ideal client's problem/solution scenario and your offer.