3 Ways to Unlock Profit Potential in Your Email Marketing: The Dorito Framework

What the heck does a scrumptiously crunchy Dorito chip have to do with profitable email marketing and making your emails irresistible for your subscribers to open?

We want to help you turn your regular email newsletters into a profit-generating powerhouse for your online business! There are 3 game-changing strategies in our “Dorito Framework™” (not actually trademarked, obvs) that will take your email campaigns from ‘meh’ to massive ROI!

Profitable Email Marketing, A 3-Pronged Approach (You Know, Like A Dorito)

Let’s assume you ALREADY know the power of email marketing for your business.

You know that as of 2023, email marketing has an average ROI of 3600%, meaning for every dollar spent on email marketing, you receive $36 in return. Cool cool cool. That’s 👏👏👏👏👏 right there.

Now, maybe you’ve been sending a consistent email newsletter to your audience and you aren’t seeing a 3600% return? You have this suspicion that your email audience is not engaged in the way you know they need to be in order to DRIVE SALES of whatever your offer is.

If that describes you, stick around because our Dorito Framework has the 3 tactics we used to level up our email newsletters, build a deeper connection with our subscribers, and keep our readers coming back for more—just like an irresistible bag of delicious Cool Ranch Doritos. Or Nacho Cheese Doritos. Or BBQ Doritos. You get to choose your favorite Doritos flavor, no judgment from us.

What is the ONE THING you ultimately want from your email marketing?

You want it to translate to sales, right?

If you’re running a calm business, you know it’s not ALL about the money, but your time is precious so if you’re spending time on a marketing tactic, it eventually needs to translate to revenue.

And if you want people to BUY what you’re selling, ultimately these potential customers need to do two things…

1. They need to believe that your offer is a solution to a problem they have
2. They also need to TRUST that YOU are the right business to deliver that solution.

Trust is the name of the game here, especially if you’re running a client business or online course business.

Your customer is making an educated guess about whether to trust you based on every single interaction you’ve had with them from the moment they came into contact with your business.

Which is where your email newsletter comes in.

Email marketing is your IN to building real trust with your audience.

Someone who has given you permission to email them has raised their hand and shown interest. And that interest is stronger than just a quick tap of a follow button or a like.

They’ve essentially gone out on a limb and now this is your chance to reward that gesture of faith by showing them you have what it takes to actually improve their life.

Not JUST by sending them valuable content (aka content that is educational or entertaining or personal or time-saving)—though you should definitely do that. And not JUST by showing up consistently in their inboxes—though consistency is key and you should definitely be doing that too. But by showing them that you actually care about building a relationship with them, thus proving to them that handing over their email wasn’t a wasted effort.

And how do you do that? Doritos!

There are 3 things we try to do in every email we send, and they form a nice little triangle – but what’s better than a boring triangle? A more delicious triangle and that’s why we call it the Doritos Framework!

Here are the 3 sides of the Doritos Framework with the 3 things you want your emails to have: 1) A Trust Treasure, 2) A Reply Route, and 3) An Income Iceberg.

Dorito Corner #1: How a Trust Treasure Leads To Profitable Email Marketing

Let’s start with a Trust Treasure – which is going to be some BONUS piece of additional added value beyond just the content of your email that can take your reader one step deeper.

For us, this Trust Treasure could be sending them a free un-boring coaching session to check out, which is normally behind our WAIM Unlimited program paywall, but maybe this one session is relevant to them.

For you, a Trust Treasure could be:

• A PDF that creates action-taking on the email content
• An in-depth video that adds more context and learning
• A specific article that can help them level up further
• A podcast episode that shares the journey or story
• A link to someone else’s business that adds more value

Trust Treasure can be ANYTHING you like, the point is that you’re going above and beyond what your audience expects, and you’re rewarding them for engaging deeper with your brand.

The more Trust Treasure you offer alongside your existing email content, the more your audience will come to think of you as someone who OVER-delivers on value. That over-delivering is going to contribute greatly to how someone perceives you when they decide whether to buy your offer.

Dorito Corner #2: Add a Reply Route to Every Email

One thing we hear all the time from folks who run email newsletters is, “I never get any replies to my emails, am I doing something wrong?” When we take a look at their email newsletters we see a very clear pattern: There isn’t a CLEAR and OBVIOUS Reply Route in the email.

If you want someone to reply to your email newsletters, you have to create and unbelievably clear and specific invitation for them to hit reply.

There are tons of ways you can position your Reply Route, but here are two examples if this article was written as an email newsletter:

• Reply Route Example #1: Hit reply and share which of the 3 parts of the Dorito Framework you’re most excited to try in your next email newsletter
• Reply Route Example #2: You can give them a super convenient and easy reply route by saying something like “Reply with the word DORITO (or your fave Doritos flavor) if you felt like this email was valuable to you.”

By lowering the barrier on the reply and making the call to reply visually prominent, you can still open up the two-way conversation and use that as an invitation to ask more questions, further forming trust.

Email newsletter replies are absolutely still a thing and even MORE valuable as email automation becomes a bigger part of marketing.

If you can show someone that you’re a real human and willing to take the time to reply to them, even if it’s short, your efforts are going a long way to building a bridge of trust.

Dorito Corner #3: Build Your Income Iceberg

Think of your paid offer (your online course, template, etc) like an iceberg, with all this incredible value just waiting under the surface for someone to buy and get access to.

It’s your job to think of your email content like the very top bit of the iceberg bobbing ABOVE the surface.

Your email content is the free part someone can see, but it needs to be connected to your deeper offer, otherwise, you’re attracting an audience that is never going to be relevant to what you’re selling.

Your Income Iceberg is especially important in the 4 weeks or so leading up to any kind of sales launch. The lead-up to a launch is arguably the most valuable content you’ll send to get your audience ready to purchase.

If you’re opening up a course or program for a limited time, make sure the emails in the weeks leading up to that window are HIGHLY related to your offer. They should help solve the tiny problem BEFORE the big problem your paid offer solves.

Here are 8 example emails you can send to create the best Income Iceberg possible:

• Transformation: The before and after results of your offer
• Paint The Picture: What could someone’s future look like
• Customer Story: Share an in-depth relatable customer story
• Mistakes We Made: What did you do wrong and how did you fix it?
• This Offer Is Different: What sets your product apart?
• I Feel Your Pain: How have you overcome the pain of your customer?
• Is This For You: The why/why not they should buy
• Common Objections: Think of this like an FAQ

There are SO MANY more emails you could send in the lead-up to your next product launch or sale. The key is to remember to give value, even in those lead (and “cart is open”) sales emails!

The Dorito Framework Wrap-Up

Those are the 3 parts of our Dorito Framework that will take your email newsletters from good to great. Your email content itself still needs to be awesome and helpful, but those 3 tactics (Trust Treasure, a Reply Route, and an Income Iceberg) will help you create more profitable emails if you use them consistently.

We’ve been sending emails for over 10 years (!!!) and email marketing is STILL the primary channel that has led us to generate over $4,000,000 in revenue over the past decade, without relying on paid ads or social media.

In fact, one of our recent WAIM Unlimited coaching program launches was run entirely through email without any social promotion, and we generated $226,000 in sales in two weeks with an 11,000-person email list.

These 3 tactics are how we make the MOST of our email marketing strategy and we hope they help you too!