Want to hear a story about fantastic email marketing success? Isabelle Lesschaeve holds a full-time job as a scientist but also runs a side hustle passion business as a wine-tasting coach. By leveraging email marketing and implementing our Paparazzi flash sale campaign, Isabelle made an extra $10,000.

We're Kennedy and Carrie, and you're about to meet Isabelle (with her beautiful French accent) and find out all the good stuff!

SOME EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: 

(0:48) Want to carry on with the conversation? Join our FREE Facebook group. 
(2:08) Who is our client Isabelle Lesschaeve? 
(4:28) How does Isabelle work with her clients? 
(6:33) When did Isabelle first get started with email marketing? 
(7:55) What was Isabelle's biggest barrier to using email marketing? 
(10:06) What was the first change Isabelle made when she joined our programme? 
(15:55) What results did Isabelle get from her email marketing? 
(19:23) What's changed for Isabelle since joining our programme? 
(23:20) What ONE action does Isabelle recommend people take?
(24:42) Subject lines of the week.

Who is our client Isabelle Lesschaeve?

Isabelle is a French full-time scientist and wine-tasting coach based in the US. She loves wines and has a passion for teaching wine enthusiasts how to enjoy the food and beverages they consume through their sense of smell and taste. Isabelle is on a mission to demystify wine-tasting rituals. People don't have to become ‘wine experts' to be able to enjoy it – this is a paradigm and a myth Isabelle wants to break. It's about being able to distinguish different smells, which, in turn, helps people describe the experience of tasting wine and get more enjoyment out of it.

How does Isabelle work with her clients? 

Isabelle delivers her training through one-on-one coaching online, reaching people all over the world. Her clients bring their wine to the sessions, and Isabelle gives them tips on how to find the right words to describe what they perceive. Like with any training, Isabelle believes the key is consistency, so she's built specific programmes to help people become more sensitive to (or better at discerning) taste and enjoy their wine of choice. You want to pay attention to what you smell and taste, she says, and build a connection between these sensations and the brain.

This is super interesting because people often think of email marketing as something used to sell tangible and touchable products. But Isabelle's work couldn't get more intangible or untouchable! She’s not even in the same room (or smelling and tasting the same wine) as the people she works with. If Isabelle can make email marketing work, surely we all can!

When did Isabelle first get started with email marketing?

At first, Isabelle tried to market her business through social media but found that wasn't beneficial to her audience. As she enjoys writing, she discovered she was better able to connect with people through her blogs and weekly emails.

She started using email marketing when she launched her business in the US five years ago. People would join her email list through a freebie, and Isabelle would send them a weekly nurturing newsletter about wine. Her emails were mainly educational, and from time to time, she'd make an offer. But she wasn't making any sales and didn't know what to do.

What was Isabelle’s biggest barrier to using email marketing?

Isabelle is a scientist and doesn’t see herself as a marketer. Through her emails, she was trying to show the positive impact of her service, but she wasn't able to convey the benefits or the transformation people would achieve by working with her. She'd send out her newsletter but wouldn't get any responses or sales – there was no engagement at all. This felt frustrating, as she knew there was money in her email list. But more than anything, Isabelle wanted to help. She aimed to make an impact on people's lives but struggled to communicate with her audience in a way that produced results. It was only when she joined our programme (The Email Hero Blueprint) that things started to change for Isabelle.

What was the first change Isabelle made when she joined our programme?

The first change Isabelle made was threefold. She started to:

• Send shorter emails (from about 500 to 200 words per email).
• Add one clear call to action per email, rather than having loads. Isabelle's emails used to touch on different topics and have lots of calls to action, which probably resulted in overwhelming her audience. And as a result, they'd take no action.
• Send daily emails, even though she was originally reluctant to do so.

Some of her subscribers left her list as a result of these changes, but a lot more started to engage with her email marketing and respond to Isabelle's emails.

It’s worth pointing out here that Isabelle still has a full-time job as a scientist. And yet, she manages to set aside half an hour a day to send emails to her list for her side hustle. To start with, these emails were taking her about 90 minutes a day – now they're much quicker. And Isabelle is writing in English, which isn't her first language. On this point, we suggested to Isabelle that she write at the top of her emails that her first language is French. Imagine her subscribers reading her emails in a French accent! They'd enjoy them so much more, but we also think that knowing she's French would make the whole experience more credible (French people notoriously know about wine) and more ‘expensive'.

What results did Isabelle get from her email marketing? 

After joining our programme, Isabelle implemented our Paparazzi flash sale campaign at the end of 2023 and the beginning of 2024, and it helped her earn more than $10,000! This is money she wouldn’t have made if she hadn’t dared to start sending emails daily and making offers to her list.

Our Paparazzi flash sale campaign is simple – it’s four days long and includes a sale or a discount (a bit like Black Friday, but you can use it at any time of the year). Because Isabelle started emailing daily and also launched this campaign, during those four days her subscribers would suddenly receive two emails a day. That's a brave move! But Isabelle told her she started small. And she also decided to try this campaign with the wine wholesalers on her list. This is a segment of her audience that Isabelle typically wouldn't have emailed – she'd make a sale to them and never contact them again. But when she sent them the Paparazzi campaign, she made $5,000!

Funnily enough, a lot of our clients tell us they can't possibly use this campaign for their customers because they're in the B2B space. And yet, Isabelle sold to wineries and wholesalers – it couldn't get more B2B than that! Whether you’re selling to B2C or B2B, email marketing is email marketing – you're sending emails to human beings. We all have self-limiting beliefs that we think are good reasons for not doing something. But Isabelle’s story proves that taking the right type of action will give you results.

What’s changed for Isabelle since joining our programme?

Joining our programme and implementing our strategies showed Isabelle that she could make a living out of her passion business. When she sends out her nurturing sequence now, she also tells people who she is, shares stories, and talks about her French background. After going through our Accelerator track, she’s been building a SCORE engine (i.e. a series of automated campaigns) where she presents her one-on-one coaching offer. This means that every subscriber goes through the same email sequences.

Isabelle has gone from frustrated at not being able to impact people to hopeful. Now she knows she can do more. She has a process that works and that allows her to still focus on her full-time job. She doesn't need to be distracted by thinking about what to send to her list, and she's confident that every new lead that comes through her list (wherever they come from) is being taken care of and turned into customers.

You can tell Isabelle was passionate about giving her audience a better experience – she approached email marketing from a place of service. As a result, she created an automated email engine, which almost acts as the first hire in her business. It's like a staff member who works in the background, even when Isabelle is busy elsewhere. And if you think about it, email marketing is the cheapest hire you could have!

What ONE action does Isabelle recommend people take?

Isabelle recommends anyone increase the frequency of their emails. If emails are long, she also advises shortening them and having one clear call to action per email. She also suggests that marketers should learn about their audience and what interests them, so they can become more strategic with their email marketing – just like she did.

Join The Email Hero Blueprint 

If you want to have access to the same material, the same training, and the same campaigns (such as the Paparazzi flash sales campaign) that Isabelle used and got results with, you can find it all inside our programme The Email Hero Blueprint.

Subject line of the week

This week’s subject line is “The emails that make sales twice”. We think this subject line works well because we all want to be more efficient and double our sales, right? But as human beings, we're also super curious, and we can’t stand not knowing what we don’t know. So check it out!

Useful Episode Resources

Related episodes

How Our Client Lucas Reuterstig Saved His Business By Implementing Just Two Of Our Awesome Email Marketing Campaigns.

How April McMurtrey Increased Her Revenue By 400% In Just One Year – A Case Study.

And How Cheryl Hatch Increased Her Membership Conversion Rate By 84% With Just Two Email Campaigns – A Case Study.

FREE list to improve your email marketing

If you want to write better emails, come up with better content, and move your readers to click and buy, here's how. Here's a list of our Top 10 most highly recommended books that will improve all areas of your email marketing (including some underground treasures that we happened upon, which have been game-changing for us). Grab your FREE list here.

Join the FREE Facebook group

Do you want to chat about how you can maximise the value of your email list and make more money from every subscriber? There's a way! Every business is different, so come and hang out in our FREE Facebook group, the Email Marketing Show Community for Course Creators and Coaches. You'll find a lot of training and resources, and you can talk about what you're up to.

Try ResponseSuite for $1

This content is sponsored by ResponseSuite.com, the survey quiz and application form tool that we created specifically for small businesses like you to integrate with your marketing systems to segment your subscribers and make more sales. Try it out for 14 days for just $1.

Join The Email Hero Blueprint 

Want more? Let's say you're a course creator, membership site owner, coach, author, or expert and want to learn about the ethical psychology-based email marketing that turns 60-80% more of your newsletter subscribers into customers (within 60 days). If that's you, then The Email Hero Blueprint is for you.

This is hands down the most predictable, plug-and-play way to double your earnings per email subscriber. It allows you to generate a consistent sales flow without launching another product, service, or offer. Best news yet? You won't have to rely on copywriting, slimy persuasion, NLP, or ‘better' subject lines.

Want to connect with Carrie?

You can find Carrie on her website!

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