As the owner of the marketing agency Foreplay Copy, Barbara Murphy Shannon, a Fountain Hills resident, helps businesses grow by leveraging the power of email marketing.

“My vision/mission is to build communities, help people, transform lives and make a difference,” Shannon said.

As a business coach, writer and certified email marketing strategist, Shannon helps her clients uncover a new source of revenue by providing them with the tools and training to turn an email list into an asset.

“Email marketing has a 40-to-1 ratio return on investment,” Shannon explains. “So, for every dollar you spend on email marketing, $40 will come back. And everybody has an email address. It’s not going anywhere.”

Shannon says the one thing many business owners don’t realize is that an email list is a revenue-generating- asset. It’s a profoundly underused tool that can be automated and used to promote new products and services at any time.

“It’s your list. If you just leave [clients] on social media, you don’t own that list. The third party owns it,” Shannon says.

When asked about the origins of the name “Foreplay Copy,” Shannon said she geeks out on word psychology and how reading certain words can be foreplay for the brain.

“Just by reading specific words, serotonin and oxytocin are released, which creates pleasure, making the reader feel good,” Shannon said. “When you make a reader feel good, they’ll naturally want to listen to you, read more about you and your products or service, and ultimately buy.”

With 30 years in the spa and wellness industry, Shannon found her niche while overseeing retreats at the Scottsdale resort where she worked. One retreat was led by Sarah McLean, an author and meditation instructor who guides groups of women through weekend meditation retreats.

“I just watched these women come in on a Friday and they’re all stressed out, some of them crying at the first dinner…but by Sunday, they’re all hugging and happy and I’m like, ‘Oh my God, this is so cool. I want to do this,’” Shannon said.

Not long after, Shannon completed her master’s degree in psychology along with a graduate certificate in life coaching and began leading retreats. At the same time, her friends in the wellness industry began asking her questions about growing their businesses, including McLean, who was eager to expand her meditation practice.

“At first, I was kind of like, ‘I don’t want to necessarily be a business coach,’” Shannon said. “Then I had this realization that if I can help [McLean] with her program, and she teaches 20 new students to become meditation teachers, and they go out into the world and they teach thousands of people to become meditation teachers, that’s a bigger impact.”

Driven by the desire to make a difference in the world, Foreplay Copy was born where Shannon uses her skills in marketing, business strategy, copywriting and sales to help her clients overcome their fear of email marketing. She writes a weekly blog for subscribing entrepreneurs and offers a free workbook that covers eight email marketing advantages for any small business.

“A big part of my email marketing expertise is to write engaging emails that people want to read. People need to be entertained,” Shannon said.

To make her emails memorable and approachable, Shannon likes to tell stories for her audience to read while hitting on various psychological cues that might pique the reader’s curiosity.

Shannon meets with her clients in-person and online for 30- to 60-minute sessions, and her services are purchased on a retainer or package basis. Her clients range from business owners, authors, coaches and course creators who must meet three criteria: have an email list of at least 1,000 subscribers, have a product or service that people want to buy and don’t be a jerk.

“That’s what’s so fun about being a business owner,” Shannon said. “I can say ‘no.’”

The best part of her work, Shannon says, is watching her clients click with something new that they didn’t already know and helping people become successful and happy.

“If they’re not out there helping people because they don’t know how to grow their business and nobody knows about them, then they’re not doing what they were meant to do. They’re not healing people. I help that person become visible to the marketplace,” Shannon said.

To find out more about Shannon’s services and rates, visit barbaramurphyshannon.com or send an email to Barbara@barbaramurphyshannon.com.