Welcome to Tennis Pro Email Automation Tutorial.

Let’s get one thing straight.  I am a tennis pro, not a marketing pro.

But, as it goes for tennis pros, I do know a lot here that will be of great help to you, if you are not doing this stuff already.

I created a tutorial for you, so you can reference it anytime you, or your staff likes.

This may seem a bit long, but it is VERY EASY.  I just made sure I added a lot of details for the over-achiever.

Let me just start by saying that this stuff is not going away.

Remember that: “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care”

Email automation is a way to achieve this during your busy schedule (You will see an example of tis in the video below.

This turns an “Ordinary” Pro (and believe me, I know a lot of these), into an “Extraordinary” Pro.

What is the difference?  The word “EXTRA” and I am going to show you how to make the extra very easy, yet very effective.

In 2017, I gave a presentation on how to create “Raving Fans” for you and your programs.

The video below is a quick (9-minute) review.

In this tutorial, I will use MailChimp (Because it is FREE), but there are a lot of other choices that may suit your needs too.  We will talk about these later.

Enjoy the tutorial.

So what is the difference?

Well to sum it up (In my mind) since I have dealt with both:

In Traditional Marketing – The relationship starts AFTER the “Sale”

In Digital Marketing – The relationship starts BEFORE the “Sale”

Who would you rather buy from?

1. Someone  who you do not know who has an ulterior motive (The Sale)
2. Someone you trust and is an authority in a particular niche

Which phone are you going to answer?

I am guessing the one who YOU PERSONALLY allowed to be one of your contacts.

In the following video, I explain this a bit more in detail.

Both are good, but online has a much higher and targeted reach and costs a lot less.

Please watch the video.

This may help you understand why digital marketing is so important to learn or at least understand.

This is a quick video to show you the sequence that will happen when you get this stuff down.

It is very effective.

What is a Thumbnail?

Well it is what you see BEFORE the video starts.

It attracts the reader to it and the red arrow invites them to click.

As you can see, I am using a Midtown image with words on it.

Like This:

Just like an email, I made this a clickable link.  Go ahead and click the image to see.

It is a different video than below.

Using the right image can make a big difference in whether they CLICK ON IT OR NOT.

To see the video above, CLICK HERE

Did you click it?  Much more boring to look at, would you agree?  They might even miss it.

I figured that the image I am using might get your interest, ha!

You will want to use this in emails to get someone to CLICK.  They will click images MORE than they will text.

In the video below I will show you how to do it.

Basically:

1. Get a screenshot
2. Get a picture of a play button
3. Make an image by combining the two (I use Keynote/Publisher)
4. Take another screenshot of my new image
5. Paste into an email
6. Attach a link to it (Like I did above)

Check out how in the video:

On a Mac, you can:

1. Take a shot of the whole screen (command/shift/3)
2. Take a shot of an area (cmd/shift/4) and then dragging the cursor to define the area

I do not use a PC, so I took the easy route and am replaying a video where someone shows you how t do it.

Use can use any program you want to make the image after yo have the pieces.

Check it out here:

MailChimp is a very popular email marketing platform.

I am using MailChimp in this tutorial because it is FREE.

Some other ones you may want to check out are:

1. ConvertKit – I might switch to this
2. AWeber
3. Drip
4. Active Campaign

In this video, I go back to my presentation and show you why and how you would use an email marketing platform.

Creating an account is easy (And FREE).

Here is how you do it.

A list is a group of people with the same interests, like in your club, or we can niche it down to a particular class or whatever we want.

You are going to be adding players to this list both manually and automatically and they will be receiving emails AUTOMATICALLY form you at different times (Depending on when they joined).

The cool part is that they can take themselves off the list at any time, so if they don’t like what you are sending them, there will be an “Unsubscribe” opportunity at the bottom of every email.

One important thing about creating lists is that you can have different pros own different lists.

I will show you in the list details how you can decide who the email will come from (In mine to you it says “Coach Mick,” but it can be anyone.

The second important thing to think about is where the emails, when replied to, are going to go.

This way you can put different pros in charge of different lists.

You can see how here:

This format will be used when someone signs up late for a class, or they just want to be on your list.

For example; let’s say at a tournament you get in a discussion with a parent about these drills out of class that we have been talking about, you might just get their email address and let them know to be on the lookout for these drills that you have put together just for this.

They will appreciate this and who knows what their next steps will be.

Here is how to manually add one person at a time:

You will use this format more than you might think, especially when you have kids signing up for class on a form that you club has embedded on your website.

For example from the Midtown form in the previous lesson.

That form will have a lot of info on it.  You just want the basics for your list

MailChimp requires that you download a CSV file format to your list (Most form software does this), but you may just have a simple Excel spreadsheet.

In the following video, I show you how to do all of this.

In this video I show you some examples and then in the following sections, we will create our own form.

The sign-up form is where:

1. You can AUTOMATICALLY collect names and email addresses
2. They will automatically send the recipients to your list
3. They will start to receive your automated emails (While you are doing other things)

Forms can be linked to text or a button, be embedded on a page or appear as a pop-up on any page.

In this video, I walk you through step-by-step on how to create a simple form.

This form is basic, but does the job for sure.

After someone signs up for your list, you want to thank them and even apply a “Call-To-Action” (Tell them what to do next) so you can direct them elsewhere.

Or just leave it as a simple “Thank You”

On this form after you thank them, you can direct them to another page on your site, have them take a survey or send then some cool info.

I keep it simple, but this is where the relationship starts.

After your form is made, MailChimp gives you a URL where you form can be displayed and filled out.

You can actually keep going back-and-fourth, checking out your form as you are creating it.

In the video, I show you how to take the link and attach it to text or a button.

This may be for those who you want to attract to your list.  I say this because in our scenario, when someone signs up for a class, you are going to add them to the automated email sequence.

But other may get on the list fro a button on your web page or a form in the sidebar.

Once they click the text or button, they will get sent to your form and then they can sign up for your list.

You can also embed the form right on your website.

Either in the main area of a page or on the sidebar.  I will show you how in this video.

You would use this when traffic visits your website, or a particular page.

If you had a form on the page that said ” Get a FREE  lesson from someone o our professional staff on the topic of your choice,” They would probably click on it and give you their info.

you would then send them down a sequence based on the topic they chose (I show you how to do this in the “Segmentation” section below.

Or you could just offer the at home drills for anyone, it doesn’t matter, but if you have info on what people are looking for this may help you design the form and the drills so they will be more likely to click.

The forms are very basic, but work fine. If you have a web person, they can make it look more flashy or you can use a service like LeadPages to integrate with your form

I show you LeadPages in the second to the last section titled “What I use.”

MailChimp calls an email a “Campaign”

The two basic campaigns that you will use are:

1. Regular – One-off emails or what others call broadcast emails.  This is basically like you do now.  Send an email to a distribution list. You might do this when you want to get a message out to a particular group (Like our USTA Red Ball Group) about a cool Fun night coming up on a particular date.
2. Automated – Pre written email that can stand the test of time.  This is where you will make all of your sequences.

I run you through these in the video below:

Like we discussed the last lesson, these email are great when you have time stamped content like:

1. Dates
2. Events
3. Recognition

If you were on an automated email list taking about how cool it was that Borg won his 5th Wimbledon Championship last week, well……….

It would be out-dated and probably get a lot of people to hit the unsubscribe button.

Something like this would have been a perfect opportunity for a “Regular” or “Broadcast” email.

In the video, I show you how to do this.

This is what most of us are here to learn.

** NOTE**
One important thing that I did incorrectly was that:

1. I imported my list of TD’s
2. Created my automated email workflow
3. Started the workflow
4. Nobody was receiving emails (I can tell who opened, clicked……..)

When players get added to a list, they will AUTOMATICALLY start getting your emails if the workflow is “ACTIVE.”

If you import a list first, you just have to go up into the upper right corner and:

1. Click ” Edit Workflow Settings”
2. Scroll down to “Add Subscribers To Workflow” (These would be the subscribers I added Before the Email Sequence was activated.  See the pic below.

It was a mistake I made so I wanted to add it in here. You will see it when you get this far.

In the video you will see step-by-step how to create this.

IMPORTANT – Always add yourself to all of your lists

I say this because you want to test things BEFORE you send them out.

Most all email service providers allow you send a test to an email address, so you can do it this way, but you want to see what everyone else is getting, so add your email to all of your lists.

When you actually get your email, you might cringe like I do sometimes and say, I better change that.

If you have a form, button, or link:

1. Go ahead and click it
2. Fill out the form
3. See if the Thank You page pops up and says what it is supposed to say
4. Go to your email and see if you received the first email in the sequence

I will show you in the video:

The more you can “Niche” the better.

To be only be sending content to those who you know want to hear it is definitely the way to go.

Segmentation helps you do this.

An example might be a fitness member list.

Some are interested in toning, some are interested in building muscle and some are interested in losing weight.

If you know who is who (and they can tell you on a form by clicking boxes) you can AUTOMATICALLY send those members either down the Toning List, the Muscle builders List or the Weight Loss List.

Then they would not be bothered with information that they are not interested in.

BUT……….

You could still include links for the others in an email (If it is relevant) so if they choose to go down that path, they will go on a list.

ConvertKit (One of the other email providers) calls this “Tagging.”

You can tag members with as many tags as you like so when you want to send an email to all members who like socials, doubles and meeting new members, you will send JUST THOSE MEMBERS the broadcast email about the Doubles Round Robin Mixer Where you platy with 5 different players by the end of the night.

In this Section I will show you how to do this with tennis interests.

hhttps://youtu.be/uWTRomRvLtg

In this video I show you how to create a general for, but add in a section for people who are tennis players to tell me what they are interested in.

This will help me send the right emails to the right people so I don’t burden them with email that they have no interest in.

Watch the video below:

Once you have created your groups, you are going to have to (Or you don’t have to) create and automated series based on the group.

maybe your league coordinator can talk about league tennis, your social director can talk about socials and you junior and adult program directors can talk about their areas and send out a sequence.

These do not have to be long.  maybe only 5 emails and then you broadcast the rest when things come up.

Or you could:

For the players interested in Leagues, talk about common areas that players will want to know and issues that arise on a regular basis and educate them.

Some of the emails might be titled:

1. Getting Started In our leagues
2. Days and Times of our leagues (Wait Mick, you said NOT to send type of email in an automated sequence).  Yes, I did , but you can just LINK to the page that has this info and just change it on the page.
3. What is NTRP
4. How to self-rate properly
5. Why Players Get Moved Up
6. Why Players Get Moved Down
7. How To Play Teams That Rush and Crush (An Interview With Our Head Pro)
8. How To get On a USTA Team

You see how you can go on forever with great content.  Just make sure it is relevant.

How do you do this?

1. Ask, Ask and Ask
2. Send out a survey to league players
3. Go to an online forum about leagues and see what topics always come up.

If you put out relevant info that you know they want to read, they will read it and this gives you opportunities to promote other things if they are reading your stuff.

Here is how you do it in MailChimp:

In this video, i show you how to check your work.

1. I create a form with checkboxes
2. I sign up on the form and check the two areas of interest
3. Go to my email and see the two emails that were sent to me.

It worked!

Now it is your turn.

MailChimp is pretty simple, but I see they have just started offering free landing page templates.

I have used Weber for years and their forms are very basic too.

But there is a way to integrate awesome looking forms with your basic form.

In this video, I take you through LeadPages.

This company makes a lot of cool looking forms.  You customize the form and then attach it to your basic form in MailChimp or Weber.

So if you want something a bit more flashy, this is a great way to go.

I pay $197/year for LeadPages.  It just lets me add videos, buttons… and it has a lot of templates already made.

The thumbnail is the actual form I used for an event

Check it out here:

I made a quick video showing how you can integrate MailChimp with LeadPages.

This will increase the quality, but do exactly the same thing.

What is basically happening:

1. I build a form or page (I show both examples) in LeadPages
2. I integrate (Tie in) this form with the exact MailChimp for we are using
3. LeadPages does the rest

I did not make a “Thank You” page for this video, but you can use the same MailChimp one or a new LeadPages one.

Check it out:

There is a lot of info here, but it is something that is easy to set up.

The most difficult part is how you want to structure things and how far you want to take it.

1. For example, groups.  Take a bit more set-up, but well with it if you want to be sensitive toward how many emails your members are getting
2. If you want conversions (someone to take action or buy), then HOW you write the email is going to make a difference for sure, but……….
3. More important for now, keeping it simple is the key for starters here.

I have created a PDF that can be used s a resource, so one will not have to go searching through the videos.

Please see the attached PDF below (May or ,ay not have this ready for the workshop, since there will be questions)

If this looks messy, it is because I have not finished it yet, but we will go over during the workshop.

Appear.in

placeit

WirecastGo for youtube

Zoom

I am passionate about tennis and an passionate about relationships (which includes you).

Teaching is the highest form of learning.

I had to teach you how to use MailChimp, but I had never used it myself.  I can honestly say that I have learned a lot (I had couple questions for support too).

So if you want to teach pros at your facility, great.

If you want someone else to do it, this could be me.

How?

I would me more than willing to create a webinar that all of the pros could watch and basically