1084: Drive 7 Figures Through Customer-Centric Copywriting and Master Email Marketing Basics with Conversion Copywriter Expert and Copy Coach Monica Badiu

Robert Plank 0:02 Hey, we are back on the podcast Monica Badiu is here from mana have an m o n IC, A B A D iu.com. If you're the kind of person that likes to follow along well, we have a conversation. Monica is a conversion copywriter with over a 14 years of experience. And Monica shares how to drive seven figures in revenue through customer centric copywriting and email marketing will be a fun conversation. Monica, fantastic speaking with you. It's great to be here. Thank you for giving me an opportunity to talk about like non spam email that converts. Yes, and that is an important topic. And it seems like it's always been an important topic because all of these marketers, as you know, and as you told me in your bio, they're afraid to use their email list, they say, oh, emails, so out of date, they were saying that 1015 years ago, so we need your help in figuring out how to build a list market to our list, and get them alive and engaged and and overcome this fear, this worry of being salesy. And so dropping all that in? What do you all about? What is your focus and passion lately. So um, my focus is on consumer behavior and trying to write copy that actually delivers value. So it's not all about making the sale, it's actually about educating the audience, making sure the reader is like qualifying himself. And if he wants to buy he's gonna buy. So a lot of my passion is around marketing theory and marketing strategy. I put a lot of like the real, the really hardcore stuff. I mean,

Monica Badiu 1:50 this is like a course on consumer behavior. So I put a lot of that in everything I do. And I think we have like a huge risk responsibility, both as a marketer and you know, as brand selling, we choose how we treat our audience, is it with respect is it with fear mongering. So that's kind of my professional side of things. And when I'm not on my laptop, I love to craft with paper, I do paper flowers, I hike, I travel a lot. I'm a mom, and I have a four year old daughter. So I'm learning how to be more patient every single day. Yes,

Robert Plank 2:37 and I can relate to that I have a three year old son, he'll be four in about a month and a half. So similar idea of seeing this person that is learning all these things for the first time that you take for granted, and sometimes not cooperating or sometimes they get frustrated. And so it's so important to be a real person, like how so many times I have a podcast, guests come on here saying, Here's what I do. Here's my job title. And here you are saying, well, I have all these other facets dimensions of myself. And that's really important for us as marketers to maybe embrace the randomness, right? With social media and with email subject lines to wake someone up, we need to kind of have the pattern interrupt as they call it. Because if we're just going towards this goal, and here's the sale and buying from me, then that seems really boring and one dimensional. And I like what you said in there about how important it is to have someone qualify themselves, right to have someone say, hey, what you're talking about there, that's me, I need that. Because that way they can convince themselves, which is way more powerful than us trying to trick or take some of the shortcuts that you're mentioning, right? You mentioned the fear based mongering, which maybe that sounds like a possibility. But it's just it doesn't always work. And sometimes if it does work, you don't know why. And it can be a path to frustration. So how like with all these things that were saying, you have like these thick books, what have you learned, like, because we're limited on time, only a few minutes on a podcast? Like how do we begin to understand copywriting persuasion, email marketing, like what are the low hanging fruit that we're all missing lately? Treat

Monica Badiu 4:20 your audience as a human being. I mean, that's like the most like the simplest way I can explain this because a lot of people they're treating their audience is numbers. So if you want to sell more, you just need more of those numbers. And eventually that like hunting for better numbers, better numbers, you forget that on the other side of the screen is a human being with different priorities and problems. And they don't necessarily care about you. They do care about themselves. And with your authority, you have an option you can actually be like well I'm here for this sale. And you can get this, if you want to hoard more stuff, you're never going to use, or I am here, and I understand the exact issue you're going through on this March 27, it's spring, but it's still like winter, you're annoyed, a lot of shit is happening all over the world, I understand that. And I'm here to help you find your way back to your goal. So it's like a very big difference between how you convey your message and your yourself speech, when you stop talking to numbers, and you start talking to actual human beings.

Robert Plank 5:43 I love it, you know, what comes to mind is that idea of Thinking Fast and Slow, where when it's time to bust out the words, send out the marketing, do all the clicks, do all the actions, then that's one mode to be in. But then there's the other mode of doing the slower thinking and having the empathy and saying, Okay, well, it'll be time to write the 500 words in a moment. But let me just think about what's going on presently. What are the fears and frustrations and I like just hearing about your thought process and trying to think things through and giving someone some of these choices and saying, Well, hey, you could keep going down this path. Or maybe you haven't tried that path. So it can help to have those two different sort of modes there. And so to help us get an idea of what you're all about, you have a fun story to share with us. You have like a big win, or like a humble brag to tell us about like some really cool, like email marketing campaign, or is there anything coming to mind about a fun accomplishment to share with us?

Monica Badiu 6:45 Well, last year, I helped clients make like more than $3 million through this approach to sales emails, and one of my clients. He's a really great guy who loves his audience. And the first time we started working together, and I started to tell him, Well, this promo sequence is gonna have 11 emails, and we're gonna send those over two weeks. And he was terrified by the idea. And then I was like, relax, we're gonna do it with value, we're gonna make it relevant and contextual based it your people are going to love it. So I finished writing the emails, I have some discount and urgency copy in the last three emails. And he makes no dislike, I'm afraid to use this. No, let's let's not use a discount. Eventually he accepts that he says, Okay, let's run the test. And guess what happens? He has his best month in his whole business. And his audience, they're all replying to emails. And instead of getting like hate emails, they're saying, This is so insightful. This is exactly what I was struggling with. Thank you for sharing this. And the next month, we added like a message that allowed people to opt out of the promo emails, and some of them did. But then they messaged him and asked him to add them back into that promo, because the emails they were getting, even though there were still speeches, they were so insightful and valuable, that they still wanted to get those emails. So I think that's a really good example of what you can do when you shift focus from like, let's make a lot of money to you. Okay, how can we deliver more value and help our clients if they want to buy because they see the value in what I'm offering? That's amazing, but I'm not going to force it and just like use the left wing emails to talk about the discount, which is something that I've actually seen,

Robert Plank 8:54 right, a lot of ways to go wrong. But I like how you are all about being brave and having courage and trying this thing and taking a risk. Because it's easy to say, I can't do that. I won't do that. And to have what did they say you have a problem for every solution, right? There is something we should do, why can't do it for reason, one reason to, and you're saying well, let's, because there's all this, this training this data based on marketing and email, or an email copy, and there's these thick books, we have some best practices, and we can try some of these things. We can do these 11 part sequences. And if you're afraid of doing it, let me do it. Let me show you the the data and then we can proceed from there. Exactly.

Monica Badiu 9:39 I mean, that's a big thing. So I went back to school like two years ago, and I'm now doing like advertising in a university formal education kind of background. And what I really discovered is that so many people, they do marketing, but they have no idea what they're doing and That includes marketers, and business owners as well. Because when you go down to the basics, it's very, it's very simple. You have a product. Why did you create that product? Who is that product for? And what's the problem or need this product solves. And what we're seeing now is the opposite. It's just like, oh, I have an idea for a product, I make the product. And then it's like crickets, nobody's buying, because you don't know who that product is for. And because you want cash flow, because you want to survive. You're throwing discounts and you're using like flash sales and all these copy, that's all about like, buy, buy, buy now. But it's very shallow, a very shallow positioning, it's nothing because you don't know who it helps, and why it helps.

Robert Plank 10:54 These things are not thought through. And so we need to look at the basics, like you've gone back to school, and you're also inspiring me to, to go back to YouTube. And many times, I'll just search for a really beginner topic. And so I'm making a mental note after this to go and search some YouTubes on like, the basics of marketing the basics of copywriting. Because we think that maybe that's beneath us. But we can maybe we wouldn't just blind to it this whole time and missing out on some of those fundamentals that maybe we heard about it 1012 years ago. But in the meantime, we forgotten things became corrupted in the day to day activities. And we forgot about what the underlying purpose was. And as far as this email marketing thing, like something that's always stuck with me is when we're afraid to send emails, I think, well, you know, if Warren Buffett emailed me every day, and I was like one of like, 10 people he emailed, but he has some really juicy secrets. I wouldn't care that he was emailed me every day, I wouldn't say, hey, Warren Buffett unsubscribe, this information is too good. So it's like, I think that's kind of the thoughts I go through. When you're talking about well, there's the numbers, and people are afraid of all the quantity of emails and you're saying, Well, what about the value that's being delivered? And so how do we achieve that like, as far as when someone says, Well, I've got my product and my sequence? And I could send these subject lines? Or have these hooks? How does someone make these value based emails and avoid the problems you're talking about? Well,

Monica Badiu 12:22 first of all, you need to really know your audience. I mean, really know your audience, like beyond demographics are like the marketers nightmare. My ideas is 18 to 60? No, you actually need to know who is the very specific group of people who you want to buy this, who is the most qualified to actually benefit from what you're doing. And when you know that, you know, their pain points, and you know how they refer to their pain points. So I'm a mom, what's the problem that mom with a four year old has? Is it weight loss? Is it sleep patterns? What is it dig deep into that, and then make it relevant to the context, it's March, what's happening for this group of people in March or April or April that you can tap into? So that's where it starts. And then for making them valuable, you always have to answer a very good question. Why should they care? Why should they open that email, scan through it, click and buy? Why? What's in it for them? The discount is like the smallest nudge possible. And everyone is wearing discounts nowadays, I think, in a few years from now, with very niche audiences, we're gonna switch to not having discounts almost all throughout the year, just like on Black Friday, and that is going to like become a disruptive tactic. But it's gonna be more associated to being able to deliver value. Whereas what's happening now? So it's not like a cookie cutter answer. And you really need to start by knowing your audience and knowing what, what keeps them up at night. I know it sounds weird, but that's the level of information you need to know.

Robert Plank 14:19 And it seems like when we're in this sort of situation where there's a huge problem, and there's not a straightforward path to solve it, that the answer is to ask some of these probing questions, right? You're saying, well, the probing question is, what keeps them up at night and who they are? And what are all these problems that they have? And then the next question is, how do they then phrase and speak to those problems? Because we can, that's another trap too, right? Is we can know what their problem is. But we're not articulating it properly, and it misses the point. So then there's that and then you're saying that there's also relating it to now right relating it to the current situation that are in current time of your current problem. was and then from from there. You I'm blanking here. So after you figure out those then, then it's why should I care at that point? Yeah,

Monica Badiu 15:12 why should they care. And then based on that, you start creating like a whole big idea for your promotion that justifies why they should pay attention to your solution to your product, that big idea. And then as the promotion unfolds, and again, I have like colong structure, which is more than that, like the three emails flash sale people are doing, that allows me to tackle objections, to dismantle false beliefs to actually coach people into shifting perspectives about what's possible, because I'm not selling the product, I'm selling their commitment to trying to achieve their goal. So it's a very different thing. I'm not pushing them into buying something, I'm pushing them into believing there's a chance they can achieve the outcome they're after my solution, my product is just one of the many solutions they have available. And once I get them to that point, that's when I can talk about the solution and explain how the solution has helped other people. I can tackle objections about what if I don't like it? What if it's outdated? What if it's not right for me? What if what if, so, the more time you have to tackle these objections, and to have this conversation with your audience, the more you can afford to have like really one on one conversation with the person that's reading your emails, some people, they're not going to read all your emails, obviously, they're not going to care, they're going to be in different pain awareness stages, they're not going to relate to the problem, you're talking about that at that moment in time, but still, you're going to have people reading and over time, that adds up to a sort of like, trust worthy trustworthiness capital. And when you're gonna hit them with like, a Black Friday, or whatever, and they're gonna be like shopping mode, they're gonna evaluate their budget. And they're gonna think, okay, so I'm looking at this amount. And I would love to get these kinds of things. And because you've been providing that kind of value, and that's sort of a sales pitch that actually builds trust in confidence and positions you as an expert, instead of like forcing them, they're gonna be anxious waiting for you to open the doors on Black Friday. And that's what I've seen with the course creators I have worked with over the past few years, I mean, black Friday's like, goes up. And we're not even being very salesy with those black friday emails as well.

Robert Plank 17:57 I love it. And that is a good place to be right. That's a good position to be in where people want to buy from you. And, and it's, it seems like it's just based on being more strategic and just being more thoughtful about what you're doing. Like, I love the your can your language, and it's causing all sorts of imaginations that happen with me like this whole idea of, well, you're communicating that with them. And it's about increasing their belief and making them think that this outcome is possible, and then breaking down the problem into smaller pieces and saying, Well, they have this objection, and maybe they need a new perspective on it or explain why this problem doesn't really matter. We can go around the objection. It's a lot of fun to think things through. And it's tempting to see your competitors and just copy that top layer, right? And see, will they give this discount this coupon. And there's like the book, The 26, Immutable Laws of marketing that said, like, discounting is a drug, right? Where you can give you a boost right now, like you can drink a cup of coffee right now. But if you drink 10 cups of coffee a day, then it won't work as well. And so the little black friday discount, that's great if it's part of the larger marketing plan that you're describing. But if you're just relying on that, then that eventually it'll start working, it won't work as well. And you'll be left scratching your head wondering why that is. And so, you know, we're on a podcast here. And stories are fun for podcasting, and you're a copywriter. And you know that problems are exciting because we need to know how it ends. So in these last few minutes here, do you have a fun problem story to share with us? Was there a time when working with these clients figuring out this copywriting? Were you ever really stressed stuck not knowing where to go further? What do you have as far as a scary story for us?

Monica Badiu 19:44 The scariest possible so a lot of the clients I work with, they come with assumptions about their audience. But you don't really know what your audience thinks about you, your brand the industry until you actually ask them So we ran the survey and the results came back. And they had pretty low sales. And they assumed that the sales were low because the audience they had was not technically savvy. It's like they were teaching people how to do social media. And they thought that people weren't buying because they didn't know how to use Facebook or their phone to actually post on social media. The results said something differently. And like, for the first time, I was very scared, like, how are we going to shift this around, because 80% of the results said that they don't trust the brand. They think their approach is scammy spammy, they think the brand is too pushy. They basically had a very negative image of the brand and their approach to teaching social media. So then I took those results, and I was looking at their sales pages and their emails, and I was trying to figure out, okay, what are they doing right now? That's creating this negative image? And how can we shift it. And we were able to shift it over like two months or so it started to go very, very differently in like a positive way, just because we were tackling the objections head on, I was actually writing emails. So here's why people think we're not trustworthy. Or here's why you might be doubting what we're teaching. It's not it's not because you don't know how to use Facebook at this time, or whatever. So I was tackling all those though all those objections and negative perceptions head on. And that was very difficult to do very scary.

Robert Plank 21:47 But you made it work, because you have all this marketing knowledge. And you can be this outsider looking in. And I assume that maybe these companies, they're, they're wondering why people aren't buying, right. And they have these assumptions, and they're trying to make it work. And they need someone like you to jump in and say, hey, well, I know that you think that it's objection A, but it's really objections, D and E. And it's hard to sometimes see it, because you have that blindness that that because you're just so close to your own company and your brand. And you've been doing things the same way for so long. Sometimes it helps to get this fresh perspective. And so how do we get your help? If some company out there says, Well, hey, I really was excited and interested by some of these ideas that Monica had about what's possible about how things can be done in a different way. So how does someone know if they're a right fit for what you provide? And if they are? What's the next step call to action? Where did they go?

Monica Badiu 22:45 Well, thank you for that, Robert, Robert. So there are two ways you can work with me. It's done for you where I write your stuff. And I do the whole strategy. Those spots are super unlimited. It's like one spot per quarter available. The other one is coaching and consulting. And it's basically you're going to book me for a day, and we're going to work on a specific aspect of your email, promo, or sales page together. To qualify for working with me, there are a few few factors like you have to have a specific email audience, you have to have Market Fit product market fit, you need to know your audience. If you don't know your audience, go back, figure it out, and then come back. Ideally, you are an established course creator, business info, product coach or consultant. And you're like, I love my audience, and I want to be able to help them more. But I'm kind of terrified with email marketing. Can you help?

Robert Plank 23:54 Okay, so then you're the person for email marketing to be that bridge between where they are now we're like, they know their audience. They love their audience, but they just say like, I'm not really getting through to them. They can use your help to figure out the messaging and the blind spots and the strategy and all those sorts of fun things. And so what's the website? If someone says, Okay, well, I'm on the right track here, but I wanted to talk with Monica and see if we can do the done for you if there was a slot this quarter, or the the meetings and the strategy and the full day. So what's the website for this?

Monica Badiu 24:26 So my website is my name, Monica by do that come be a de IU that calm, and you'll find there a tab that says, work with Monica. If not, you can find me on LinkedIn. And you can just ask away actually, I would love to connect with you guys on LinkedIn. And if you have questions about marketing, feel free to leave a comment under this podcast episode or just message me and I'll happily answer.

Robert Plank 24:55 Fantastic and as you know, Monica so few people actually take action right? It's are always in a super small percentage point. So if this is you that Monica is describing, if you say, you know, I really need this, and maybe I've been hemming and hawing for all these past few months, I know that things need to be better than contact Monica go to her website. That's Monica be a de iu.com. Or even better start that message on LinkedIn. Monica, B, A, D, IU. And when it's there's always like this, this time wasting aspect of like, opening your phone going on all these social media platforms. Why not use social media to build your business? send that message to Monica right now? Don't even think about it just for the moment say, Hey, Monica, I heard you on Robert planks marketer of the day podcast, and then that will at least get your conversation going and want to come I asked you about your problems, and your website and your product and your concerns and all those cool things. Because Monica eats breathes and sleeps this marketing stuff. She She's went back to school for it. That's how obsessed she is with it. And she wants to be obsessed and help your business to get to where it needs to go to fulfill your potential. And so as people are adding you on LinkedIn, Monica, bad to you and going to your website, since we're winding down our conversation, it's always fun to end on a quick soundbite. So is there a quote or lesson that has really helped you or you think might help us is anything jumped out in your mind as far as a quote or less in sound bites to end our conversation?

Monica Badiu 26:27 Hmm, I actually have something written here. Oh. So great. Greet salesmen and Persuaders are great observers of context. And that's like, a code from Daniel Pink. And he talks about persuasion and influence and how to sell without like actually selling. And that goes back into the idea that if you want someone to trust you, you need to demonstrate that you are very aware and knowledgeable about where they are right now. The problems they have the opportunities they have the obstacles they face. Talk about that, and that makes your emails so irrelevant, they won't, your audience won't be able to resist them.

Robert Plank 27:19 Problems, opportunities and obstacles I love. So you're saying Be observant, so that way we can be trustworthy. And it seems so simple the way you put it. And it can be simple as long as we can think things these things through in this new way. And we can do that by going to Monica batty u.com and also add Monica on LinkedIn. And so it's been wonderful speaking with you Monica just getting back to all these these fun ideas about email marketing and copywriting. It can be fun if we let it be Cantus Yep. All right. So we'll see you Monica value on the website and on LinkedIn. So thank you very much for stopping by. Thank

Monica Badiu 27:55 you, Robert. This was an amazing step up talk for me. It goes both ways.