EP 475 | A Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Email Funnel featuring Kristin Lawton [Empire Exclusive]
Listen to the podcast on:
Snag 1 of the 9
VIP weeks left in 2026
If your email funnel is running but not bringing in consistent sales, VIP Week is where we fix the strategy, write the emails, and get it working.
What if your email funnel didn’t just tell your audience what you do, but actually pulled them into an experience they didn’t want to leave?
In this Empire Exclusive episode, you’re getting a behind-the-scenes look at how Kristin Lawton turned her brand into an interactive, cocktail-inspired journey that gets people clicking (and buying). If your emails feel a little forgettable right now, this conversation will help you to see that your email funnel might not be broken, you just haven’t made it fun enough to engage with.
TAKEAWAYS:
Your brand isn’t just your visuals, it’s every single touchpoint someone experiences, and your marketing should amplify that, not carry the entire weight.
If you want people to buy from your emails, you have to train them to click first, and that means building interaction into your email funnel before ever pitching an offer.
A “choose-your-own-adventure” style email funnel creates engagement by putting your subscriber in the driver’s seat, making your emails feel personal, immersive, and actually fun.
Complex email funnels don’t require complicated tech—but they do require thoughtful mapping, small automations, and intentional tagging to create a customized experience.
When your email funnel showcases your full ecosystem, you create awareness that leads to consistent, “out-of-nowhere” sales (aka the best kind).
Resources:
Take Kristin's What's Your Signature Brand Marketing Style Quiz to see her choose-your-own-adventure email funnel in action!
Follow Kristin on Instagram and send her a DM saying you listened to her interview
If your email funnel is running but not bringing in consistent sales, a VIP Week is where we fix the strategy, write the emails, and get it working. Learn more by clicking here.
As mentioned in the episode, listen to episodes 468 and 469 to learn more about creating a culture of clicking in your email funnel.
CONNECT WITH ALLISON:
Follow Allison on Instagram
DID YOU HAVE AN 'AH-HA MOMENT' WHILE LISTENING TO THIS EPISODE?
If you found value and are ready to take action from listening to this episode, head to Apple Podcasts and help us reach new audiences by giving the podcast a rating and a review.
Music by: www.bensound.com
License code: 8G1GJZZDCLKGU9NR
Artist: : Benjamin Tissot
🤔 Want to work together?
Here’s how to get started!
Join the email marketing membership for coaches and experts, who want to sell their offer on autopilot.
Host a bundle that builds your email list, your visibility, and your sales.
🤷♀️
Know you need email marketing support but not sure what offer fits you, your business, or your budget best? Click the yellow button and fill out a quick form. Allison will be back in your inbox with a few options and suggestions for you.
Transcript:
Hey Kristen, welcome to the podcast. I'm so excited to have you. I'm so glad to be here. So we're gonna be talking about how you're using email marketing in your business, but before we do that. Yeah. Can you share with our listeners more about you, who you are, who you serve, and how you serve them? Yeah, for sure. So, I'm Kristen Law. I'm with the district brand bar.
I help, business owners craft a signature brand. So we're really looking at, what makes them unique, what makes 'em stand out and be memorable, and have their customers coming back for more. And I use a little AI magic with it. My businesses has like a cocktail mixology theme, so I sort of like to create this like immersive experience when people experience my brand.
So for those who are listening who are like, because I think this word is a word that gets like. Yeah. Fuddled in the online space, can you define for us what a brand is? So everybody's on the same page? Yes. I believe, and maybe others think differently, but that a brand is a whole lot more than your look and feel.
It is basically anything that someone experiences about your business. Full stop. So you have your, like, sort of external facing side of your business. That is your brand, everything internal, the admin, the business, the math, the, you know, finance, like that's by back of house. And so then you're using marketing to sort of like get your brand out into the world.
But what they see, what they experience, the, the messaging that they read, the look and feel, the sort of, the way that the experience is the same. Whether you're on LinkedIn or Instagram or on your website or hearing you on a podcast, it all sort of like feels the same. You, you get the sense of that this is the same person, that type of stuff.
All of those elements is your brand. So effective marketing magnifies your brand. Correct. And your brand really should do like 80% of the work. Right. And if you're marketing it in an effective way, that's the case. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Amazing. Thank you for defining that for us. Yeah. So on these Empire exclusive episodes, I'm interviewing my amazing biz friends about their email marketing strategy.
And the reason why I wanted to interview you is 'cause you have this like choose your own adventure email marketing funnel. Mm-hmm. So can you first share with us like what that is? Yeah. So I wanted to create something that felt very interactive and fun because my brand is fun and joyful and with the cocktail theme.
So basically you, it's like you're walking into a physical bar, and you're making choices along the way. So within the email, you're getting to choose how you enter the bar. That sort of like aligns with my quiz. You get to your seat and the bartender me comes over and we walk through creating a specific cocktail.
So you're making choices, you're. Space spirit, for instance, you're choosing whether, you know you're going down sort of like a bourbon route, a gin route, a mezcal route. And with each one, each choice leads to a piece of your brand. So for instance, we'll start with mezcal. 'cause I was just in Oaxaca trying all of the mezcals.
But mezcals very rooted in tradition, right? Like there it's like. Most mezcals, it's like it's passed down from family to family and there's lots of values. So we talk about your brand values. If you choose rum, we're going sort of like high energy look and feel. 'cause like most rum drinks are like tiki and colorful, right?
Bourbon, there's sort of like very specific things that require a bourbon. So we're talking brand positioning and then Jen is like brand voice and sort of what makes you stand out and unique because in Jen they're using so many different botanicals and like not. A single gen is the same. And so we make these choices, then we get into flavors, we get into your cocktail style, your garnishes, and along the way you're sort of like learning more about your brand, how to craft a signature brand, and the end you get a really customized cocktail for yourself.
I love that. So you also have a quiz, so how does the quiz serve as an entry point into this experience? Yeah, so the quiz is what's your signature brand marketing style, and it's based on disc, which is like a personality. Quiz, right? And so we can sort of like from how you enter. So let's say, you enter and you like see the bar seat that you want.
So you're like, go up and you're like not afraid to hover until like someone leaves, right? Like that's really that dominant personality. So you sort of go down, you get. Quiz results based on like, being, that's what I call on the rocks. And so you're on the rocks and so you're learning about your brand style based on that.
If you see your friends at the table and you like high-fi, the bartender on your way over and you're like, give them all hugs and you're so excited. Like you're the shaken, you're the high energy social person. And so we talk about how you can build a brand around that. If you enter in and you're like, I'm gonna hover.
Or I'm gonna wait until my friends show up because like, I don't wanna make a scene, I don't wanna take a table. Like, you know, you're the conscientious person. Like, so there's different ways that you're going in and it's based on the cocktail styles. You're either on the rock shake and stir or neat. And that's sort of how you arrive at your table and you sort of get the quiz results at the same time.
And so then you're entered into this like choose your own adventure email funnel. Yes. I love how you've paired like these specific drinks and the way drinks are made with these different personalities. That's so fun. Okay. So how did you, like, how'd you land on this idea? What, how were you like, this is what I wanna do?
Well, it was something, this is what I, I told you that you would enjoy my answer to this. I heard you say something at some point that was like, you have to train your audience to click on your emails. And that was like the first time I ever realized it and I didn't have like a great. Click through rate, right?
People love my emails, but they're not necessarily like buying. They're not clicking. I have a lot of digital products and a lot of different things that I like, I want people to know about, and I'm like, how in the world can I get them to understand sort of my full ecosystem and train them to start clicking?
And so I sort of came up with an idea. It was in a menu style and then I chatted with some business friends and eventually was like, no, that's not right, and let's build, let's do this. Like more of a choose your own adventure and. It just felt like, it felt very me, very immersive. I wanted people to sort of like, feel like they were part of it.
It all sort of came about, but for the most part it was, I wanted people to click, like learn how to click on my emails, and I wanted them to buy my stuff and I, I didn't think my just traditional welcome series was, was doing the job. Yeah. And I love that you brought that up because I think that.
I think that, and there's a whole bunch of episodes, uh, I think it's 4 68 and 4 69 to talk about this. So it's cool you're bringing this up. Um, if you want people to buy stuff from your emails, there has to be that culture of clicking before the first time you ask someone to click on something should not be when you're asking 'em to buy something because like, what are they like clicking?
They're actually gonna do that. Yeah. So I love that. So thank you for sharing that. That's awesome. Yes. Um, so. What are some, like how did you, how does it actually work? Is it like habit based clicks, automations? Like what are the tools that you're using to make this happen? Yeah, so I use Kit as my email marketing, and so it is a lot of just, I.
Customized clicks, you know, like if this and that type thing. But they, what I started with is I started with like a giant automation and using rules and I quickly learned that was the wrong way to go and I wasted a lot of time. So do not do that. If you're doing this, you want a whole lot of small, little automations and sequences.
'Cause the other thing is that I do have a, a dealer's choice. Email sequence. So if you don't, if you decide not to play along, it's not like the game's over, you still are getting my sort of like my choices for you in the email sequence. And surprisingly, a lot of people, and unfortunately maybe a lot of people choose that, but they don't unsubscribe.
They're still opening and reading and clicking through my other stuff. They're just not playing along, which. Is fine, right? We're not training them to click as much as I would like, but uh, they're still following along. So I had to sort of set it up to where, you know, give them a few chances to play along and then if not, they go into the dealer's choice.
But essentially, and then throughout. I'm using a lot of, like conditional formatting. If I'm promoting, one of my digital products within the series, if they already have it, I'm sort of like reminding them how to use it versus, so you're not, you know, it's, it's still very, like throughout, it's not just about the choices.
Like every email is very customized to you and the tag structure that I have built. Interesting. So I love this if someone has already purchased something mm-hmm. And they're about to enter into that part of the funnel that promotes that they actually don't get, that. They get reminders to use it. Yeah.
So I don't have sort of like offshoots, like if you click this yet, I don't have that yet. It's coming. But like, you know, let's say you've like clicked sort of like an abandoned cart type thing, where maybe it gets paused. And they go through a sequence to, to upsell this. But throughout, you know, I am, the focus is mostly whatever choice they've made and I'm telling them about that choice.
And then there's usually at the bottom sort of like, and if you wanna expand on this, here's this product you can buy. So when in that section, if they already have it, I'm saying, and you already have this, did you know that you can use this thing for that type thing? Oh, very cool. Man, I don't even have that in my email funnel.
Also, probably. That's a really good idea. You're like giving me all kinds of ideas right now. Uh, so just a very teen, like very nitty gritty question. Yeah. How long did this take you to set up? I would say about three months. Yeah. It is just me and my business. And so there's a, and me and you know, chat were worked a lot on it.
I mean, for the most part it was me and a coffee shop, just like really outlining like. What each email is gonna feel like and look like and what is the order and, and mapping it out and trying to, you know, whiteboard out how it's gonna look. And once I sort of had all that down and got through the, the mess of building it wrong first, then I was able to sort of like.
Bill, once I had probably five or six emails, then I launched it and it forced me to keep up with it. With the deadlines, but it is definitely a big project to take on and I'm now actually going back through and revising a lot because I've switched my offers up and I've sort of honed in on the more signature brand stuff, so I'm having to rework a lot of it.
But I try and check in on it also, like. At least once a month reviewing the numbers, seeing what needs tweaking as well. And so it's definitely not something that you wanna, like set it and forget it, especially as your brand evolves. But, once it's there, it's much easier to, to obviously.
Adjust. Yeah. So from start to finish, I'm sure the timeline is a little different, but from depending on how the person is interacting with it, but an estimate and how long is it from start to finish. So they get emails every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, or Monday, Wednesday, Friday at 4:00 PM I did it because it's like, that's when Happy Hours starts here in DC So they can sort of, and it's like.
It's very clear that that's what's happening at the, in the footer. It explains where they are at the top, of each email. It shows them where they are in the process. So I wanted them to like see that this is like a thing that's happening, that they're part of it. And so I would say it's about probably like a month and a half.
Okay. If they're really playing along. Yeah. That's really cool. So at there, you know, your people are squared away for like a month and a half. Yes, but I still, they still get my other emails. I try not to, I don't send, I, I am not one, 'cause I don't wanna like talk. It's, I always find this like hard to figure out, but like, I don't wanna talk about, oh, I sent this email out on like Instagram or something.
Right? Or like, be promoting something and then have, people are like, well I'm on your email list. I didn't get it. And it's like, 'cause I'm in this thing. So what I just try and do is like, I don't send other emails. In the afternoons on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. So it's not a, like, you're only in this and then, you know, but there, there's, so that's why it's very clear that like you're getting these on these, this set time and everything else is not part of it.
It also has a different look and feel. Okay. All right. Because I am on your, I think your general email list, I'm not in this funnel, so I know you would've at some point, gone through it, I feel like. Yes. I definitely took the quiz at some point. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense.
Yeah. Okay. So what are some results you've seen from implementing this in your business? So immediately my, this was very fun to see, but once I. Launched it and brought my full list back through it. 'cause I wanted them to experience it too. Right. And I was very, very clear, you're gonna go through this, you can opt out type thing.
But my click through rates went to 3%. And that was, that's awesome. Amazing. Now it has gone back down a little, which is fine, but like. Now they're not clicking. I don't, you know, not every email I have that sent out is that, but I was like, oh my God, this is working. Yeah. That's exciting. And that makes sense though, that your existing email list would click a little higher because they're really warmed you, right?
Yeah, correct. Oh my gosh. And so, and then what I'm seeing is more consistent random, you know, purchases. Right? So like, I don't get the every day on my phone alerts that someone has bought something the way you do. But it's really exciting when someone has like. Spot something that I'm like not currently promoting, and I realize that's from my email sequence.
It's the best, it's the best. It really, and I think people just sort of have a better sense of my, my brand now and like the ecosystem that I have, because I'll talk to people or, they'll reply to an email and be like, oh, like I, I know you have this, but I'm interested in this. And I'm like, but you only know that I have that because of that sequence, you know?
Yeah. That's really cool that like awareness is there. Yes. Oh my gosh. It's such a cool way to think about. Just different ways of doing email marketing. That's why I love these interviews is because everyone does things a little different, and every single time I do one of these interviews, I'm always like, that's a great idea.
Yeah. You know, I think what it, for me, it's like when you have a brand and when you think about like a, a brick and mortar place, and this is when I, whenever I talk about branding or like I'm working with a client, I'm like, I want you to imagine your brand as a brick and mortar. Now, mine is obviously a bar, but like yours could be a flower shopper, an art gallery or something.
Right. And like. When you have that, you're thinking about every aspect of someone's experience within it. Right? And the emails, the website, the social media, right? Where they're thinking about what do the bathrooms look like, what does it smell like? Like what is the lighting and all of this. And like I think we get stuck in like.
We just have to do the email. We just have to do social. But like if we think about it more as an experience, like you can, you can get more creative, I think. In how you deliver your marketing. And I think that people buy because they feel a connection to you. Obviously, you're an expert in anything that you do.
You wouldn't have started a business if you weren't. But what, having a strong brand and this like choose your own adventure very customized way mm-hmm. Of. Learning about you and how you help them is that it creates that loyalty that like brand loyalty, right? People are like, okay, I understand this. I understand Kristen, I understand what she's about and I understand that this thing could actually help me.
So it's really cool listening to you work through this and most welcome series are about the business owner, like right, and this puts them in the driver's seat. So it's really about them. And I get to like. You know, insert stuff about me and my business and stuff that I sell, but truly it is about them and their brand and they get to decide how they wanna craft their brand cocktail.
Yeah. 'cause people are always asking, what's in this for me? Why should I listen to this person? So when you have a strong brand and you have this customized email funnel set up, it creates like they, that is very well answered for them. Yeah, exactly. Kristen, this was phenomenal. Thank you so much for sharing.
You're about this. You're welcome. I know our listeners are going to learn more about you, so where should we send them? Well, I think, you know, one of the best things to do is to take the quiz. Yeah. Right? So if you take the quiz, you also get funneled right into. You found your seat type thing. So I definitely go to my website, district brand bar.com/quiz. And take the quiz. It's a fun two minute quiz. Obviously it's cocktail based, but it will let you know what your signature brand marketing style is.
And then I would love to connect with you all on Instagram at district brand bar as well. Amazing. So listeners, we will put the link for Kristen's quiz and our Instagram in the show notes. Check them out, send her DM on Instagram. You will love her. She's an amazing human. So Kristen, thank you so much for being here.
I so appreciate you. Thank you for having me. This was fun.
