Today, I’m going to dive into the five emails that will sell out a farm’s Black Friday weekend.
I’m really excited for this. Like I’m giving you some very tangible, specific things to do in last
week’s episode and today’s episode so you can make money. And when I published my Black Friday
episodes last year, I’ve updated them a little bit for this year. I had several farmers write me
and say, just listening to your podcast and doing what you taught me. We made money.
One farm sold like $1,500 gift cards because they had no product to sell.
So they tried that instead with this Black Friday marketing launch and made money they didn’t
expect to make. And you can do the same. So I do hope you will please. Give it a try.
So last week in the episode, I asked you to pick one thing to sell. Because remember, the power of
one, we’ve got to just sell one thing and figure out the one person you’re selling it to. So if you
missed that, here’s the short version. Choose a product you want to sell in a Black Friday promo.
Give it a name that appeals to your dream customer. Decide what your deadline is.
I recommended Monday, Cyber Monday after Thanksgiving weekend. And have in mind one real customer
that you just love and wish all your other customers were like them. All right.
Now, today we’re going to write. And I’m going to start somewhere that might surprise you because
before I give you the five emails, I have to show you the one mistake that will make your emails
fail. And it’s so common. I caught it on a recent coaching call. A flower farmer brought her Black
Friday email in to me for review and it was lovely. Sounded so nice.
It was very well written. There wasn’t anything wrong with it, grammatically speaking or English
class speaking. But I knew instantly reading it that it would not sell a single thing.
All right. So let me give you an idea of what she wrote. Here’s her original. It said, Dear flower
friend, when was the last time you did something just for you? I know between work deadlines,
family schedules, and that never-ending to-do list, it feels like me time always ends up at the
bottom of the list. Now, that sounds really nice, right? It’s very kind.
It’s true. There’s nothing wrong with the writing, but it won’t sell a thing because it’s not
interesting. It talks about vague things like deadlines or schedules.
It doesn’t compel them to want to buy anything. The reader’s brain will just gloss over it all and
delete it. Here’s what we changed it to. Something like this.
I know you’re chairing the garden club picnic and it’s your week to take snacks to soccer practice
and your bathroom hasn’t been cleaned in a month. I get it. Me time is always at the bottom of the
list. At least that’s how it was for me. Do you hear the difference?
Listen to those two different versions again. Work deadlines in the first email is very general
versus the garden club picnic specific or family schedules.
Again, very general versus it’s your week for soccer snacks. Same with the never ending to-do list
versus a bathroom that hasn’t been cleaned in a month. The first one is so general,
they can’t picture anything. So what happens is they just tune out and will delete the email and
won’t be compelled to buy a thing. The second one puts a very clear picture in her head.
She can visualize the scene instead of trying to find time or trying to find the time to find the
right snacks to take to soccer practice. She feels all this. She feels connected to you. It’s like,
oh my gosh, this woman gets how busy I am. So when people feel seen,
they buy from you. That is what I teach. I teach very simple writing so that your customers feel
seen and then they want to buy from you. I love these rewrites we do in our coaching calls and I do
one almost every week. Everyone on the call can feel the difference in how connected they feel to
the email and how compelled they feel to take action and do something and buy something when we use
our ideal customer specific language. It is crucial, especially today when everyone’s putting out
such generic content that they think sounds good. It’s often written by AI or they say,
oh, I just ran it through AI to make what I wrote better. doesn’t.
It makes it far worse. You’ve got to know this. So why does the first version this farmer wrote
happen? Why do we write in such a general way? As usual, it starts with your mindset.
Every result you have in your life is due to what you’re thinking. So if you’re thinking a thought
when you sat down to write, it’s often with farmers something like, How do I reach everyone?
How do I write this so that I don’t leave anyone out? I’ve got older customers. I’ve got younger
customers. I’ve got men. I’ve got women. I’ve got you pick people. I’ve got farmer’s market people.
I’ve got people to buy half a hog. And then I have people that just buy a pack of bacon. I have to
reach all of them. I can’t leave any of them out. So therefore, if I talk about soccer practice,
it’s not going to reach the grandparents that don’t have kids at home anymore or the women who
never had children. But that thought that you have to attract all the people to make all the sales
is what makes you write in really general ideas. You don’t want to be specific because you’re
afraid it’ll leave someone else out. But we end up writing sentences that are really vague and safe
and don’t offend anybody like come out to the farm, choose what speaks to you,
perfect for your holiday table. quality products, locally grown.
These are all really vague things that will not make someone feel compelled to buy from you.
And I did this when I started years ago. I was scared that if I got too specific, I’d alienate
somebody. So here’s what I learned. And it’s the most important thing in this episode.
Speaking in generalities in your marketing appeals to nobody. And the specific things you talk
about, very specific things are what reach everybody. I know this sounds backwards.
Let me prove it to you. You’re thinking, well, if I mentioned those soccer snacks,
then the 55 year old customer whose kids are grown is going to feel like I’m not talking to her.
She isn’t. She remembers soccer snacks. or she’s got grandkids now,
or she never had kids, but she’s coordinating meals for her 86-year-old father who won’t eat,
or her friend who’s going through cancer treatment. The specific image of being responsible for
feeding people when you can barely feed yourself is not a type of customer. That’s humanity.
Everyone’s going to relate to that. And it’s what big companies have been doing to… with us for
decades with their marketing. I was reading this outdoor gear website recently,
and they didn’t say clothes for those who enjoy the outdoors. Instead,
there was this very specific blurb about being three miles into the back country when the
temperature drops 20 degrees. Now, I’ve never been… miles into the back country.
And yet I totally visualized it. And I thought, I want a jacket that warm for feeding my animals in
January. All right. See how that specific example made me want to buy their products.
So here’s the test you can use. Would you talk like this to your best friend?
Like if your best friend was at your kitchen counter with a cup of tea, would you say, come out to
the farm and choose what speaks to you? Or choose something local,
local products, farm fresh food. She’d look at you like you lost your mind.
What you’d say is something like, oh my gosh, I just got the most incredible Brussels sprouts out
of the garden this morning. Come get some before Saturday. They’re going to fly off the shelf. Or
we just got the most juiciest pork chops back from the butcher.
You’ve got to get out here Saturday and get some before we sell out. Hear that? So if you’re saying
local, farm fresh, regeneratively farmed products,
it’s not going to connect with people. Instead, you’ve got to use this specific voice.
And if you think, well, gee, that just sounds so informal, like a third grader.
Yes, you’re spot on. Simple, specific, clear, direct writing,
whether it’s on your social posts or your website or your emails with no fancy big words. is how
you sell your products. This is what I do day in and day out with my farmers and my farmers and my
program make more money than any other farmers anywhere else out there. There is no program like
this that is helping farmers make money more and faster than this.
And often I will have people, every year at least, I have someone with a bachelor’s degree or a
master’s degree in English or language arts wondering, Why they can’t sell any of their farm
products with their lovely expert emails. And that’s because writing for an English essay and
writing to sell your farm products are two different things. And you got to learn the second one.
So now you might be wondering, well, where in the world do I get that kind of specific detail?
Because if you try to make it up, like if you make up soccer, snacks and none of your customers
ever said that, it won’t connect. People see right through it. Made up, specific, sounds made up
when the reader is reading it. I don’t know how this happens, but they just feel that it’s made up.
They feel like it’s fake. You get these specific examples by collecting them from your actual
customers. This is branding. It is module one. It’s the very first thing we do the very first week
in my program. Without it, your marketing will fail. Period. I know this.
I am very confident saying that because I watch farmer after farmer who’s never joined my program
go out of business. All right. So here’s how you can get those specific examples.
When I was the only one in my farm store, I just…
remembered these examples. I would remember that someone said something to me about something and
I’d go in the house right after the farm store closed and write a marketing email. But I made it
more of a system where I put a notebook at the register in the farm store so that even when my
employees started running the farm store and I was no longer in there, part of their training was
every time a customer made a comment, They wrote it down the second she walked out the door.
Every single customer, they had to write down something the person said. That was as important as
taking the money. So if they wouldn’t skip taking the payment from the customer and in the same
way, they could not skip writing notes about the customer in the notebook.
They had to write down her exact words. All right. So if a woman came in and said,
I left my phone at home and it feels so peaceful.
They wrote it down. Another one said, my husband just got back from a fishing trip.
I needed to escape for an hour. She walked in the farm store. That’s what she said. Like, I’m here.
I need to escape. My husband just got back from a fishing trip. They wrote down those exact words.
Another one said, my son loves coming out to the farm because he gets to pet the kitty.
And you might think, petting the kitty. Why would I write that down? What in the world does that
have to do with marketing? Everything. It’s her specific words. It’s why she comes out to buy from
you. It’s why she pays top dollar for your products when she can get them more conveniently and
cheaper at the store. When other people hear her exact words, they feel compelled to buy from you
too. I call these statements marketing gold. And I mean that, it’s like a goldmine.
And it’s the first thing my clients learn when they come to me for coaching, how to build your
brand. And the crucial part, the part that people get wrong is you’ve got to make sure you’ve got
her exact words, not a summary of what she meant. Like my customer wants relaxation.
All right, that won’t work. but the actual sentence, the words she used. Because when you take that
sentence and you write it out in an email or a story or a reel on social,
something remarkable happens. Even though one woman said it,
20 women reading your email will think, how does she know that about me? I still get texts from
people saying, how do you know this about me? It’s like you’re looking through my window. That is
not magic. That’s branding. There’s actually a system to making people feel like you know
everything about them, like you’re reading their mind. This is what we do with farmers. And they
tell me it feels like magic when their customers start buying. And my farmers are setting sales
records week after week, year after year because of this work combined with the actual marketing
strategy. So if you’ve got someone working in your farm stand or your market booth or at your drop
sites doing deliveries, make it part of their job. When a customer leaves,
write down one thing they said. The ladies in my farm store did this for years.
We have notebooks full of phrases. This is branding. It’s years of marketing material.
Makes marketing so easy when you never have a blank screen when you have to write an email or a
post. What happened too was when you use one woman’s words,
other people don’t just feel seen. They feel like you are serving them specifically,
like you’re there for them. You care about them and you’re helping them. They start treating your
emails like something that makes their life better. And then they want to buy from you and they
want to tell their sister or their friends or their neighbors or make a Facebook post about you.
Kate Gesford was on the podcast recently, and she’s just one of my clients who I love to share.
that she’s living proof of this. She farms in the mountains of Western Wyoming. There are no frost
-free days on record there. Her market runs from the last week of June to the first week of
September. It’s not very much. What is that, like eight or nine weeks? That’s her whole season. And
she’s the only person in that entire valley, six towns, selling vegetables.
When she started, all the other people who had tried it, And lots of longtime farmers said,
you’ll never make it in this valley. We tried. It didn’t work. You’re going to have to drive a
couple hours down the mountain. And that was her experience, her first season before she joined my
program. Last year, or her first year, she would go to the market and she wouldn’t sell very much
at all. She’d load everything back into her truck and go home with 120 bucks in her pocket at the
most. And she realized that was absolutely not worth it. Then she joined my program.
She implemented this branding process. and marketing strategy immediately. And now she sells out in
the first half hour of the market with her highest prices ever. And there’s actually a line before
she opens. People are racing each other to get the cucumbers and the tomatoes and the salad greens.
No other farmer has been able to make this work. Not because their vegetables weren’t any good.
It’s because they didn’t know how to do this. They didn’t know how to connect with the people who
would buy. It’s crazy to hear this. My farmers keep telling me this is magic.
She said she does exactly what I shared earlier. When she sits down to write,
she pictures one of her real customers that she identified in the branding process.
And she imagines she’s writing to that one person. Not to a whole list of a bunch of people.
but to that one woman. And Kate says people walk up to her at market and say,
I feel like you were talking to me in your email this week. And it’s not even the person she was
picturing. And all the farmers in my program who use this branding and marketing strategy tell me
the same thing, that it feels like magic. They send emails and then they make money.
Lots of money, lots more money than they ever imagined possible. I just interviewed another farmer,
Bailey, and she said the same thing. Her episode will air in a few weeks. And she said she and her
husband watch the money come in after they send an email and they look at each other and say,
is this really happening? This seems too easy to be true. You will hear her describe this.
All right. So that’s the whole thing. That’s how you make your Black Friday emails connect with
people so they want to buy from you. And now I want to give you the plan, the five emails,
Thursday through Monday. Those are the days. And you’re going to email every day. And I can hear
you gasp right now, like, what? Every day people will unsubscribe. Well, one might,
a few might. And if someone doesn’t want to be on your list, then you want them to unsubscribe.
It’s fine. I’ll speak to that in a little bit. But here’s the thing you’re not accounting for.
Almost nobody’s going to see all five emails. That weekend, inboxes are a war zone.
Your reader might get two or three emails. The ones who see all five are the people who love you
the most and they are not annoyed. Remember, you’re learning how to write emails they love to read
and make them feel good like you’re helping them. They want to read them. If nobody’s opening.
reading or buying from your emails now, it’s just because you haven’t learned the skill of writing
in this way. And it is a learned skill that you will need to invest money in learning.
I’m, you know, me and my clients, we’re smart, intelligent. focused people.
We didn’t learn it on our own. We had to invest money in learning this. So please don’t say email
marketing doesn’t work. I’m not going to do it. You just haven’t learned. If it’s not working for
you, you haven’t learned the skill of making it work for you. All right. So back to the emails.
Thursday, Thanksgiving day, that’s your teaser email. Fridays, you’re going to announce the sale.
Saturday, you’re going to send them a story. Sunday, last chance.
Monday, closing, closing day. All right. So Thanksgiving day, you’re just going to write a sentence
of gratitude. You know, think of it as a personal love note to your friend,
thinking of them and tell them something’s coming tomorrow and give them one line of a hint.
Like if you’ve been thinking about stocking the freezer for winter, or if you’ve been wondering
what in the world are you going to get your daughter-in-law? So you just kind of tease it. That’s
the whole email. Gratitude and a little tease, planting a seed that connects with them.
That’s all. Your Friday email goes out early. It’s the big one,
maybe six in the morning. Remember, people check their phones before they’re out of bed, a lot of
us. I don’t. I have this habit. I love this habit. My phone stays out in the family room,
plugged in. I never hear it once I go to bed. Until I get up and get my cup of coffee,
I don’t see it. And I created that habit in the past. And I’m so thankful to my past self that did
that. But most people tell me they pick up their phones before they get out of bed. So make sure
your email is in there. And this email should say about four things.
What it is, remember last week you gave it a name. So you’re going to name it. You’re going to say
exactly what’s in it with numbers. and why she should do it now,
why should she buy the thing now, and how to buy it, where to click to buy. All right, just those
four things. And on those reasons to buy now, not later, they have to be true.
Something like, I only have 25 of these, or we won’t process this again until spring,
or prices will go up in the new year, this locks in today’s price, or this is the only time we’re
offering this this year. Last time we’re offering this this year. So just make sure that they’re
real reasons or the reader will feel if they’re fake reasons. And then Saturday’s email can be a
story. And again, these are all my suggestions, my guidelines. It’s not set in stone.
Marketing is a science and an art. So I teach you how to integrate both.
And the art part of it means you’re always testing. So let’s test sending a story.
on Saturday. And in this story, it can be about you or it can be about a customer,
but it can be about you, why you’re doing this. Maybe you want to dive into a little bit about like
November’s hard on the farm. Harvest is over, but the bills keep coming. There’s no income for May
till May. So when you buy from us now, you’re letting me order seeds in December.
or chicks in February instead of waiting till I can afford it. But only write that from a place of
compassion and a mindset of abundance. If you write that from worry or anxiety or fear,
or like I need money, people will feel it and they’ll delete it. They’ll be like, ew, this email
sounds gross. So you’ve got to learn how to write emails and stories like that from a place of
abundance and joy and compassion so they don’t feel icky.
All right? It’s got to come from feeling grounded and present. And people will respond to that.
They’ll want to help you. Most people have no idea the cash flow struggles on a farm in the winter.
All right? Just make sure. And the right mindset is crucial when you write marketing emails.
That’s why the name of this podcast and every one of my programs includes The Profitable Mindset.
You will not build a profitable farm unless… You work on your mindset.
Nothing on a farm works unless your mindset is aligned and positive and productive and useful.
And all of our coaching includes mindset coaching because of that. Okay, and the Saturday email
could also be a customer’s story, like… customer,
maybe you’re telling a story about how a customer changed how her whole family eats and she shared
with you what happened. Or maybe one of your customers said she gave her mother a flower
subscription instead of a generic. gift card and she got called daughter of the year. So again,
make sure it’s a real story from an actual customer. Even if that customer is your sister or your
neighbor, someone close to you, that’s fine. Either way, this is the emotional email that makes
them feel connected to you. And then you put the link to buy at the bottom of the email because
when they feel connected, that’s when they trust you. And that’s when they’re excited to buy from
you. If they don’t feel connected, they won’t trust you. They won’t buy.
If you find you’re sending emails, no one’s clicking the link to buy. It is just a skill you have
not learned yet. That’s the skill I teach. It’s not that your email or email marketing isn’t
working or something’s wrong or you’ve got the wrong people. You’ve got to learn the skill. All
right. Okay. Then the Sunday email is shorter. It’s kind of a 24 hour notice.
Give them a sense of urgency. can be that you have a limited number, but it can also be the urgency
of this is the last time we’re offering this this year or the urgency of your mom doesn’t need
anything, but she’s going to love this. So just know, or if you have an actual number,
like we’ve only got 12 left out of 25. Be sure to get yours before the cart closes tomorrow.
Here’s the link. Order here. Click here to order. All right, that’s your Sunday email.
Monday morning is let them know it closes tonight, 12 hours left to buy, and maybe another quick
story of why they’ll love that they bought this thing. And then I would actually,
I know this is a sixth email, but Monday evening, just send them an email when there’s about three
hours left. Just a couple sentences. Like, thank you for being here with me through this Black
Friday sale. I’ve loved connecting with you. You’ve just got… The cart is closing right now.
The sale is closing. Buy it now. Your mom’s going to love this as a gift or your kids are going to
love having a half a hog in the freezer as their Christmas gift, whatever it might be. And then you
actually have to end your launch at the end of that day, like you said. All right. And this launch,
it might be the first time you tried anything like this. And if you make some sales, wonderful,
celebrate. If you don’t make any sales, that’s just information. This is the first step.
You’re going to learn so much from doing this. Sales are the least important thing about this Black
Friday launch. The most important thing is all you’re going to learn about marketing. And it might
take several tries to get good at it. And one more thing about my client, Kate, since I already
told you about her, she took my class on how to run a five-day launch. I go into a lot more detail
than I can here in the time we have. And she sold out in three days on her chickens.
She never even had to send the last few emails she’d written because she sold, she surprised
herself and sold out at almost 50% more than she charged for her chickens in the past.
Okay. So just make sure you write all the emails. You may not need all of them. It’s a good problem
to have. And again, if you don’t sell a thing, at least you did it. And it just means you got some
skills to learn. All right. I’ve given you all I can here in the time we’ve got today.
You have got to get in my marketing program, The Profitable Farmer. Learn this. Get started paying
yourself and keeping a profit. All right. And as a matter of fact, for the first time ever,
I don’t think I’ve announced this on the podcast yet. We are offering scholarships for the November
class of the Profitable Farmer. You can read about those scholarships at charlottemsmith.com
forward slash scholarship. Read, apply. We’re giving away five scholarships.
So be sure to apply. All the details are there. It’s simple. You just got to write a little bit.
No AI has to be written by you. You’re going to love it. The process is going to be enjoyable for
you, I believe. So anyway, that’s that. But back to, let’s talk about for a second,
the fear of… Because I know some of you have already decided that I can’t send five emails
because people will unsubscribe. So your fear is going to keep you from making money. You’re afraid
you’ll lose some people. But just know on average, my list, which I’ve been emailing for many
years, and my clients list, every farmer in the program, hundreds of farmers every year,
consistently have a fraction of 1% unsubscribe per email.
All right. It might sting at first. That’s okay. Let it sting. It’s like, oh shoot,
they unsubscribe. But think what happens with an unsubscribe. Those people were not going to buy
from you, whether you sent one email or 10 emails. And the longer they’re on the list,
they’re going to cost you money because eventually you have to pay for your email marketing, the
bigger your list gets, and they mess up your statistics. So if someone doesn’t want your email and
unsubscribes, Yay. Celebrate that. You are honing,
fine tuning your list. Now that they’re gone, you can talk just to the people who stayed and want
your product. So you actually want unsubscribes. It’s normal. It’s part of the process.
All right. So here’s your week. Write those five emails. Well, six with that last reminder,
that last chance. Use last week’s homework on the episode, that page with the five questions about
one person. If you didn’t do that, do that first. Takes 10 minutes. Then write the emails to her,
not to your whole list, but to that one person, and then schedule them. And get this scheduled.
You’ve got time now. Get it scheduled by the week before Thanksgiving so you’re not writing emails
with a turkey in the oven, all right? Every email marketing platform lets you schedule it in
advance. Also, be sure to test your own order link. Fill out your own form as if you’re purchasing
it, okay? You know, change the price to a dollar so you can test it. You do not want to find out on
Friday morning, Black Friday, that your link is broken, all right? So do all that, get it set up,
and then just go enjoy Thanksgiving. Now, one last thing. If you’re sitting around feeling like
this is a lot, or you’re going to do it badly. This is a skill. Of course, you’re going to do it
poorly at first. It won’t be amazing. It’s all right. It is not a personality trait. And it’s not
something that you either have or you don’t have. Every farmer you’ve heard on my podcast talk
about selling out finely, making more money than they’ve ever made in their lives was once exactly
where you are too. Staring at a blank email, feeling scared, feeling pushy.
or feeling salesy until they learned to do it. And you’re going to learn it too.
Again, you got five weeks till Black Friday, and this is more than most people give themselves.
So you can do this. All right, let’s recap. Specific beats general every single time.
The specific words come from your actual customers, not made up in your head. Write five emails.
Don’t use AI. Send them Thursday through Monday. with a six Monday evening,
last chance, written to one real customer. All right. I hope you’ll go write your first one today.
Just the Thursday one, that little note of gratitude and the tease. And then bring it to me.
We can actually review these in the Farm Marketing Fix. It’s November 9th. I am rewriting farmers’
emails that day and websites, showing you how to set your website up to make money too.
Go to that link and you could sign up for that class as well. forward slash masterclass.
Save your seat there. That is free. Farm Marketing Fix is free. I go live every day sharing all
kinds of wonderful things about marketing with you. All right, that’s it for today. I hope you
enjoyed these Black Friday episodes last week and this week, and please give it a try.
You cannot fail. The only failure is if you don’t do it. The only way you fail is if you don’t do
these. Otherwise, if you do them, whether you make sales or not, it’s huge. All right. This is
great. Okay. And let me know what happens for you. All right. Thanks. Take care. I’ll see you next
week.