EP 482 | How to Write Emails People Actually Want to Read featuring Liz Wilcox
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The $80,000 Email Template
Get access to the email (and a fill-in-the-blank template) that was directly responsible for selling over $80,000 worth of courses, memberships, and digital products in 2025.
Email doesn’t have to feel like a blank Google Doc staring into your soul.
In this episode, Allison chats with Liz Wilcox, the Fresh Princess of Email Marketing, about how to write emails that actually get opened, read, replied to, and yes, even clicked on.
Liz breaks down why your emails don’t need to be overproduced or packed with “value” to work, and why the best email content often starts with real-life moments, simple conversations, and a little personality. Because the goal isn’t just to close a sale, it’s to open a conversation.
TAKEAWAYS:
Your emails don’t need to be complicated to be effective. Liz shares how showing you’re invested, becoming relatable, and staying top of mind can help your subscribers actually care about what you send.
The “Email Staircase” framework helps you move people from follower, to friend, to customer by building trust through personality, vision, and values.
Being relatable doesn’t mean everyone has to love the exact same things you do. When you share specific pieces of your personality, your audience can connect with the feeling behind them.
Replies are not a distraction from your business, they can be a money-making activity. Conversations in the inbox give you real market research, better sales copy, and clearer insight into what your audience actually needs.
If your subscribers stay “friends” but never become customers, you may not be selling enough. Liz gives a refreshing reframe on selling more often without making it weird.
Resources:
Get access to the singular email (and a fill-in-the-blank template) that was directly responsible for selling over $80,000 worth of courses, memberships, and digital products in 2025 by clicking here.
Snag Liz's Welcome Sequence Templates
Visit Liz on her website
CONNECT WITH ALLISON:
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Artist: : Benjamin Tissot
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Transcript:
Hey, Liz. Welcome to the podcast. I'm so excited to have you."
Oh my gosh, finally. I'm here. I've made it. I'm so excited. I am wondering if you can just share more about you, your business. Paint the picture for our listeners and tell us more about everything you have going on.
Yeah. What up? I'm Liz Wilcox, and you know that feeling you get when you listen to an amazing podcast- Like Allison's, and you hear her and her guest talking about email marketing, and you're like, "Oh my gosh, I gotta send an email. I'm wasting so much time." And you log into Kit or ActiveCampaign or something like that, and then you promptly feel kind of like, "Oh my gosh, what was I thinking? I have no idea what to say to these people." Well, that's my business. I teach email, but mainly email content, what the heck to say to people to not only get them to buy, but to get them to actually care about your emails, to get them to care, to get them to reply, click, and yes, of course, purchase. I think that's one of the things that really holds... I mean, obviously, you've built an entire business around this, so this is validated. But I think email is one of the most, or just content in general, is one of the most overthought things when it comes to business. Mm-hmm. I am constantly hearing people say, "I don't know what to post," or, "I don't know what to write," or, "I don't know what to say." And I think a lot of times it's because we're all caught up in our heads, and we overthink most things. Amen. But y'all, let me, let me tell you, email and content in general, like Allison said, actually can be really, really simple. I'm pulling up my Facebook group right now because somebody said, "I've... I'm doing like a 90-day challenge," and we're in the content part of the challenge, like how to nurture your subscribers. And, you know, this person said, "You know, I've, I've just been reinvigorated with this challenge because, you know, people are seeming to respond less to my content, the, the value emails that I try to create, and more to just conversation, me just trying to have a conversation, in the inbox." And that's what I teach, that's what gets me and a lot of my students replies. And I always say, you know, it's Mike Kim, he's a copywriter, he says it best. He says, "It's not about closing a sale, it's about opening a conversation." And that's all that I try to do when it comes to content. And how I get conversation going in the inbox is just three things. Number one, you gotta show you're invested in your people, right? "Hey, I just spent an hour reading this book. I went to this event," or, you know, "I just spent three hours writing this blog post. I just spent an hour hanging out with Allison recording a podcast," right? All those things show that you're invested in your industry and invested in them, right? The second thing is just become relatable, right? Like, oh- Before this podcast, I couldn't get my mic to work. That's relatable. Technology is failing us all the time. My, you know, I had to take my dog for a walk. My daughter, I almost missed the bus because we were in the line for Smoothie King, and they were taking forever, or whatever, right? Like, all those things are crazy relatable. I also do a lot of '90s. I talk about the '90s a lot, the early 2000s, Survivor, Fresh Prince. I, even right now I've got a Seinfeld hat on. I just, I love the '90s, and so that's something that's relatable for a lot of my readers. And then the third thing is just stay top of mind, right? I mean, I know a lot of people say, "Oh, consistency, consistency, consistency," and people often think frequency, frequency, frequency, but really it's, it's just staying top of mind, you know. What do you need for your readers to keep you top of mind? Some people, it, that might be once a month. Others, it might be every few days you've gotta email them, right? So again, those three things as far as content goes for me and what I teach are showing you're invested, becoming relatable, staying top of mind. Yeah, absolutely. I love that you brought up the conversations aspect, because I always tell my clients, "The more conversations you have, the more people you will help," whether it's by them buying something, or you delivering value, or you're like, "Hey, I have this really cool resource." Like, if you can have more conversations, you will have more people, like, in your corner, and that is only helpful to growing your business. I love that so much. Yeah, and I'm looking at another post, and it says, you know, "One thing I'm noticing, Liz, are my best emails tend to come from real-life moments- Yeah that quietly turn into recognition while I'm writing them. That feels more sustainable for me than trying to, quote, 'create content.'" Yes. Love that. What a good mindset shift. And that's so true about emails. We get 1,000,001 emails, and, people, "Oh, I hate email. Well, you hate bad email, babe. Yeah. You don't actually hate email. Yeah. I know Al- we're preaching to the choir on this- ... on th- on this, podcast, but it's so true. There are some people that you just open every single time. It do- you don't even look at the subject line, right? You're looking at the from line, and that's because you're really getting those conversations going in the inbox. Okay, so on these Empire exclusive episodes, we really pull back the curtain and we talk about how you're utilizing email in your business. Obviously, you're nailing this, but you have this framework that I would love to dig into called the email staircase. So can you share with us more about what that is? Listen, y'all, I don't like to do anything complicated. I always say, you know, if it... I'm a two-step chick. If it takes three steps, I'm out. So the email staircase is just a, a few steps here. So number one, you got a follower, right? You've... Somebody listens to you on a podcast, they follow you on Instagram, whatever. You get them on your list. You turn them into a friend, and then once you have a list full of friends, you can have a list full of customers. So follower, friend, customer is the email staircase, and that's because you know your friends. You know what they want. You know what they need. You know how they talk. You know how to get them quick wins, and so of course they're gonna purchase from you. I mean, so simple. So how do you get people to go from a follower to a friend? So we already mentioned showing that you're invested, becoming relatable, staying top of mind, and so what I normally recommend is that once a week cadence. But before that, you've got to have that welcome sequence. That's really what starts the friendship, right? And inside that welcome sequence, you got to just show off a little bit of personality. I mentioned I love the '90s. I like a lot of color, and so, you know, I share that in my emails, and I s- I say something like, "I, I love the '90s," just right from email number one. The second thing is share your vision. What do you see for your future customers? I liken it to, you know, if you were graduating from Liz Wilcox University, my degree, the degree that I'm handing you, is making money with email. I don't care about what your podcast setup is. I don't care if you're using Google Docs or, you know, something else. I only care about you monetizing your email list. That's my vision for you. And then third is your values, and this is not spew your politics everywhere, but it is... You know, there's certain values that drive the way you do business, the clients that you're trying to attract, the students, you want to sign up, right? And so sharing a little bit of personality, vision, and values is really gonna solidify to the reader, yes, I'm in the right place, or, oh, I'm in, I'm in the wrong place. Oh, make money with email? I- I'm just kidding, Liz. I, you know, I just, I just wanted your freebie, you know? I'm not- Mm-hmm ... I'm not super ready to dive all in on email yet, and they'll unsubscribe, and that's totally fine. Yeah. What would you say to somebody who was like, what if people don't res- Like, with your '90s. You love the '90s. What if people were to have something that they, like, love like you do the '90s, and they share that, but they're concerned about sharing that because they're afraid that people aren't going to be in alignment with that? Being relatable is actually super easy because the human brain is constantly trying to relate to others. We are a social animal, right? We live in herds, we live in community. Uh, so as far as the... Let's, let's talk about the '90s, actually. I have a great counter to this. So when you join my membership, I actually make you sign a manifesto that says, you know, "Hey, I'm gonna commit to this process. I'm gonna try this for 90 days." And when you send that over to me, you send me a screenshot that you signed it, I also ask NSYNC or Backstreet Boys. Okay? It has nothing to do with anything, but it's that personality piece, right? And to this question of, well, you know, what if I don't like the '90s? What if I hate boy bands, right? It's so funny because I very rarely get the answer NSYNC or Backstreet Boys. I'm constantly getting who their actual favorite band is. "Oh, Liz, I just love that you love NSYNC, but I'm more of a Guns N' Roses chick." Or, "Oh, Liz, I'm way older than you, you know, I'm into Queen and Led Zeppelin." Or, "Oh, NSYNC was past my time. You know, One Direction for life," right? And so you don't, don't worry about, oh, well, if I get too specific, nobody's gonna relate to that, because they're relating in the way of, oh, Liz likes boy bands, this is the kind of music I like, right? And that is universal, even if, uh... So I've been working a lot with Pat Flynn from Smart Passive Income right now, and he loves Back to the Future. That's his favorite movie. Personally, I haven't seen that in, like, 15 years, but people are always... Um, I've been helping him with his inbox management and his community, and people are always talking about, "Oh, I just love that Pat loves that movie so much. It's, it's so relatable that he geeks out the same way I geek out about Star Wars or comedy, Seinfeld," whatever. So again, we don't have to worry about, oh, I'm, I'm too granular, or this isn't relatable. What if, what if it repels people? Baby, trust me, me saying I love NSYNC, all those Backstreet Boy girlies are still my customers. You better believe they're gonna show up. They're gonna be like, "No, Backstreet Boys are better, and here's why." Period, yes. I love it. As you were chatting through this, um, I was thinking this morning, I don't even know how we got on this topic at the breakfast table, but I was telling my kids that in eighth grade is when, like, No Doubt made their debut on the scene, and I thought, like, Gwen Stefani was, like, the coolest person ever, and I basically did everything I could in my power to be her. And my son was like, "I thought No Doubt was, like, a current band." And I was like, "No." And we pulled up Sunday Morning, 'cause that's my favorite song by No Doubt, and I played it, and he was like, "This is Gwen Stefani?" And he just, like, had this moment of like, "What is going on right now?" And I was like, "Yeah." And I was just talking about, like, how she was, like, such a trailblazer to me. So it's funny that you bring up, like, Backstreet Boys and NSYNC, because I think we all have these things that we have consumed, whether it's food, culture things, bands, you know, style, that we love and that we just, like, could talk about for days and days and days that are outside of our businesses. But if we can talk about those things, help people to feel that relationship and develop that stronger relationship with you. Absolutely. And I just love these little things, right? I mentioned sharing your personality, and people, "Oh, well, I don't... I'm not like Liz. I- I'm not an extrovert." It's like, well, you don't... You're a person, so you have a personality, right? Yeah. And if you're struggling, go with those pop culture things or those, crazy relatable, like, what do you drink every morning? Right now I'm drinking a smoothie. Yeah. I used to be obsessed with Mountain Dew, and, you know, people would be constantly emailing me, "Liz, stop drinking that. You're killing yourself. You know that's illegal everywhere but North America." You know? And it... But it was just those, those conversation pieces, those conversation starters. And that's what I love about email so much. You can take it in so many directions and always come back full circle to how you can help your people. Yeah. Okay, so we have followers, we have friends, and then we have customers. So how do people move from the friend category to the customer category? Right. So now that you've got a list full of friends, you're getting replies by asking thi- this or that questions. NSYNC or Backstreet Boys, mountains or beach, right? This or that questions. You can open up a lot of conversations, and you can get to know your subscribers the same way, you know, "No Doubt, that's Gwen Stefani?" You know, that opened up a whole conversation between Allison and her son, right? And so doing that will allow you to understand who your subscriber is. For example, my first question that I ask every subscriber is, "Do you write a weekly newsletter?" Mm. And even this morning, somebody said, "No, but I really want to." I said, "Oh, you're in the best place." And then I was able to Convert them right away. I said, "Hey, if you, you know, no pressure, I know we just met, but if you're, if you've already started to grow your email list and, you wanna start writing right away, I actually have a $9 a month membership where I write these weekly templates for you. Check it out here." And so I was able to pitch them immediately, right? Taking them from that friend zone into the customer zone, because friendship, okay, we've got the friendship, but the customer really solidifies that friendship, right? Because now it's like, okay, we're in this together. This is the vision I have for you, and you decided, yep, that's the same vision I have for myself. And so then I also said, "But you know, if you're not ready for that, if you still feel like you have to build your list, here's a free playlist of, you know, 12 ideas on how to grow your list." So either way, I'm continuing that friendship. I'm moving them closer to that purchase because if they come back, "Oh, I watched those. Gr- I'm gonna start growing my list," I can say, "Oh, well, you know, I have a $12 workshop on growing your list. If you want to, you know, learn how to create a freebie to, you know, plan out and implement those ideas I just gave you, you know, here's that workshop," right? Mm-hmm. So really, it's just about opening those conversations, and at the right moment, selling. Yeah. So when you're opening these conversations, it's like an actual reply to an email. I'm always interested in, like, the tangible, like, nitty gritties. Yes. Yeah. I love replies, and y'all might be thinking, "Oh, I got 1,000,001 things to do." Okay, well, how much money do you make? Do you- Right ... are you already making the amount of money that you want and desire? Then you don't need replies, I guess. Mm-hmm. I need replies. I need more members. And so for me, getting those actual replies and responding in the inbox, that is a money-making activity. That is not something I have to do. That is something I get to do. That is something I get to do to get to know my subscribers so that I can write better emails, so that I can have better launches because I know what they're talking about. For example, four or five years ago when I launched my membership, AI writing wasn't really a thing. Now it is, so I'm getting these replies or getting emails saying, "Hey, Liz, you know, how does this work with AI?" Or, "What makes this better than, AI?" Or, "Can't I just use AI? Why do I need your brain?" Right? And so I'm able to put that on the sales page, answer those in emails, answer them one on one, through those replies. And so I, I wouldn't be able to do that if I had that avenue of, you know, one to many, sending one email to many people and turning it into one-on-one. Yeah. I mean, it's not only obviously a sales tool, but it's also amazing market research, because like what you said, you can then take these questions, put them onto the sales page, incorporate them into the marketing of your membership, and it's giving people everything they need, so they're only contacting you when they actually wanna have a conversation. Okay, so we had followers, we have friends, we have customers. What happens if your friends stay friends and they don't buy? Well, I would ask why is that happening first. Yeah. Probably because you're not selling enough. I see, I don't know, maybe we can call this a fatal flaw, right, of a lot of email marketers. We're afraid to sell. And I, I started this experiment I think in 2022, where I was like, "I wonder how many emails I could get away with selling in a row." And I started selling in every single email, whether that was a, "Hey, PS, I just gave you some list-building tips. Here's my $12 workshop." Mm-hmm. Or it was, "Hey, here's Allison's thing. I think, you know, if you're ready to take your emails to the next level, you're gonna wanna work with her," or it was an actual launch of a product that I had. And so again, I've been doing that since 2022, and at, at this point, not every single email is a sales email, but almost every email is. And whether, again, whether it's just like that PS or it's something bigger, I'm always trying to move people out of the friend zone, 'cause I wanna solidify our friendship. Like I said, the welcome sequence starts the friendship, then we move into the friendship. You know, we cultivate that friendship with newsletters, and then those sales emails really solidify the friendship. Hey, we... Let's get on this bus. Let's drive to our destination. I have this vision. You have this vision. Let me help you with it. Yeah, and so you keep sending these emails with the intention of selling them into your membership, and then if someone decides for themselves, "Hey, this is actually not for me," they can unsubscribe. That's kind of how you're thinking about this? Yeah. Yeah. This is the class you enrolled in. Mm-hmm. If you wanna drop out, that, you're more than welcome. And a lot of people come back. They say, "Oh, you know, oh, I didn't realize th- that it was gonna be this much work," or, "I've got this much work over here," or, you know, "I just got pregnant and I'm having a baby." Or, you know, there's so many reasons for people to unsubscribe, and it's likely nothing to do with you, and everything w- to do with their decision to take action or not. Yeah. I love that mindset because I think a lot of folks get, at least I hear this a lot, they get really wrapped up in the unsubscribes, and the, "Oh my gosh," like, "Why are they unsubscribing?" It's usually not a you thing. They're not in the right spot, they're not the right lead, they're not ready for it. But it's, it's usually a them thing. Amen. I mean, you know, we talked about sharing your personality, the vision, and the values. Do that in your, in your emails, right? Just show up as you. Try to make friends in the inbox. And if those people are not ready for that, you showed up as best as you could. Yeah. And so it's a good thing that they dropped off, because nobody wants to have lunch with somebody that they don't like. Not at all. That was, I think, a perfect way to end your episode. So I know that our friends who are listening are going to want to find more about you, so where should they go to find more online? Of course, I'm an email marketer, my friends. I would love for you to join my email list. You can go directly to lizwilcox.com. In the top right-hand corner, there's a hot pink button. It's gonna give you a welcome sequence. Remember, we talked all about that, personality, vision, values. If you can't figure out how to conceptualize this, you're gonna wanna grab that. It's already templatized, written for you. You also get three newsletter examples direct from my membership, so you can see what I mean when I say, you know, stay top of mind, show you're invested, be relatable. And if that's not enough, I know writing from scratch totally sucks, 52 subject lines for a year full of prompts, lizwilcox.com, hot pink button. Amazing. And listeners, we will put the link to that in the show notes. Liz, thank you so much for being here. I'm so excited to have you as a guest, and I appreciate your time and you sharing your knowledge with us today. Yeah, I can't wait to see what everybody does with email. Thanks so much.
