Are you struggling with writing emails to teachers on your email list? No, this isn’t an article on how to write an email to your child’s teacher. Instead, I’m going to share the secrets behind how I grow my teacher email lists by the thousands each month and keep them coming back for more. I’ll also show you how to write an email to a teacher example. These methods for writing emails to teachers are vital to growing your business and making it sustainable. And that’s what we really want, right?!
I love this quote in The Infinite Game, a book by Simon Sinek: “When we lead with a finite mindset in an infinite game, it leads to all kinds of problems, the most common of which includes the decline of trust, cooperation, and innovation. Leading with an infinite mindset in an infinite game, in contrast, really does move us in a better direction.” I am always reading (okay, listening to) books to help grow my business and mindset, and I highly recommend this one! It will help you in your mindset of writing to your teacher email list.
What kind of game are you playing? I feel like we, as teachers, have been conditioned to have a finite mindset. We start a school year on Day 0, and we end on 180. The circle is complete, and we look forward to a new year. So many things in our lives have a clear starting point and a clear ending. Like games we play with our children, sports, and so much more. What if we thought about our CEO Teacher game as something bigger? Think about the ocean; does it have a distinct beginning or end? What about space?
Although we love things that have a clear beginning and a clear end, the beauty in life is that we shouldn’t approach everything that way. We have to stop thinking that selling online begins today and ends next year. This business isn’t going away unless you say, “I quit.” In The Infinite Game, Simon Senek shifts our mindset from “I” to “we” and from short-term to long-term. We no longer worry about making the most money right now, and we focus on serving our communities and playing the long game. This is the mindset I want you to have when writing emails to teachers on your list.
Take a minute to read this and let me know if you resonate with it: You know that email list building is something you should be doing, so you grudgingly write one email a month that shares about your latest resources or a TpT sale. Maybe you give away free resources every Monday? Do you do a free training email series on sight words? Me too, girl, me too. I’ve written those emails to teachers and, let me just tell you; I heard crickets.
I heard all these gurus tell me I needed to build my teacher email list, so I started gathering them any and everywhere I could. Side note: email lists don’t grow overnight, and the biggest and best way we grow our list is through organic traffic to our blog. In the last 90 days, 56.6% of our blog traffic has been organic using the 2021 blogging keyword strategy we teach inside The CEO Teacher School. Using that traffic, we constantly push to join our email list, and from there have developed a year-long nurture sequence that we share with our friends and followers. If you want to see it in action, click here to take our CEO Teacher® Type Quiz!
Now, writing emails to teachers that way may sound overwhelming, and let me tell you, it is. I didn’t start there. I’m in year eight of my business, and we’ve just now mastered how to write emails to teachers. The good news? It is simpler than you might think. Ready to take my methods and use them in your teacher emails?
Writing just isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. For some, it doesn’t just come easy to you. For me, it’s one of my strengths and something I really enjoy. But it’s still work. I still have to find time in my day to sit down and get my thoughts to paper. I’ve found my own style, or groove, this past year, and I’m proud of that. I’m a mom to almost 5, and although I have an office uptown where I work, the writing bug spirit doesn't just hit me when I have “You need to write an email or blog or podcast episode” on my to-do list. I used to get so behind on my writing where I was writing podcast episodes the day before they were to air. Although flying by the seat of my pants used to be my style, I like to be much more strategic in ways that I’m writing emails to teachers or podcasts for teachers or blog posts for teachers these days.
Here’s how I found my groove for writing to my teacher email lists. You may not love it, but as a boy mom, it works for me. I wake up at 5 am and write one to two pieces of content each day. What I find the most amazing part of this entire process is that my mind is so fresh with ideas at 5 am that I’m the best writer I can be.
So, find your groove and give yourself space to write. Maybe you do best at a coffee shop after school, during your lunch period, in the wee hours of the night. Whatever it is, it is distinctly dependent on you and your personality. Try out a few different approaches before finding one that works for you. And then, once you find your style, get to writing emails to teachers!
Why haven’t you started your teacher email list and been consistent with your emails yet? It’s because you’ve turned this into a hostage situation where email is the hostage, and you negotiate your way out of it week after week. Email should always be a non-negotiable in your business. Meaning, if you do nothing else (no social media, no Pinterest, etc.), do email. According to Nethunt CRM for Gmail in 2021, “Emails generate better results than most marketing channels. Among marketing channels, email marketing yields the highest return on investment (ROI) for the past ten years. It also has the highest conversion rate (66%) for purchases made in response to promotional messages.”
You can’t even put a number or percentage on a lot of other marketing channels because you just can’t track the metrics. As a data-driven girl, I can assure you that writing emails to teachers on your list is the only way. What if you could create a TpT product and tell yourself how many of them you would sell when you first launched it? Wouldn’t that help you sleep better at night? Well, the only way to begin knowing your numbers is to learn how to write emails to teachers and get started today.
Teachers are natural storytellers. We live for a good story. Your emails shouldn’t be the latest and greatest sales online or how amazing you are. They should connect and tell a story. One of my favorite business books of all time is Donald Miller’s Building a StoryBrand. Here’s a quote from his book that I love:
”When we empathize with our customers’ dilemma, we create a bond of trust. People trust those who understand them, and they trust brands that understand them too.”
If you’ve written emails in your past, have you shown empathy? Go back and reread them. Are you just pitching a sale? I’m on hundreds of email lists from my favorite gurus online. I open and read about 5-10 emails each day and print out my favorites. Truth bomb – I’ve never printed out a teacher's emails for my swipe file notebook. A swipe file notebook is a collection of emails written by other people that spark joy or interest. I print out emails that intrigue me, highlight the parts I love, and think, “How could I use this strategy to better serve or tell a story to my audience.” Teacher emails don’t light me up inside. Most are lacking our final two strategies on how to write emails to teachers.
Nobody said writing emails to teachers was going to be easy. It takes work and dedication, and that starts with giving massive value with actionable tips. I’m not sure if you’ve realized it, but most of my content (podcasts, blogs, emails) will give you the 1, 2, 3 punch. We will give massive secrets but always with an action plan. I hate nothing more than reading an email that gives me a lot of fluff without any substance. I want things I can take action on immediately that will help me in a specific area. Remember, you’re a teacher. Use your gift of teaching to guide you as you learn how to write emails to teachers. No, this isn’t a lesson plan, but I like to think of the email structure as something you can easily replicate like one.
This is the number one thing I see teachers doing in their emails. Your emails to teachers are not billboards for your TpT store. If you’re using it as such and not seeing the value of your email list, it’s because you’re doing it all wrong. Your email list should be the most prized possession in your business, and learning how to write emails to your teacher BFFs should be your top priority.
That includes: stop nagging them for money. I cringe when I see teacher email subject lines that say “TpT Sale 20% off” or “New Resource Released.” Ain’t nothing moving to my trashcan faster in my inbox than someone trying to get me to buy their thing just like everyone else. On the last TpT Sale, every seller I follow sent that email. That means 10-15 people in my inbox had a similar subject line, all notifying me there’s a sale, including TpT themselves. So what makes that person unique? What makes me want to buy from them instead of you?
The only reason I would choose one of those emails to open instead of the others would be if someone got to know me first. Think of yourself as a speed dater, and you’re dating ten people all at once and waiting for someone to ask you to prom. You get ten emails that all have the same subject line, “Will you go to prom with me?”
Which one do you open and say yes to? The person with who you connect. You say yes to the person who could connect with you on a human level and get to know you, and you’ll forget the rest. It’s the same with your emails. Learning how to write emails to teachers begins with the ending of your sales talk and the beginning of a beautiful relationship.
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Did you know that as CEO Teachers, each of us has our own personalities and ways of doing things? Think about you and your teacher bestie down the hall – do your classrooms look the same? How about your lesson plans? Or even how you teach? We all have incredible strengths and some weaknesses too.
What if you could get a personalized path to success as a CEO Teacher that uses your strengths? Take this fun quiz to find out your CEO Teacher® Type, and I’ll send you a detailed report on the best practices and ways to find your groove as a CEO Teacher. It will help you when you’re writing emails to teachers on your list and so much more. Click here to take the quiz, and then find your groove, now that you’ve learned how to write emails to teachers!
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Thank you for this Kayse. I am planning my own strategy for my emails. I really don’t want to be sales-y at all because I know that puts me off in an email.
I have just started my list (at 20 subscribers so far ) I am excited to implement some of your ideas and nurture that list ❤️