EP. 8: How to use email like Instagram with guest Kelly Cookson (Cheer Up Marketing)
What’s this episode about?
Know that email is the way to go but love the way your audience interacts with you on Instagram?
In this episode we talk to Kelly, an email sales coach, about why email is important but so many businesses resist doing it! Packed full of practical tips as well as easy strategies to get started - if you are wondering how to improve (or start!) emailing your list, make sure you listen!
Episode key takeaways:
Why is email marketing so important
If you are wondering what’s a good open rate? We talk through key stats to measure and how you know if it’s working.
Why getting engagement is as important on email, as it is on Instagram (and how to get it!)
Practical tips to get started
Common mistakes (and how to avoid them)
INTRODUCING: KELLY COOKSON
Kelly has over 13 years’ experience in digital marketing. She’s passionate about helping business owners to generate consistent leads and revenue through email marketing, allowing them to step away from socials and make more sales! As well as copywriting email campaigns for her clients, Kelly teaches email marketing via her signature group programme, Electric Email, and her free Facebook group (From Spam to Wham!). She likes to drink Yorkshire tea (2 cups in the morning, please) and can be found wherever music is playing which includes at her local gym, where she won't be breaking any records but will definitely be breaking into a sweat.
KEY LINKS:
WEBSITE: www.cheerupmarketing.com
INSTAGRAM: @cheerupmarketing
FACEBOOK GROUP: From Spam to Wham
Download Kelly's free guide: 10 Subject Line Tactics to get your Emails Opened
Subscribe to the Growing Pains podcast
Make sure you don’t miss an episode by subscribing on your favourite app:
Read the transcript:
NOTE: This podcast was transcribed by an AI tool. Please forgive any typos or errors.
Hello, and welcome to growing pains. The marketing podcast for parent and baby brands who want to grow and get more consistent sales, but without the overwhelm of feeling like you have to be online 24 7, I'm Sophie, your host, and a Facebook and Instagram ad strategist who specializes in parent and baby brands as well as a mom of two.
Join me each week as I alongside some wonderful guests, she had practical tips and advice about how you can use and combine marketing strategies to get more impact for your effort. A quick warning, before we start, I can get a little bit sweary, so just be careful of any little ears listening along.
Sophie: Okay. So today I am thrilled to be here with Kelly from chair up marketing. Kelly has over 13 years experience in digital marketing. She's passionate about helping business owners to generate consistent leads and revenue through email marketing, allowing them to [00:01:00] step away from socials and make more sales as well as copywriting email campaigns for her clients.
Kelly teaches email marketing via her signature group program electric email and her free Facebook group from spam to. Which I absolutely love by the way, she likes to drink Yorkshire tea, two cups in the morning, please, as a girl after my own heart and can be found wherever music is playing, which includes her local gym, where she won't be breaking any records, but will definitely be breaking into a sweat.
So, Kelly, welcome to the podcast.
Kelly: Hi,
Sophie: I love.
Kelly: me.
Sophie: I am so pleased your hair. So that's the official intro, which is far by the way. I do feel like I know you already let's talk a little bit about you. What's your like work family life kind of set up.
Kelly: Oh, okay. I'm glad you asked that because family life is the whole reason that I am running my own business these days. So as you mentioned, I've got a lot of years experience in digital marketing. And I actually left my role as head of marketing for an international software company back at the end of [00:02:00] 2019, because I decided to sell this business, do your marketing and go it alone.
After doing this. Side hustle for a few months. So I did that because I had my daughter back in 2017. And after going back to work part-time I did two days a week for a little bit, then three days a week. I decided that when it got to her going to school in a couple of years, I wanted to be able to take her there and back and not have to use any.
So childcare or anything around wraparound school care stuff. So I thought, right, I'm going to run my business as you do. So she's the whole reason that I'm doing this now. And I am so grateful for that because right now I feel I have a really good balance between. Work while I started balance, it's an integrate.
I have great integration of work life and family life. So I get to take my daughter to, and from school every day we walk, it's wonderful. I can go off to the gym and the afternoon and all that kind of stuff. I work about 20 hours a week. So having an online business has been amazing for me in terms of, Yeah.
That, you know, elusive balance or work life [00:03:00] integration, as I prefer to call it.
Sophie: Yeah, me too. I think balance is it's I think, especially with us my mom's working around our businesses. Like it is just that constant, like flip between isn't it like life and work and children and personal time. And I think it's just right. Integrating it all in the best way that works for you.
Isn't it.
Kelly: Totally. So I think I've got that down now. It's been a journey. So
Sophie: That's incredible.
Kelly: now. I think that's the beauty of online business, and I know we're going to get into this, but email marketing, you can automate stuff. So it's running and nurturing while you're off doing something else. And yeah, there's loads of other benefits that have helped me to grow my business to where it is now.
So I'm sure we will dive into that hardness to.
Sophie: absolutely. Well, so what I first, before we jump into all of that great stuff, I've got a bit of a quick fire round for you, so we can get to know you a bit better. So just a few quick fire questions. Okay. So first up tea or coffee,
Kelly: T
Sophie: I feel like I might've known that ready for your intro dogs or cats.
Kelly: coffee, [00:04:00] coffee's gotta be decaf because it just sends me up. Certainly. Was he so.
Sophie: I'm still like, not adult enough to drink coffee. Like I just find it like too much. So yeah. I know. I should try decaf actually. Yeah. Although I just feel like I'm just, it's one of those things I'm just going to let lie and just be like, do you know what, T's
Kelly: You've got this far.
Sophie: I've got this far. I'm happy.
I've managed to like evolve into liking olives and red wine, which also were a bit too adult for me. So.
Kelly: Together as well.
Sophie: They really, they really do. Okay. Dogs or cats.
Kelly: cats. I've got two. They are getting on there about 16 now. So yeah, that, you're not a dog person too. to Wolfie.
Sophie: Yeah.
Kelly: All right. My cats leave fair, but they don't don't put me or whatever. So Yeah. gotta be cats. Plus you can leave them when you go on holiday like That someone just come feed him. Yeah. And
Sophie: That is the biggest thing. They are so much more self-sufficient army. That is yeah. Bagels or crumpets.
Kelly: Oh, so I probably eat [00:05:00] bagels five days out of seven because I
Sophie: Do you? Oh,
Kelly: They're full of protein, you know? So you want to get your protein up. I'm ingesting it ourselves. Yeah. And a, great bit of ham in there is some homeless or whatever, but I do a liver compared with salty butter on, but sadly they don't really help with the old protein count.
Sophie: No. I was going to say, I can't imagine crumpets have a high protein that a little bit
Kelly: and fat, you know, which is fine if you're in the mood for that. But I do have bagels more often.
Sophie: Yeah. Oh, that's good to know about the protein. I feel like that might give me an excuse to eat more actually beach or pool.
Kelly: Oh, beach.
Sophie: Nice winter or summer.
Kelly: I'm a hundred percent. My ideal temperature is 23 degrees
Sophie: Oh, my God. I have an ideal temperature as well. Yeah. And it would be very similar. I Def anything over 25 is too hot for me. Like I just need to be in the shade, but under like 20 in a little bit of a chill. So yeah, I would say 23 is pretty perfect. I'm going to go with you on that one. Color or monochrome.[00:06:00]
Kelly: Color past all my
Sophie: colors. Your branding's amazing. Mine's really bright and colorful as well. And as soon as I saw your website, I was like, we're going to get on, this is going to be great. Early morning or late night.
Kelly: Right. So this has definitely changed since becoming a mom. I was definitely not a morning person. And honestly, the first, like 12 months of my daughter's life, it was just so hard getting up with a small child. Like they wake you up at 6:00 AM or earlier, and you just want, I just wanted to cry. But anyway, now she's trained me into being a morning person and I actually set my alarm to get up before she does so I can have a cup of tea.
Jared, it'll sit there in peace, half an hour. So I would say I'm definitely a morning person now. And if I'm still up after 10 o'clock, I'm getting really stressed. I just want to get to bed.
Sophie: yeah.
I'm with ya. I need to be asleep by 10 o'clock. Although that is exactly the same reason because my children early rises. So I don't know why I feel like if it's genetic, I mean, I much prefer a lion, but now I'm kind of conditioned to it [00:07:00] as well. So lovely. I feel like we've got to know you a little bit more.
Shall we jump into the magical world of email mark?
Kelly: Let's do it. Isn't magical world.
Sophie: Absolutely. Okay. So I think a lot of our listeners will kind of resonate with this. Really. Typically you start off your business, you know, you set up your website and one of the first things you do is stop your social media. My often Instagram, I think for a lot of my audience it's really easy to do and you start to get a bit of traction and you get going, and then often you kind of get stuck at a point where you've just got the same followers.
You're maybe not growing as much, and you're not really sure what to do. So why is it that you think our businesses, the next step they should take should be that email list?
Kelly: Yeah.
Great question. And like everybody else that you just mentioned, the very first things I did with my business, where I set up my website, I got myself an Instagram domain changed over my LinkedIn and then maybe sort of three, four months later, I started a Facebook group. But because of my experience in marketing, I knew from the [00:08:00] very beginning that I wanted to say.
And grow an email list because my experience showed me that when, you know, running marketing campaigns, all of the companies that I've worked for, it's the reach and the measurability and the reliability of email that trumps social media. So once you've got that list and you're nurturing it and you then put out an email to say, Hey, come on, work with me, look at my stuff.
I've got for sale. Look at my office. You're going to get more traction that way then on social. So luckily for me, I had that experience. You know, new from the beginning, I want to start an email list. So I think it's really important that more business owners know this about marketing. It's kind of become like I'm on a mission to meet more entrepreneurs, especially women owned businesses.
Know that email marketing is so powerful and to get on that train like earlier on in business. And Yeah.
it's because. I have definitely seen for myself starting my list from zero. I remember I got to 30 subscribers and that's when I sent my first email out. And then I committed like once a week, I'm sending this [00:09:00] email come rain or shine, and that's what I've done.
And I've grown that list, nurtured it. And now when I put out an email saying, Hey, I've got some space to work with me. One-to-one or I'm launching my group program, or, you know, do you want me to write your emails for you? Whatever it is. I sent out email and I know. Reliably what I'm going to get back. So you can work out the numbers, like how many subscribers you've got, what kind of click rate you're going to get, what kind of conversion rate you're going to get.
Whereas with Instagram, like you say, you can definitely gain some traction in the early days. And it's an amazing tool to make marketing accessible with zero budget. You know, you can just go in there and set up a profile and start going, but, oh my God, it's unreliable. Thinking about just relying on Instagram or my Facebook group, which gosh, it's crickets at the moment.
I'm really struggling to get any kind of traction there. Now brings me out in a cold sweat, frankly. It's like, I need to have that email list. So I know that when I send an email, roughly how many people are actually going to open it, how many are going to click and then what kind of resort I can expect in terms of [00:10:00] the leads it's going to generate.
So I want everyone to have that, this reliable way of connecting with that audience Yeah.
To bring in the leads in the sales letter.
Sophie: Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's, well, you sort of touched on it in your intro, you know most of my audience are mums running businesses. I'm with juggling, you know, we're juggling all the time and I talk too a little. Moms who just feel like this constant weight on their shoulder, like, oh, I should be posting on Instagram.
I should be doing reels. I should be doing all this stuff that feels like it's a never ending. Like you never have a day off. Like even, you know, I'm not technically working today, but I need to put a post out. Like, it just feels like a lot sometimes doesn't it. I think in your intro, you sort of said, you know, there are automate.
The amazing benefit of the automations, where you can set things up and you can nurture potential customers and clients through those sequences without even doing anything. So kind of wanted to talk a little bit about that next, the difference between, like you said, you [00:11:00] email your list once a week, always versus these automated things that go on without you having to kind of get involved each week.
Kelly: Yeah, that's a great question. I'd love to chat around that. So the newsletter stuff that is the kind of drip, drip, drip content that is always talking to my key messages. I know my ideal clients need to hear about. So I've worked really hard on refining my content pillars over the last couple of years, I've been in business where.
I know the things that I need to shout about from my little soap box over here and help my ideal clients to understand about email marketing. So number one is why you need it. So all of the stuff I share on how it's helped my business, why you shouldn't rely on just social media, why it's really important to grow your list.
That is something that my weekly newsletter content will talk around. So I will share, you know, behind the scenes, in my business and how email is helping me. So that kind of aspirational content. I will share what's going on with my clients. I wish there sometimes the odd horror story of somebody [00:12:00] losing all their Instagram followers, and this is why you need an email list, that kind of thing.
Sophie: well, Instagram's gone down like, yeah,
Kelly: was a great
Sophie: yeah. I can imagine. Yeah.
Kelly: Yeah.
So all of that kind of the content that my ideal client needs to understand, and they need to keep reading it over and over again until the penny drops. That's what my newsletters are, but it's also about getting them to know me as a person. So I'm really.
Hopped on storytelling emails. So I will share a lot you know, about what's going on in my life and my business. And most of the time I can make an analogy between something that's going on at home or a funny story or something that happened to me and tie it back to email marketing. In some ways I love a good analogy, but ultimately I work really closely with my clients.
So one-to-one, that's, you know, an intense period of working with me and in the group program you know, we also talking every week on zoom and stuff, so Yeah.
It's very much. If you don't like me, we're not going to work well together. So you got to kind of get this feel of who I am, what I'm about and [00:13:00] the type of person I am.
So it's growing the know like, and trust factor as we talk about in marketing, that's what the weekly content should be doing. And then when you're consistently landing in your subscribers inbox with that, Drip, drip, drip. Do you like me? You know, this is what I'm all about. It's what you need to understand about the service that I offer, then your well-placed to ramp it up in terms of sales campaign.
So going from a drip, drip, drip, weekly email, or actually moved up to two news letters a week now to maybe having a week where you're pushing bookings for discovery calls or sales calls, or sending people over to a sales page or whatever that works really nicely. I think if you're sending less frequently than once a week, it can be tricky to then ramp up that momentum.
So when I'm launching, I will send an email every day for two whole weeks. But I can do that because my subscribers have been consistently hearing from me in the run up and they liked me. Otherwise they would have unsubscribed and they know what I'm all about and why I'm sending this thing. So that's the purpose of the weekly [00:14:00] content is to keep yourself front of mind and your subscribers inbox, getting to know what you're all about, understand how you can help them, help them to understand the problem that they have.
So a lot of people don't realize that it's not an issue if they haven't got an email list. So I'm on that mission to educate people on that.
Sophie: Yeah,
And just picking up on that point about, you know, if you're not, I think it's quite common for, especially for, I know you focus mostly on say service businesses, but for econ businesses in particular you get like 10% discount when you sign up. So it's a really common one to get people on your email.
So many clients, then don't use that email list. They just have people sitting there and actually it grows to a reasonable size. People use the 10%, but then when you want to do a sale or a launch or a Christmas or black Friday or something where you want people to engage with them, and then you bombard them with emails, that's when it gets really tricky, isn't it?
And you don't see the results. And I think that's where it's that understanding? Isn't it? That if you're not seeing results, because email doesn't work, you're not seeing results because you haven't nurtured that [00:15:00] late. You've just kind of left them, setting that and then got him for a sale for two weeks constantly.
Kelly: Yeah, that's exactly it. It's really important to be consistent. I think for e-comm as well. I know a lot people offer the 10% off. I don't think it's really best practice because definitely me as an email subscriber, I have certainly signed up for 10% discount as my first purchase. And then immediately unsubscribe from all marketing emails, I'm just there for the free stuff.
So I do think e-commerce and product businesses can be a lot smarter with the hook that they're offering to get people onto their email list. There's loads of stuff you could share around. Make use of the product or, you know, whatever the desired transformation is that your customers want to achieve.
There's lead madness and stuff you can share around that rather than just offering them money off from the outset. So yeah, I think people e-commerce could do well to be perhaps a little bit more creative with getting those email addresses and then keeping them.
Sophie: Yeah, absolutely. Sorry I interrupted you. So then automated sequences.
Kelly: Yes. Okay. So this is the side that [00:16:00] I really, really love because the nurturing the initial phase of nurturing. So when somebody first signs up to your email list, if you can automate a nurture sequence, so a welcome email, like getting to know your sequence, getting to know them, then, you know, at the point where that subscribers first joins your list and they're like, Yeah.
Receptive to hearing from me.
They've just signed up. They're expecting something to come back that if you could automate that. So your nurture sequence, that welcome sequence is running in the background. So you don't have to manually contact everybody. You know, that the job has been done with. Automatically from the moment that they join your list.
So I'm a big fan of sequences. So that's an example of one. If you're listening to this and you're relatively new to email marketing, we've got less, listen, you haven't set up any automation yet. Your first one is to make sure that when folks join your list, that you're sending them a welcome email. Or better, still a sequence of emails.
It's going to take them through who you are, what you're about, and basically why they should be listening to you and what [00:17:00] kind of content you're going to be sending. So that's what I do with mine. And then the next phase on from that is if you are wanting to launch something or, you know, create a sales campaign of any kind.
You want to be ideally creating all of that together. So all of those emails and then scheduling them to go out. There's nothing more stressful if you're a service-based business. You'll notice if you've tried to launch anything. So perhaps, you know, a new service or even something like a group program or a membership trying to create those emails live while you're in the launch.
God awful experience. Yeah.
so I, Yeah, I would highly recommend if you're launching anything or, you know, what's coming up to create all of that amazing promotional content beforehand and automator. So then you can show up, live on your Instagram stories or Facebook lives or wherever. Live content you're doing to drum up the excitement, what you're launching, but you know, email's got your back because they're going out at a time that you specify they're driving traffic to your sales page, they're driving core bookings or inquiries or whatever.
[00:18:00] So you can just like, that's done. Email is done. I just need to show up on Instagram stories and talk about this thing. So I love it for that reason to save your energy.
Sophie: absolutely. And you can then, you know, write and schedule those emails when you're in that frame of mind and have the energy don't you and then kind of flip
Kelly: batching. maybe your friend. I know if I'm doing sequences of emails, I like to sit and write them all in one, go if possible, or if it's quite like a megasequence of a lot of emails, maybe over the course of a few days, just because I find it more efficient, get in the zone with that one particular message to what you're trying to do from a marketing perspective, your objectives to get those emails written in one, go can be much more efficient than doing one a day or whatever you get in the zone.
So.
Sophie: Yeah, absolutely. And as we're talking about multiple sending lots of emails to people, I think one of the biggest pushbacks I often get is, you know, I, well, I have a hundreds of emails sitting in my inbox. They're not even open. Like, is there any point through email? Like, do people even read emails anymore?
Kelly: Oh, Yeah.
I [00:19:00] love this one. So I will, they'll always be someone pipes up on a train in that I'm doing. Like, I hate getting emails. I never read them. Like I just want, you know, I can't stand it. Marketing emails to drive me. Mother-in-law great. I'm glad you asked this question or you made that statement.
Sophie: Yeah.
Kelly: Number one it's absolutely true that most emails sent every day are rubbish. So we've all got emails and we're like, oh my God, I don't want to hear for this person anymore. It's boring. They're just selling me the same thing over and over again. That kind of thing. Yeah. So that doesn't mean just because other emails and rubbish that your emails have to be rubbish as well.
You can be the person. Yeah. Whose emails your subscribers look forward to opening. So don't think you have to send by the emails just because you get bad emails. Secondly, you can't argue with the numbers, so. You know, just because you don't read emails, billions of people in the world read emails. So email marketing has been around.
Email has been around for over 40 years. Can you even believe it's this massive? And I know from my own email marketing stats, that the [00:20:00] emails I send out, get more engagement and gain more traction than the equivalent message on social media, because your reach on social media is. Throttled by the algorithm, the dreaded algorithm?
Sophie: the jog with them. I mean, everyone hates the algorithm.
Kelly: Yes. Well, how do you pay the algorithm? Well, I dunno, just get an email less than, than you don't need to. Well, I would say that it is. You're going to get more reach. So this is why email is important. Now I think the stats around Instagram are maybe five to 6% of your followers will see your stories.
It's a similar number for posting a Facebook feed. Isn't it? So if you can get You know, sort of 20 to 40% open rate of your emails, then already that number compared with five or 6% on organic social media. I like that number speaks for itself. So I know that to my list when I send it out, I get, well, open rates are a little bit tricky these days because of the apple mail privacy stuff, that's come in.
But as a gauge, I know [00:21:00] around 35% of my subscribers are going to open an email. And I know that on a great day, maybe 10% of people see my Instagram stories at the moment. Yeah.
it was more like five. So the numbers stack up in favor of email marketing. If you can get the same number of people on your email list that you've got on your social, and when you send an email out versus social post or story or whatever, more people are going to see it in the email and that's just facts.
It's just how it works.
Sophie: absolutely. And actually that's really leads us really nicely onto I think, you know, with social media, we're quite comfortable with like indicators of whether we're doing well. So whether it's likes on a post or comments or new followers with email, like what sort of stats are we looking at to kind of gauge how we do.
Kelly: Yeah. So you should be looking at click rate is going to be the most important one to start with. And then conversions, I'll just touch on open rates really quickly, because this is something that I think a lot of people don't know about actually
back in September of 2021, [00:22:00] Apple brought in something called male privacy protection, which means that any body receiving email on the apple mail app.
So just receiving email there, which has millions of people across the world, they are hiding whether that person opened the email or not. So by default, it will look like they've opened your email, even if they haven't.
Sophie: Okay.
Kelly: So really this change has suddenly kicked in as more people I think have got apple devices perhaps after Christmas.
So we're sitting here recording this in March of 2022. I have seen a massive uplift in my open rate from sort of December, January time. Where it's gone from an average of around 35% up to over 47%. And I know that that is not a nearly 10% uplift in open rates. It's false inflation. So your open rates are going to be massively inflated.
So I'm really sorry if you're looking at your open, what's going on, smashing it with email marketing has gone up 10%, unfortunately not, it's just, it's looking like they're opening it and then not, [00:23:00] you can still spot trends. So have a look at your open rates and. You can see trends. If you've got an email that seems to have talent, then something is going on there.
In terms of the subject, I didn't work or whatever, but really we can't use open rates as a reliable metric. So for me, I'm focusing a lot on clicks, more than ever before. How can I get my subscribers to click on my stuff? So that one, I know they're actually they're opening it because if they don't pick them, they've opened it.
And just to get that number up so that I can clean my list based on people who aren't clicking versus people who aren't opening, cause that's not accurate anymore. So it's really important. And then I know I mentioned conversion rates, so. I have a good idea of when I send out an email, if I'm sending it to a sales page or, you know, sales call booking page or something like that, what the click rates going to be and how many of those clicks are going to convert into inquiries.
So this is the exciting thing about email, which you test off and you start to get a good idea for your numbers, that your click rate in your conversions, you can set yourself a goal. So, you know, if [00:24:00] you know that you've. I don't know, say 250 people on your list and you'd get X amount of leads from it.
What happens if you get to 500, you can double it. So that's what gets me excited about email it's that reliable that you can test out different things and see how you can increase your leads and your sales from there.
Sophie: Yeah, it's so exciting. Isn't it? When you've got a little bit more, that consistency of being and knowing that you can, if I hit this, then this will happen because I think otherwise marketing can just feel like a bit of a dark art if you're just relying on Instagram and the algorithm and whether you're doing reels or.
It's tricky, isn't it? So, okay. Fab that's really, really useful. And then I think we're going to talk a little bit as well, like linking. all, I feel a lot of my listeners are going to be really, really familiar with Instagram. So now that we're trying to get people to click on our emails, we're quite used to in our E in our Instagrams, you know, getting that click so, or getting the action.
So comment below, you know, Lincoln, click the link in the bio, like getting people to take an [00:25:00] action from our Instagram content. So I think you were going to talk us through some tips about how you can use those Instagram skills in your emails to get those clicks.
Kelly: Yeah. So this is something I've been testing out recently to try and get that click rate up. Because as I mentioned, clicks.
are even more important these days because of the open rate thing that's going on. So I have just been looking at what works for me on Instagram. Cause I know I go on about how much I love email, but I do also love a bit of Insta.
So what has been getting people interacting with my content in terms of like voting on polls or quizzes or replying to my question, sticker, that kind of thing. And applying that into my email. So. If you know that elsewhere in your marketing, you shared something that got amazing traction, like tons of comments look carefully at the message you were sharing and how you asked your followers to take action.
And apply that to your email. So it sounds really simple and there is a bit more to it than that. So I know you're going to share at the end, but I've got a free training on this, where I went through three specific things. You can try that I've used on Instagram and applying it [00:26:00] to emails and people that have done it.
I've seen a massive uplift in their click rate. So as an example, my average click rate for newsletters is probably around 4%, something like that. I sent out an email with one of these tactics in recently and it hit 15.7%.
Sophie: my gosh. Wow. That's massive difference. Yeah.
Kelly: Yeah. And it wasn't selling, you know, so this is all about those newsletter emails, where you're just dripping that content out, getting people to respond.
So making it fun. I think sometimes we can get really bogged down in thinking email is maybe more serious than social media. Cause it seems like a formal communication. But I encourage you to have fun with it. Test what's working on Instagram and try that in your email. So share some cool pictures, share a poll, get some people to click on links, to vote on stuff.
Yeah.
so that's what I've been testing out and it's been working great for me.
Sophie: Oh, that's so interesting. Again, we'll definitely share the link to that masterclass because that sounds really exciting. And you're right. I do think sometimes we think of email as a bit, a bit heavier. Like you've got to write like a formal letter and I think especially and a lot of us have come from like former corporate backgrounds where that's [00:27:00] really instilled into you.
Like, you know, emails are.
Kelly: of gods.
Sophie: exactly. Not for fun for formal communication. Whereas Instagram, you feel, I got a story it's like, oh, it's going to be gone in 24 hours. Like, he'll just have fun with it. Whereas it's like, oh, an email feels a bit more serious. So yeah, I think that sounds fantastic. I'll definitely share the link to that.
Right. Okay. So the last few questions I wanted to just run through some logistics, so questions I see kind of reasonably often and just kind of help answer them for people. So. One, I mean, this is quite a big question. How do you get people to subscribe to your list? We sort of touched on it with econ businesses earlier, but are there any kind of strategies that you tend to kind of talk to people about?
Kelly: Yeah.
So I think when you're starting out number one is to get an opt-in form onto your website. Or if you don't have a website, don't let that put you off whatever email service provider you're using. You'll be able to set up a simple landing page with your opt-in form on it. And it's really important to make this geared towards your [00:28:00] ideal clients.
So folks are not going to subscribe to receive a weekly newsletter, like maybe the odd one will, but they're not going to come over in their droves to get weekly news. It sounds really dry. Nobody wants to sign up for that. So if your opt-in says, sign up to my weekly news, that's I go ahead and change it ASAP and make it sound like something that's attractive to your ideal clients.
What kind of stuff are you going to be sharing with them? And how often are you going to be sharing it? So for my email list, I've given it a cool name. This is optional, but you know, my brand is cheer up marketing. So I've called my email list, the cheer list. So you're opting into the cheer list and I am going to be sharing with you, email marketing tips and advice.
What's working for me. I'm going to go behind the scenes in my business and share what's working there and you're going to get a weekly email. So it's something like that. I've written a little bit more succinctly, but you get the idea. So folks you want to get better at email marketing are going to subscribe to my emails when they read that.
You know, it's really specific to that. And that's helped me to grow a list of people who are ideal clients for me, because they're interested in email marketing. So, [00:29:00] whatever your niche, whatever your service, think about, what kind of stuff that you can be writing about your emails and tell them that at the point where you're asking them to subscribe.
So that's like the baseline level. You should have that online page, stick it on your socials. That generic opt-in should be on your website. Every page in the footer ideas. The next level thing is to create what we call the marketing terms and lead magnet, AKA, and opt-in freebie essentially. You're packaging up something of value to your ideal client.
So whether it's a free guide template, worksheet, free video recordings, exclusive podcast, episode, whatever, and you are asking them to submit their name and email address in exchange for this valuable information. And then they're signing up to your list to get it. So that's like next level attraction.
So I have one on my website, which is a 10 subject line tactics to get your emails open. So that's a PDF guide that I have. And I also have the masterclass that we've just mentioned. So you need to give me your email list, sign up to email address, sign it to my list, to get access to that free stuff.[00:30:00]
And again, it's geared up to people who want to improve their email marketing. So they would be ideal clients for me. So think about where your ideal client is at and what you can create. That's going to get them into your list at the point where, you know, you can then nurture them and move them closer towards buying from you.
It can be tricky to get the right lead magnet in place because you've got to, there's always going to be free behind her. So people just want to take the free stuff, never go to buy. You've got to think carefully about where people are at in terms of the buyer's journey and where you can get them in onto your list, where they're just thinking about exploring, maybe working with somebody like you or buying the thing.
If you're e-commerce.
Sophie: I did actually, I saw a hilarious thread the other day on the Facebook group, I think, and someone was asking for tips on growing their email list. And someone had said, ah, I got over a hundred new subscribers on my email list in one day. And everyone was like, oh my God, how did you do it? How did you, I offered to send everyone a chocolate bar.
Kelly: Oh, my God. That's
Sophie: That's a bright, okay. I love it. So it's a bit of bribery.[00:31:00]
Kelly: yeah. So that's the
Sophie: Exactly. So it was like, it was that flip. Isn't it? It's like, well, that's really great. You've done that if it's your ideal clients, that's great. But if it's not that it's just random people. Exactly. Who wanted chocolate. I mean, I would've signed up to that, but yeah. So I think you're right. It's that balance, isn't it between getting the numbers and getting people who are at the right people.
Yeah.
Kelly: size. Doesn't really matter in the beginning, you just gotta go for the right people. And then when you've got that down to scale it from there the other great way I like to use to grow my list. I've got those two lead magnets I've just mentioned, but also running free master classes.
I make sure I do four of those a year and they are registration only. So that has always attracted a whole load of people onto my list. It's been a really great way and because they're coming onto a live training with me for an hour, Straight away thinking about automating the nurturing. So they're getting up the welcome email for the web.
But then they're sitting, listening to me for an hour. So by the end of that, they know already whether they like the cut on my Jibo or not, they're [00:32:00] going to leave if they think, oh, I can't listen to Kelly for a moment longer. She's not my cup of tea and that's fine, but you know, they're going to stay on the list if they like what they hear.
So they get a really rapid introduction, like full on to me and what I'm about and what I teach. So I really like to do it that way gets the right people on the list and they've had that group. Challenges are the same. So if you're, you know, in the service industry, a lot of people when a challenge that may be in a Facebook group, so whatever you're doing, it's free advice or support for ideal clients, make sure they register with an email address to access that support from you.
Sophie: Brilliant. It's just always thinking, is it everything you're doing? How can you get people onto your list and just get them to register in exchange for that amazing free advice? Okay. Next one is I think we've kind of covered this actually, but how often should people be emailing their list? Is that once a week? Is that where you say people should start?
Kelly: Yes, ideally, that would be the gold standard. But I know from experience that when I say that to people, they often freak out and think that is way too often. Once a month feels a [00:33:00] stretch for a lot of people. So yeah, once a week is brilliant. And as I mentioned, I'm moving up to twice a week because for me, that's helping.
Me to sell more like the general rule of thumb honestly, is the more emails you send, the more sales that you make. But I know that if once a week feels a stretch, then once every other week we'll do, especially if you're new to it. But Yeah.
I would say once a week, and what I often see when people create one email a month is there is so much content in that email.
They could actually be four, maybe five emails, you know, smaller. If you're creating one epic newsletter or magazine style, Roundup, you know, things that you want to share. You're better off dripping out more frequently in smaller doses and just doing one mega thing per month, just because you want to be thinking about getting in your subscribers inbox frequently.
And imagine if you only do one a month, obviously that's only 12 emails a year. And like I said, we've got a lot of emails coming in, a lot of them rubbish. So your email might be great, but if you're only doing it 12 times a year, all of those other emails are [00:34:00] in there, flooding yours out. So once a week is just getting your name popping in that inbox over and over again, to build familiarity and that consistency to go.
The note I can trust factor.
Sophie: Brilliant. Okay. And double opt-in, is this something that I think is one of those things, like, do I need to have the double opt-in or not? Could you just give us a quick overview of what it is and what your kind of advice is around them?
Kelly: Yeah. So I'm a big fan of double opt-in. If you don't know what that means, it means that when somebody subscribes to your email list, you send an automated reply that says, great, God, you want to be on the left. To get your, my emails from me. You need to click this link to confirm that your email address is correct, and then you'll be added to the list.
So one email dead clear and needs to go back to click this thing to confirm. You'll be able to set that up in your email provider, whatever tool you're using. They'll have double opt in something that you can go through a little wizard to set it up. But what this means is number one, it keeps anybody that types, that email address incorrectly off your list.
So you weren't going to get any GI nails.com or.
Sophie: [00:35:00] Yeah.
Kelly: Hotmails and you're going to get the right people on. I am a big fan because I find that the people that double opt-in or really invested, they really want the emails. I know that if you have an email provider like convert kit does this where it shows you unconfirmed subscribers.
So you see a list of people that haven't confirmed and you can start to feel. I'm going to switch to block tin off. I just want everyone to just get the emails, but believe me, the quality of the descriptors subscriber that you'll get from double opt-in is much higher. Like they really want your emails and that's going to pay off in the long-term.
Yeah. They're going to get, you'll get higher engagement. People who have double opted in it also protects your list from a technical point of view from spam bots. So occasionally I've had this happen to one of my clients, actually, where your forms can get attacked by spammers and they flood your email list with a load of real email addresses, but false names.
They do it to create confusion, right? The subscribers. And so they're suddenly getting loads of emails from people that didn't sign up to. And often It's masking something like a malicious attack to [00:36:00] try and get their bank details or something. So warning emails can get lost in all the noise. Yeah.
So if you suddenly get it, it's quite rare, but like I said, it did happen to one of my clients that didn't have double opt in. When you suddenly get a load of email addresses signing up and you're like, oh, it's great. It needs to come in front of them.
Sophie: working.
Kelly: Yeah. And then you look and like, oh, the names are X, Y Z 2 3, 4, 5 9.
But it looks like a real email address then that could be that you're being spammed. So Yeah.
you need to get double opt-in on there to protect your nest.
Sophie: Okay, fantastic. And then lastly, I thought we'd just cover. Are there any really common mistakes that you see time and time again? That it might be worse than.
Kelly: Yeah, I think a common mistake is perhaps not being clear on who you're writing to. So this is where you end up with sort of wishy-washy emails or, or. As a writer, it makes it hard to send something out consistently. So the first thing to do, if you're setting up your email from scratch, or if you've been doing it for a little while, but you may be finding it a bit tricky to keep up with is to really revisit the ideal [00:37:00] client.
So who are you writing to and have them in mind when you're creating your content? I know that it feels like email is a mass communication because it's you sending out one email. Yeah.
A massive subscribers, but actually from the subscriber's point of view, it's, one-to-one because they're just seeing one email from you to them.
So it really helps you to get that engagement by thinking about who you're writing to writing to them as a real person and not just, you know, subscribing number 72 or whatever a hundred faces people on your list that they are real human. So. Picture then when you're writing your emails and write as if you're writing to one person rather than to, Hey everyone, you know, don't address your email list in the mass, you know, terms like don't say, Hey, all say like, Hey Kelly, what's going on?
I've been doing this today. How are you? So mentioned the word you in there, make it feel like it's to them specifically not to mass communication.
Sophie: Yeah. Oh, that's such a fabric. I think that's really easy to do. Isn't it just think like, right. I've got X amount of people on my list that I'm writing to today was actually like email is [00:38:00] quite a, it's quite a personal thing. Isn't it? Like when you're reading an email, you feel like it's coming from that person.
So it's really nice to feel that like direct kind of connect. Brilliant. So I'm just going to talk really briefly about how Facebook ads link to email marketing. And every, at the end of every episode, I just link us back into how this marketing strategy can help your ads. And with email, it's kind of three ways really you can do.
Ads to grow your list. And I wouldn't actually advise you to start doing this until, you know, you've got a lead magnet that works. So test your lead magnets out with your audience, with your social media. See which one seems resonate with your audience gets the right people on your list. And then at that point, use ads to go out and grow your list using.
Using the lead magnet and you can use the if there's a new, I think at the time of recording, they're just rolling out a new way of kind of selecting your objective in Facebook ads. So it would be the one you would want would be lead and you would want to you'd send people to your [00:39:00] signup page and then you would track the number of people who get to the Frankie page.
Once they've seen. The second way of linking your ads to your email list is your email list, especially if you're growing it in the way that Kelly and I have talked about today should be full of your ideal customers. It should also have people you could like in an ideal world segment out who've purchased from you.
You're going to have. Data that is so, so full of information for Facebook to help them find your ideal audience on Facebook for ads. So you can pull up the less, you can make an audience of your email list subscribers, and you can use that audience to try and help Facebook find more people like that.
So again, kind of going back to what Kelly was saying. It's so important to have your ideal clients on your email list, because the more. Closely, you know, the more proportion of them that your ideal client, that easier, it's going to be for Facebook to find similar people. And then lastly, you can use your email list and your ads together as a strategy.
So one thing, [00:40:00] and this is probably more for e-com clients, but one thing that we can do is do a campaign to get people to add to cart or even a purchase campaigns. Either one add to cart tends to be slightly cheaper. So if you're looking for. And really maximize your budget. You could do an add to cart campaign where you target people that are likely to add your product to cart, and then you use an automated seat.
Email sequence to then convert them over a number of emails. And actually if you're a lot of times I see that people's emails convert better than the abs do, so that can actually be a really good use of your budget. So you're like less using less budget on ads and using your ads, like your emails, sorry to really do like the heavy.
So those are three ways that your ads and emails can work together. Okay. Oh my gosh. I feel like we've covered loads of fantastic strategies and how you can use your email, your business. I, I know from experience, it can be quite easy to take in a lot of information and then not maybe do a huge amount with it.
So I always ask my guests at the end of the episode, like, what's the one thing [00:41:00] you would tell the listeners to go away and do today? Like if they were going to do one thing, what would it.
Kelly: Sire. The one thing that I want you to do is terrible. Your next email and plan the next place. This is two things. Plan a month's worth of content. So think about how can I deliver whatever I'm delivering on social media or whatever you have planned for one monthly monster newsletter. How can you chop that up and deliver for valuable storytelling?
Nuggets of information over the next month that are gonna resonate with your ideal client and get them to know like, and trust you just that little bit more. So planning is key to get an email sent out whatever kind of project management tool you might use. I use a sauna. So in there, I know for the months ahead, what I'm going to be sending out and why think about why, what you're trying to get the ideal client to know.
I understand about you and what you do. And what's the objective for that email in terms of, do you want him to pick, do you want me to listen to your podcast, watch a YouTube video. Do you want him to go over to a sales page at what you're trying to do? [00:42:00] Plan out and get your next one written. So two things I'm giving you.
Hopefully that's
Sophie: Brilliant. Yeah, that's fantastic. Brilliant. So if you have loved all of Kelly's tips and advice, and if you want more of all that good stuff, then first of all, you, of course can sign up to her email list and see what she's doing every week. Free guide, which is the 10 subject line tactics to get your emails opened.
And there'll also be a master class that you can get as well. So if you go to our website, cheer up marketing.com, I will put the link in the show notes. You'll be able to find those two opt-ins. And if you just want to keep in touch with her and join her world, she has a fantastic Facebook group called from spam to wham, which is such a brilliant name.
On Facebook, you can go over that and you can also follow up on Instagram at cheer up marketing. So thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Kelly
Kelly: Thanks for having me let's chat about emails. So any time
Sophie: Thank you so much.
Thank you so much for joining me this week before you go, make sure [00:43:00] you subscribe to the podcast so you can receive new episodes, right when they're released. And if you ever enjoyed these podcast episodes, I'd really love to ask you to leave a review in apple podcasts reviews are one of the major ways that apple ranks their podcasts, and it only takes a few seconds, but really does make a massive difference to new people.
Finding me. Thank you again for joining me, Sophie, in this episode of growing pains, see you next time.
