219 – How to Sell Your Product Through Email with Katie Salmon of Katie Does Marketing

Gift biz unwrapped episode 219 I just fell in love with

the business of selling stuff.

I love thinking about how to get the right product in

front of the right person at the right time in order

to make a sale.

Attention gifters,

bakers, crafters,

and makers pursuing your dream can be fun.

Whether you have an established business or looking to start one

now you are in the right place.

This is gift to biz unwrapped,

helping you turn your skill into a flourishing business.

Join us for an episode packed full of invaluable guidance,

resources, and the support you need to grow your gift biz.

Here is your host gift biz gal,

Sue moon Heights.

Hi there,

it's Sue and I Thrilled that you're joining me here today.

Before we get into the show,

I have a question for you.

How'd your day go yesterday?

Maybe a crazy question.

I know and yes,

you heard me right?

If you were to rate yesterday,

how much did you get done?

How far did you advance toward your goal or maybe in

your mind you're saying what goal?

Many of you have told me you aren't sure whether what

you're doing is the right thing for your business.

You're confused that you may be focusing on the wrong things

and wasting time and money and you compare yourself to others

and feel like you're just not keeping up.

Sound familiar?

Maybe you find that you're busy all day long,

but when you finish up,

you haven't accomplished much of anything at all.

I've been there too until I started working with what I

now call the power of purpose.

I made a free video for you that explains how to

boost your productivity and get results using the power of your

purpose. Isn't it time to make all the effort that you

put into your business and your life do for you what

you've intended.

Now full disclosure,

this video does lead into showing you my brand new inspired

daily planner.

But listen,

you don't need the inspired planner to get all the advantages

out of the power of purpose that I show you in

this video.

So if you're interested in discovering a new way to work

through your days,

so your time is intentional and your results are real,

I encourage you to go over and watch this video and

you can find it it gift biz,

unwrapped.com forward slash.

Planner. That's gift biz,

unwrap.com forward slash.

Planner. Okay,

let's get to the topic at hand today and that is

email marketing and I know you guys continue to have lots

of questions around this topic.

Why do email marketing?

What's the frequency?

How do you make it effective?

How do you get people to open those emails?

We're going to dive right in and cover all of these

topics. Get all of your questions answered right now.

I am so excited To introduce you guys to Katie Saulman.

She is a self proclaimed marketing geek and spends her days

dreaming about how to help business owners sell more stuff.

Katie does marketing where she has helped shop owners turn email

marketing into a lucrative sales channel,

but Katie knows that not all business owners can afford to

outsource their marketing.

So this year she's co-founded shop pop,

which is a one stop resource center with marketing templates and

education through shop pop.

Katie hopes to help shop owners get the skills and confidence

they need to do better marketing in less time.

Oh my gosh,

you guys learning about email marketing and figuring out how to

do it the right way and in less time.

I think I've got your attention already.

Katie, welcome to the gift biz on repped podcast.

Hey there,

Sue. Glad to be here.

So excited to have you and as is tradition,

I'd like to start out by having you tell us a

little bit more about yourself through a motivational candle.

So if you were to share a color that really resonates

with you and some type of quote or saying that helps

you with your life and your business,

what would your motivational candle look like?

I love this question.

It's so fun.

So my candle would be a white candle with a clean

citrus scent because I think the smell of citrus really reminds

me of a clean and fresh start.

And I think with marketing and in business,

that's a good mentality to have each day.

And the quote on the outside of my candle would be

forward is forward because marketing does not produce overnight results.

And as much as we wish that it did,

and sometimes as a business center that can be disheartening.

We're out there posting and emailing and only seeing small incremental

results. But I like to remind my students,

my clients that forward is forward and little by little progress

really does add up and so consistent effort over time will

eventually yield fruitful results.

Love it.

Totally agree with you.

And it's hard to see that.

Like I'll use something that relates to a lot of people

who are listening.

You have a sale and you want to sell so much.

Right? Right.

But you only need one or two clients who become loyal

over time or that one big wholesale order or boutique who

wants to now stock your product.

Absolutely. You only need some small things to end up turning

into something really big.

So I love the thinking behind it and I've never heard

forward as forward.

I really like that.

Yeah. All right.

We're going to talk all email marketing but give us a

little bit of how you got to that place.

Yeah, so I got my start in marketing by failing at

something else.

This is already a good story.

So I grew up convinced that I was going to be

a fashion designer,

that I was going to be the next winner of project

runway and then I went to school at the university of

Georgia to study fashion merchandising and like a semester and realized

that would be a horrible fashion designer.

I am not artistic at all,

but I am creative and when I saw my creativity really

take full blame was in marketing class.

I just fell in love with the business of selling stuff.

I love thinking about how to get the right product in

front of the right person at the right time in order

to make a sale.

So graduated with degrees in fashion merchandising and marketing.

And then started a career in marketing,

but it wasn't long until I heard the entrepreneurial call and

I quit my job and started.

Katie does marketing to serve shop owners and makers to help

them sell their stuff.

And I love specifically working with email marketing just because it's

such a powerful communication tool.

Social media is really important and it's how you help people

become aware of your brand.

But email marketing is really where you can build relationships and

win sales.

I think this is an excellent time to,

to be talking about all of this because social media is

here to stay for sure,

but I think as things were building this last decade or

so, people forgot about email marketing,

they kind of thought,

well that's the old way of doing things and social media

is all where it's at and now I think people are

seeing that.

All right.

It's hard to determine what the results are and measure whether

it's working or not.

Plus what happens when Facebook shuts down like they did in

March and everyone totally freaked out.

And so I think email marketing is now getting the spotlight

put on back on it a little bit.

Sure. What do you say about social media versus email marketing

and how they play together?

Yeah, so social media is so important because it's just one

of the ways people become aware of your brand.

So no one's going to be on your email list unless

they've actually heard that you exist.

And so social media is a great way to be the

handshake and there's all sorts of ways people can come into

awareness of your brand,

whether you're a brick and mortar store and someone's walking down

the street or you're participating in some sort of festival or

fair. There's all sorts of ways,

but social media is a really easy way for people to

know that you exist.

But the fact is that people,

a recent stat that I saw is that people are three

times more likely to see your email than your post on

Instagram. Um,

and so it's just a matter of eyeballs.

So just because he posted on Instagram or Facebook,

especially Facebook reaches really low,

doesn't mean that people are going to see it.

And so email is awesome because it is not unlike Facebook.

It is not a publicly held company that is out for

profit. Email is just a communication tool and so it's not

owned by any sort of company.

So it's just as long as you have someone's permission,

you can email them and it's going to land in their

email inbox.

That doesn't mean they're going to open it,

but you have permission to email them and I think it's

just a really powerful communication tool.

Totally agree with you.

I just do want to reinforce what you just said because

I think there are still people out there who don't really

understand that,

especially if they're new to social media for business.

Like they've always done it like Facebook as a personal account

and I think is still the Thinking that if I post

something, everyone's going to see it and it is so untrue.

I mean,

the last statistics I heard,

organic reach,

which means you're not putting any money like Facebook ads or

anything behind any posts,

maybe one to 3% of your total audience even sees it

in their feed,

much less actually sees it because other things are piling up

on top of it,

right? Yeah.

So I wanted to reinforce that and remind people that that's

what's happening and we all have to remember too,

it's free.

Right? And I know that it's a point of frustration for,

I like to say if you get a group of small

business owners together,

it'll be like 30 seconds before they start talking about the

algorithm because everyone's trying to game it.

But the thing is,

it's a business.

I mean,

Facebook is a business.

And if you would have started your business 30 years ago,

you would have had an advertising budget because you would have

done traditional advertising,

whether that's newspaper or radio ads or television ads,

things like that.

And so now with the beauty of social media,

people think it's very easy to start a business and people

think, Oh,

I can start a business and have a $0 million ad

budget or $0 million marketing budget.

That's not necessarily the case.

And so I like to have people think about how much

money could you set aside for ads or to invest in

a course or to help you do your marketing,

but it's free,

but not really.

Right? No,

I love that.

And I liked that you used the term handshake that just

kind of says it all.

It's the introduction.

It's a way to attract people,

but then you have to go over to email.

So let's talk about how you would do that.

I'm stumbling a little bit because there's a couple of ways

you can go directly to email because if you meet people,

let's say at networking events,

which is a whole nother marketing strategy,

right? You can get emails that ways that you can start

communicating, but let's just stick with the social media link,

I think for this conversation.

How would you then bring people over from social media to

email? Sure.

So typically you need some sort of offer for people to

want to sign up for your list.

Long, long gone are the days where people want to sign

up to quote,

get updates from your shop.

Sure. You can still have that in your footer if you

want on your website,

but you definitely don't want to use the word newsletter because

people don't want this.

And so typically the best way to get somebody on your

list is through some sort of offer.

And so there's multiple levers you could pull for that are

things you can try.

And so I recommend try a couple,

see what works and then try some more.

So one would be just a popup on your site,

so through Instagram hopefully you're periodically driving people to go to

your website and then once they arrive on your website and

there could be some sort of pop up or offer to

get 15% off on their first purchase.

You can also use a tool like MailChimp to create a

landing page where somebody doesn't even have to go to your

site to get that pop up.

You could put that right in your Instagram bio and say

click here to get 15% off and they sign up for

your list and then you deliver them some sort of coupon

that incentivizes them to visit your shop.

And to spend another way would be some sort of download

like a style guide or a gift guide.

Those a little bit harder and slower to get signups for,

especially in a product based business.

Those tend to be a little bit more successful in service

based businesses,

but they still can work.

Another option would be to create some sort of quiz.

So there are tools like one is called interact where you

can create like a buzz feed style quiz about personality or

style or the best fit jeans for you,

something like that.

And then in order to get results,

somebody has to sign up for your email list.

So those are just a few ideas of ways to get

people on your list.

But probably the most tried and true standard way is to

offer someone a discount on their first purchase with you.

Yeah. On their first purchase,

not on everything.

Right. And I recommend creating a timestamp on that.

So, um,

rather than just saying here's 15% off to use whenever you

feel like it creates some sort of urgency by saying get

15% off for the next 48 hours and only allow them

to use that coupon for 48 hours and say that it

expires that amount of time so that someone doesn't just save

it for a rainy day,

but they have to spend it right away.

I think those are excellent ideas and you're right,

consumers have gotten so much more savvy.

I mean just look at our own behavior,

right? I mean our emails are precious to us and I

think twice before even,

I submit for some of those freebie things because I know

exactly what's going to be happening and I'm going on their

list. Right.

So, and you can always opt out.

There's all that and we don't have to get into all

that legal stuff right now here,

but to make something that would be valuable.

And I'm thinking just another idea for you guys is think

about your product.

Like if you make knitted scarves,

maybe a freebie is how do you take care of those

and wash them if they're handmade knitted scarves,

like I don't really even think I know it would know

how to do that.

Or how do you store them over the summer so that

they're okay for the next season.

Things like that that are valuable that people want to know

that are really useful are great ideas for freebies as well.

So start thinking first with your product.

Love the idea of the first time purchaser discount too,

because that also then brings a customer into your world and

then they get to see the experience that you take them

through once they're on the inside.

So I love that idea,

Katie. Those are some great ideas in terms of how to

capture emails from an audience.

We'll stop that there because I know that people have a

lot of questions as we move on in terms of,

okay, what about all these emails?

What do you actually do?

Let's start with platforms.

So if someone's just starting,

what type of platform,

maybe you have a couple that you would suggest already.

I know you'd said MailChimp,

but maybe a couple that you would suggest and what to

look for in a platform as you're getting started.

Yeah, so the number one thing you want to look for

first is ask where are you selling?

So I would answer that differently depending on what the person

says. If they are just on Etsy,

I would answer it differently if they were,

you know,

selling on Shopify or how to brick and mortar store,

I would say that the easiest,

cheapest, best one to start with would be MailChimp.

They have pretty good automations and it's pretty easy to get

started with.

And a lot of my clients use MailChimp explain automations for

us. So automations are emails that send when a certain activity

happens or a certain requirement is met.

And so what I mean by that is a welcome sequence

is an automation,

right? You write at one time and you set it up

to send as soon as somebody joins your list so you're

not having to sit at your computer and wait for someone

to join and then send them an email.

You set it up so that MailChimp knows somebody is on

the list and now they get an email.

Another example of that would be a birthday automation.

Those can be very successful too.

So you ask for your subscribers birthday information and then you

can set up an automation within MailChimp that two days before

their birthday they get a happy birthday from you with some

sort of reward or something special from you to them.

So those are automations and our automations available at the free

level of MailChimp.

Do you know?

Yes, they are.

So at the time of this recording,

So it really is the most affordable platform to get started

with. It's kind of an interesting time that you're asking me

this question.

There's lots of changes happening within MailChimp and so talk to

me in six months,

but if specifically if you're on the Shopify platform,

a MailChimp and Shopify very recently stopped working together and so

now another email service provider that I have used and recommend

is Klayvio.

Klaviyo is more expensive than MailChimp,

but it's also more advanced than MailChimp and you have the

opportunity to do just more advanced emailing,

but if you are a brick and mortar store or you're

just on Etsy,

I recommend giving MailChimp a go,

but if you're ready to really invest in email marketing and

take it to the next level,

then a platform like Klaviyo is a good choice.

Okay. I know a lot of people that I've worked with

in a big one in the past used to be constant

contact. How do you feel about that put form these days?

I've actually never used constant contact so I don't have an

opinion on it,

but I mean there are so many good ones.

I can just only speak to the ones I've used with

my clients,

which for now is just MailChimp and Klaviyo.

Something I do often is just Google MailChimp versus Klayvio or

constant contact,

first Klaviyo and there's tons of blog articles out there that

will feature by feature give you a side by side comparison

so that you can make the best choice for your business.

Okay, so it sounds like just for decision purposes,

what you've already covered is needs to integrate with whatever your

website platform is.

So that's the one thing to look at.

And the second thing is you definitely want to be able

to have those automations in place.

Yes, and a lot of providers today will allow you to

do automations,

but automations are so beautiful because they tended to be more

highly opened than a newsletter that you send because they're more

relevant. So your welcome sequence is going to be the most

opened email that you'll ever send because oftentimes it has that

coupon in there that they asked for the 15% off or

whatever when they signed up for your list.

But it comes directly after they took an action and up

for your lesson.

So it's very likely to be opened and something like a

birthday automation that is super relevant,

like who doesn't love getting birthday rewards from various businesses and

restaurants. So because they're highly relevant,

those automations tend to be more lucrative and more engaged with.

Perfect. Yeah,

and the great thing about them too is they can happen

without you having to trigger them.

It's automatic.

Yes. That's the best part.

So it happens right away.

Set and go.

And it also enhances the customer experience for sure.

Absolutely. Yeah,

and not difficult to set up you guys if you're thinking

what in the world are Sue and Katie talking about,

it's really not that hard and it's beautiful.

Absolutely beautiful when it's working.

All right,

so we've gone through platforms.

Let's talk now about what emails should look like.

What is your best advice?

I have a ton of questions for you,

but you might have the process.

You want to talk this through Katie?

Sure. I know challenges that the audience have had is how

do I say something on a regular basis that's going to

be interesting enough for people to want to hear from me

about. And a lot of people are still thinking they're sending

out newsletters weekly or monthly,

that kind of thing.

So give us your advice and your professional wisdom on this

whole topic content and getting people to open those emails.

Sure. So getting people to open your emails starts with your

subject line.

So I like to say the subject line is the gatekeeper

to your email.

So if it stinks,

then your email is going to go in the trash.

So I have three magic rules for writing a good subject

line. One is to keep it short,

so you want it to be around 40 characters or less

because the majority of people read their emails on their phone.

And so if your subject line is longer than 40 characters,

depending on what device they're reading it on,

it could get cut off.

You don't want that to happen.

So I just recommend keeping your subject line as short as

you can.

Rule number two is that your subject line should indicate what

the email is actually about.

And so I see a lot of businesses try to get

too creative with their subject line and to have like a

really out there,

pun or metaphor.

And the fact is people are going to decide in mere

seconds if they're going to read your email.

And so your subject line should show me what it's actually

going to be about.

So I have an example of that.

I got an email from Chick-fil-A recently and 99% of the

time I think Chick-fil-A marketing is great and it should be

watched closely,

but I got an email from them that said,

Katie, it's time to make your Mark.

And so as a reader,

I would think,

what does that email going to be about?

Probably maybe some motivational content inside.

Well, especially from Chick-fil-A,

it doesn't relate at all.

Right? And so then I open it up and it's about

grilled chicken because grill chicken has grill marks.

And so that is such a loose connection and that subject,

I'm really did not indicate to me what that email was

going to be about at all.

So that's rule number two.

Make sure you actually tell them what the email is going

to be about.

But the final rule is to hold that intention with you

want to create some sort of intrigue so that people know

what it's about,

but they really feel like,

gosh, I got to open it.

So it's some good examples from Chick-fil-A is I was looking

back my emails from them and I got one that said

this news is juicy and it was about a new juice

that they were selling.

So obviously I could have figured that out just from looking

at the subject line,

but just the fact that they use the words news and

juicy, that peaked my interest and I want it to read

it. Another one that they'll send often,

this other client says just because,

and I know there's going to be some sort of coupon

inside from them,

like a gift just because,

and so I'm definitely going to open that email.

So the first place to start when you're working on drafting

your email is to think,

how can I spend a good amount of time crafting a

subject line that's really going to pave the way for people

to want to open up this email.

Well, and the thing that I'm noticing also in your examples

is you're not using any big words,

you know?

Yeah. Juicy is a little bit more of a creative word.

It's not something we say in our everyday life.

I could probably go through a week and never say that

word probably longer.

Right, right.

But it does have intrigue and I think we've got to

remember that our audience come from all different levels too.

So if you're supposed to be reading this really fast and

catching people,

you don't have to use fancy big words.

I guess it's the way you put them together.

And I'm also thinking,

this is a question for you kind of personally cause I

just want to know the answer.

But I think if I have something that I want to

say to an audience that I email regularly,

sometimes I just want to say,

Hey you guys,

I really want you to look at this.

So it's way more personal.

Like this is something you really want to see from me.

And then it's based on my relationship with them.

Of course,

whether they open it or not might not have anything specifically

to do with what the topic is.

But I'm saying it's important.

I want you to read this,

something like that.

I mean that may be a bad example,

but it depends I guess how often and how long you've

been emailing people knowing that people are coming in all the

time. But to add your own relationship with your list too.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I think it's so important to write like you talk

and to be colloquial in all of your email copy,

not just your subject line,

but all throughout to use contractions and instead of to say

can't instead of cannot,

to use humor when it's appropriate to use slang terms when

it's appropriate so that it sounds relatable and approachable.

So it doesn't sound like a robot emailing them,

but it sounds like an actual person and that's how you

get people to look forward to reading your emails because it

sounds like a message from a friend rather than a sales

pitch from a cold company.

So can you write like you talk?

Oh yeah,

absolutely. I often,

you can kind of hear it now.

I guess I will pause in between things and when I'm

writing an email,

oftentimes I'll put.dot,

dot. Because I'm writing the way I'm talking.

Sure. And sometimes it might not be grammatically correct or I'll

use dashes or I go another paragraph and I won't capitalize

that first letter because it's kind of a spinoff of the

prior paragraph or just make it a little bit different.

And someone who was reading this who's going to do proper

writing would have red marks all over it,

I think.

What do you say about that?

I'd say go for it.

The rules are out the window.

Like what you learned in grade school is a good foundation

of course,

but you do not have to follow that with email.

Nobody is grading it and I write in fragments all the

time for emphasis or start a sentence with the word but

but you were taught not to do things like that I

think makes it for a more enjoyable read and especially because

one piece of advice is to write in shorter sentences because

just remembering that nobody is really reading your email,

which is like a knife to the heart,

but people are skimming your email.

Nobody is reading it word for word and so using short

sentences and short paragraphs helps people skim and get through the

content because if they see it,

you say large text block,

especially on mobile,

they're going to scroll right past because that's overwhelming.

Yeah, for sure.

What do you say about the length of an email?

I'm seeing a lot of long emails lately.

Yeah, especially from service based businesses.

I find longer emails,

but for product based businesses specifically,

I mean there's almost no copy.

There's some,

but if you look at something that I recommend people to

do, find your favorite stores and sign up for their emails.

I have filter all my e-commerce emails so that they go

into a special folders.

So they don't clutter up my inbox.

But every once in a while I'll go look at them.

It's from J crew and loft.

It's a lot of beautiful images and not a ton of

copy. There's some.

And so I would say especially when you're selling products,

there's not a need to have a ton of copy.

And one piece of advice would be write your copy and

then try to cut it down by a third because you

probably were wordier than you needed to be.

Because we tend to want to just talk and talk and

talk about our stuff because we love it.

So I try to take my first draft and then ruthlessly

cut out things and only let the words be there that

are necessary.

And when it comes to writing copy,

just a few tips would be your customer.

Like I said,

they're just skimming,

so they need to be able to understand and just mere

seconds, what are you selling and how's it going to make

my life better?

And so that really should be the focus of your copy

is new scarves that you can wear in your hair.

Perfect for spring hottest trends right now.

Obviously you would not be that terse,

but that's really what you're selling scarves for people's hair.

You need to get that across very quickly.

I have a whole list of questions here on email marketing

that I know you guys are asking and I am going

to present these to Katie right after a word from our

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I have a couple of questions for you on all that

you've just said.

I've heard conflicting information about the number of images you should

have in email and how images open rates or delivery of

email into the inboxes versus a promotional folder,

which I guess since I just said that,

that's another topic we should talk about.

Let's first go with the images like what do you say

in terms of number of images?

Cause I'm kind of thinking like someone like a J crew

when you go there you want to see all that they

have because you are a customer and go to that shop.

Right. But what about people like our audience who are makers

and bakers?

Is it better to have fewer images or also should you

have a page of like 12 images?

Yeah, I mean I would say only have as many images

as you need.

Like if you're promoting one product within your email,

you might want to show that product in a couple different

like it's like one might be a lifestyle image,

one might be a flat or a closeup in some way,

but you certainly don't need 12 images of that product.

The reason J crew or someone like them would have so

many images is because their product catalog is so large.

But when it comes to deliverability you definitely do not want

to have an email that is only images.

So you do not want to go into Photoshop or Canva

and create graphics that have all of your text and all

of your images.

If you want to use like in MailChimp or whatever email

service provider you're using,

you want to use their tools to write text,

to write actual text within their editor and to create buttons

within their editor.

All of those things because some people and some email clients

don't show images,

so like outlook is often will hide images.

So if you had a completely image-based email,

people couldn't read it.

They would only be able to read the text that you

provided in that email.

I just wanted to clarify for everybody where this might all

be new to them.

What you're saying is that when you have an image,

then you can have,

what is it called when it's the wording that goes with

the image.

Is it called alt text?

Is that the right term?

Yes. Okay,

so you have all texts that describes what the image is.

So let's say you're putting a picture of surprise.

Surprise. I'm using this a candle.

Okay. You're all texts.

Might be new.

Lemon citrus candles now available so that people know what that

image is supposed to be,

whether they can see it or not.

It's just not this blank default that might even say all

text there.

Right. That's a great point.

Yeah, so there's that.

Then the other thing I was just thinking too is you

guys, they're doing construction on the rail tracks that are right

next to me and right now our train is coming through

and they're really loud because all of the construction vehicles are

there, so sorry if you hear that in the background,

but in any case,

the other thing I'm thinking people could do with images,

someone like J crew who we were talking about have all

these different categories,

right? Shirts,

pants, jewelry,

accessory, like all those different categories.

They probably have header images for all of those.

You likewise,

let's say you're a jeweler and you have a brand new

line that you're sharing.

You could have just a solo image and that image then

represents the line that then if that image is clicked,

it goes to your website that has the full array of

product, something like that.

Sure. So that's a way to get away from doing too

many images but still being able to share everything.

Right. And I would say deliverability is,

there's so many factors that go into that.

There's just a lot of factors that go into it.

But I would say if you're selling stuff,

you have to have images.

So I know that like you said,

there are some marketing people that would advise you to really

limit that or to not use images at all.

But that's just not feasible for product based business.

You have to show that you're stop for people to want

to go over to your website.

So sure be wise about it.

But I wouldn't really get super worried about that.

Okay. What's your thinking about the percentage of time when you

were just selling product versus providing some other type of value

if you're a product based business?

Sure. I would say answer that you don't want,

which is,

it depends.

It depends on the buying cycle really.

So if you have a more expensive product that people really

have to think about and the buying cycle is pretty long,

like a mattress.

And you don't just buy a mattress,

you're probably going to do some Google searches.

You're going to ask them friends,

maybe take you a couple of weeks before you decide what

mattress you want to buy because it's a pretty big investment.

If that describes your business,

you're going to need more emails that serve and nurture someone

so they get on your list.

The first several emails that you send them in your welcome

sequence are describing your product,

describing different benefits,

helping them make decisions,

maybe sharing reviews.

That buying cycle is completely different than a shirt or a

piece of jewelry,

which is largely,

you don't have to hold a prayer meeting to decide if

you're going to buy a shirt.

It's pretty,

you're just going to buy it and so if that describes

your business,

you need much less nurturing.

Of course,

you should still have emails that serve and provide helpful content,

but you don't need to have as much,

and there's actually some studies that show that compared to social

media specifically,

people don't mind getting sales messages via email.

Getting a sales message via social media.

People are more annoyed than when they get it via email

because it's pretty expected.

If I get an email from old Navy,

they're going to sell me in that email because I signed

up for their emails and they're going to try to serve

me by showing me how maybe to style a piece or

that it's on sale or here's what's new,

here's what's trending.

That's how they're going to serve me,

but largely they're trying to sell me their product and I'm

not annoyed or put off by it because that's completely expected

behavior. What do you think this is the first time I've

heard it reinforced as much as this and I love that

because it's by nature.

If you have a product,

that's what you're trying to get out.

What do you think of somebody who does,

let's say subscription box programs?

Let's say every month there's a new box that's available,

so one email for sure every month could be here's what's

in the new box,

get yours,

whatever, whatever.

What do you think about emails that maybe don't sell but

show customers are using your product and then they're indirectly?

Obviously if you like that,

then you're going to continue further and check out the company

and make a sale.

But you're not necessarily always selling,

but maybe indirectly selling.

Do you see those of equal value for email now for

product based companies as just showing your product all the time?

Absolutely. Because you're showing someone,

so back to that,

that copy,

how will it make my life better?

You're giving someone ideas and showing them this is how you're

subtly showing them this is how it's going to make your

life better.

Engaging with my product.

And so emails that give ideas are awesome,

especially in an easy lever to pull at the holiday time

is to create a gift guide.

Oh, great idea.

Forgetting what brand it was.

But I just recently saw an email looking back at holiday

emails, somebody who they made this gift guide and they called

it like their Kira our most asked for gifts.

So they're like,

here's what we pulled our audience.

This is what all the dads want.

This was where all the moms want.

And so basically what they're doing is they're selling to you

but they're making it seem like our idea at the holiday

time specifically you're looking for a sure bet.

No one wants to give a gift that is not going

to be liked and so if they know,

Oh gosh,

all these dads want this cashmere sweater.

Sure, that's,

that's a sure bet.

And so that's a more subtle way to sell and also

to serve someone so that they feel more confident about their

purchase. Yeah,

I love that.

I love that idea and I'm also thinking again as I'm

thinking of our audience and opportunities for them,

if you have a primarily local consumer base and you're out

at a craft show,

then announcing that you're going to be there right before then

so people can see you in person if you don't have

a brick and mortar shop.

So that those could be other reasons to go and you

know, maybe even a coupon or a special,

I don't know if it's a quiz or something that if

you do that they get something special when they come and

visit you or I don't know.

Something like that.

I'm not a huge fan of discounting all the time.

Like I don't think it's a good idea to train your

customer just to buy when you're going to have product on

discount. I don't think that's good for a healthy business,

but there are times when you can strategically interject that into

your plan to make it valuable.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, and I agree you don't want to always be pulling

the lever of there are certain brands that that's their trick.

Like you would be completely foolish to buy anything full price

at bath and body works or old Navy or Kohl's.

There's always a sale and that's how they run their business.

It's a discount brand and that's fine.

If you want to make that decision about your brand,

then just know that that's always a lever you're going to

have to pull and you'll need to price accordingly.

But the other lever that you can pull or ways to

get people excited is with new products or new ways to

use your current products.

And so if that's kind of the only ways to make

current people excited or the other thing that you'll need to

do then if you can't do either of those is to

bring in new customers.

So you know,

that's why I encourage my clients and students to often think

about how can you repackage what you already have to make

a new bundle or a new gift set.

We're launched something New.

It doesn't have to be completely new or a 30 piece

launch, but that's how you create excitement because if you're just

emailing people over and over and over again with the same

stuff that gets really sale,

it would really stale.

Right. What do you think in terms of frequency,

does it have to be weekly is monthly.

Okay. What's your thought there?

I would say monthly is not frequent enough just because open

rates, depending on the size of your list,

but more mature brand with a larger list.

If you were in the eCommerce space,

if you are getting between 20 and 30% that would be

awesome on your open rates.

So if you are only sending one email a month and

they're only going to open it 20% of the time,

it's going to be many months before they actually engage with

your content.

And so I would recommend at least twice a month and

ultimately just do what is realistic for your brand.

So no less than twice a month doesn't mean every day

for sure unless you're on some type of a promotional countdown

or something,

you know,

maybe there's something special that you're doing and you're just going

to test,

you know?

And I think that's another thing is a lot of it

is also testing what your audience is going to want and

what they respond to best.

Cause it could be different based on what your product is,

how you interact with your audience,

et cetera.

But let's go back to this open rate issue.

This is something that I think challenges everybody who is really

paying attention to email marketing because yeah,

this is exactly what I'm seeing.

Just like you're saying,

Katie is between 20 and 30% I think there's two things

at play here.

One is what we've just talked about having a really strong

and intriguing subject line,

but what the heck do we do with emails that continually

land in a promotion folder?

So don't even have a chance.

That subject line doesn't even have a chance.

If someone's not looking in their promotion folder,

much less spam.

We're not even going to go with the spam folder,

just promotion folder,

but what do you do?

Right? Well,

there's not a time you can do because,

and I'm not an expert on that specific algorithm within Gmail,

but one point of encouragement is not everybody uses Gmail and

not everyone uses their Gmail desktop.

If they're using just their native iPhone app to read email,

they're still going to see it.

There's no promotion tab in that.

One thing that helps is if you ask them to take

some sort of action in the first email you send,

whether that's Hey,

reply to this email and let me know X,

Y, and Z,

or introduce yourself.

Sometimes that can help keep emails out of the promotion folder

because you've had a one to one interaction with them.

And so that's or you know,

click over here,

something like that that can help a little bit.

Alright. And what about list cleaning?

I've heard that if you clean your list that will also

help because you have then a higher percentage of open rates

because if you pull everyone off your list who let's say,

let's say you did a super big promotion at some show

and you were giving a giveaway and I've made this error,

mind you and so people who even would never ever buy

your product enter into this giveaway cause they want to win

the prize but they're really not good candidates for a longterm

prospect. But now you have all these people on your list.

They never opened your emails cause they were never really interested

in the first place.

I'm thinking it's good hygiene just to regularly every six months

or so pull off people who aren't looking or opening your

emails. Like if they haven't opened an email for six months,

they probably aren't going to open an email next month from

you. Absolutely,

yes. That specifically affects spam filter.

So having super low open rates can trigger spam filters Of

your list overall,

right? Of your whole list.

Yes. So that's one reason why you use the word list

hygiene. So yes,

that's very important.

Yeah, and I would say some people ultimately looking at your

list size is just a vanity metric.

It feels good to say,

I have 6,000

people on my email list.

then it's just one.

You're paying too much for your email service because you're paying

to bring along 4,000

people that are completely uninterested.

It's just a vanity metric.

So like you said,

looking back through MailChimp,

you can create segments of people who Intel,

here's a group,

all the people that have not opened an email in the

last six months.

And then from there you have two choices.

One, you can just archive the contact.

So they're gone from your list.

They're gone from your list,

but you still have the email,

is that what you're saying?

Or you just delete them out?

Yeah, it basically deletes them.

So what you could do is you could just in some

world that if you really wanted them back,

you could just export it because technically you're still keep it

in a CSV file because you're technically allowed to contact those

people. They didn't say,

stop contacting me.

You're just choosing to not contact them and have them count

in your email program.

And so anyway,

you can do that.

Or you can use an automation to create what's called a

win-back series where,

and maybe you've received these emails before,

but it's basically the first email says,

Hey, are we breaking up?

And you tell them that you respect their inbox and you

want to make sure that you're only emailing them if they're

super interested.

You could even use that opportunity to say,

you know,

if you're still interested,

here's 10% to come back to the shop and spend it

in the shop.

And then you could maybe send them another email a few

days later and you say,

this is it.

Like if you want to keep receiving these emails,

click here.

If not,

I'm, you'll be removed from the list.

And then after that you can remove them from the list.

I will say those emails are not opened very well because

they haven't been opening your emails.

So some people would say that's worth the effort and if

you want to put in the effort,

just try to save the few that you can definitely do

that. But I would say it's okay.

Just archive them.

Yeah. You know what,

I'm kind of thinking of my behavior too.

Like you know,

you get so many emails,

even though I try to like,

and I do unsubscribe to ones that I'm really not interested

in anymore.

And I guess that's a point too,

is don't freak out if people unsubscribe to you,

they might be interested in one time.

It's okay,

don't feel bad about it,

just let it happen.

But I also too,

what you were just talking about Katie,

is I'll see emails coming through from people and I just

don't open them.

I might even delete them opened cause I just don't have

time right now or I'm not in the market for them.

But then if one of those win-back series comes through and

they say,

Hey, I'm thinking you don't care,

whatever you would say in the intro,

then I might open it because I might be like,

no, no,

no, I still want it.

I just haven't looked at it for awhile.

Right. Those are the people you're recapturing back in.

Sure. And you can do a similar series with people who,

it's also called a win back,

but people who have purchased from you in the past,

but they haven't made a purchase from you in the last

four months.

You would need your website to be connected to your email

service provider in order to do that,

to have that purchase data.

But that one's really pretty successful because they already bought from

you. So they're already a customer and so it's much cheaper

to get a repeat customer than to acquire an entirely new

one. And so if you can just offer them some sort

of small incentive or remind them of here's what's new in

the shop since you've last been here,

sometimes those can be successful as well.

Completely agree.

Absolutely. You know we so often are thinking,

especially as product Bape is businesses,

new customer,

new customer,

new customer and the gold is really in those repeat customers.

Absolutely. They also refer.

So that's a whole nother thing.

One topic just to finish this all up cause I'm watching

the time for everybody too,

is another big value I believe of email lists is the

ability to create lookalike lists in Facebook advertising.

So if that was a strategy people wanted,

you can take your email list and then upload it to

Facebook and either market to them,

which is a great way,

you know,

if you have people who aren't opening your emails,

it's a great way to reach them in a different way.

Right. So that's one thing you can do.

The other thing you can do is lookalikes who looks like

the same type of a customer by geography,

by purchasing behavior,

by interests and all of that who you're already attracting.

So this kind of circles us back to the interaction between

social and email because they can be very compatible in terms

of plays against each other.

But, and I'm just gonna make one more comment and then

you as the expert,

you can add on to whatever I'm saying,

but I'm in a mind flow here.

But if your quality of your list isn't good,

like how I was saying I made the mistake way back

and attracted a lot of people into that contest that really

weren't my customer.

If your list is muddy like that,

then you can't really do lookalikes cause you're not really attracting

your customer.

So again,

a reason to really have a list that solid value people

who would really be interested in your product.

Absolutely. Is there anything you would add to that,

Katie? No.

See that was awesome.

You were on it.

Okay. Yay.

Gold star for today.

All right.

What do you say to somebody who might have just started

their business so you know they're still new,

they're in the thick of things and it's much easier because

starting a business,

you're so overwhelmed with all the things.

What would be the few steps you should take to get

going with creating a solid email list that's going to perform

for your business?

I would say to not focus on the numbers of don't

be discouraged if you have 50 people on your email list

or 25 that's better than zero.

And like I said at the beginning of this conversation forward

as forward and so focusing on how can I best serve

the 40 people on this email list even if I wish

it was 400 so just to think through the ways and

decide how am I going to get people on this list,

whether that's through one of the strategies that we talked about

earlier, but just to decide and to try and to not

expect to have a huge list and you really do not

need a huge list to have meaningful results.

And so that's the encouragement I would give is that you're

not going to get just tons and tons of sales,

so I'm just starting out.

But if you start out small and have consistent effort,

I have seen that you will eventually get those fruitful results.

Perfect. Get started.

And then would you say also just get started and make

a plan so that you're emailing twice a month,

even if your list is 40 people?

Yeah, and what you can do is,

this might be a little bit more advanced strategy,

but also throw it out there for some listeners who are

ready for it.

What you can do is if,

let's say you write an email and it only goes out

to the 20 people on your list,

but if someone joins tomorrow,

they didn't get that email,

and so you can add old emails to your welcome sequence

so that as people sign up,

maybe they're now they're going to get 10 emails from you

because you're taking old email content and putting it into a

welcome sequence that is automatically going to be sent to them

and to introduce them to your brand.

Of course this only works with content that's more evergreen.

Or if you have it more stable product catalog,

like you wouldn't add a black Friday sale to a welcome

sequence that wouldn't make sense.

But if you had some more evergreen content and you just

wanted to make sure as my list grows that people are

going to see this awesome content that I worked really hard

on. You can add it to your automation so that eventually

they will receive it too.

Wonderful. Yes.

And you know,

we really haven't talked about what welcome sequences should look like,

but I know that's what you do in shop pop.

So why don't you talk a little bit about that because

I think a lot of our listeners will be interested in

that. Yeah,

so like you said at the beginning of my business partner,

Emily and I,

we started at Shopify because there's just so many businesses that

are in DIY mode with their marketing and that's fine.

And so we wanted to create a really easy place for

specifically shop owners to go to get the resources they need

to do better marketing,

less time.

So we have done for you email header graphics so you

can download and use in your next email.

And then we also have a class that is specifically about

MailChimp design where I teach you block by block.

This is how you build a beautiful effective marketing email.

And so we're excited about shop pop and I'm thankful to

now be able to share some marketing secrets with a bigger

audience. It sounds to me like the way you're talking,

that shot pop is new.

Yes it is.

so we're really excited to see where it goes.

And so just as a thank you to the listeners who

tuned in today,

I'm Emily and I would love to give the gift biz

15% off everything in the shop pop store,

which is the biggest discount we offer.

Wow. So you can use code gift biz 15 at checkout

to save 15% Oh that is fabulous.

Thank you so much.

That's a surprise.

I didn't know that was happening.

I love that.

And I know a lot of you guys have been asking

for something like this.

We've been talking about this in gift biz breeze,

the Facebook group,

and also in maker's MBA,

which is my signature course currently closed,

but that's been a big topic there as well.

So Katie,

thank you so much.

I know there are a lot of people who are going

to go and check that out for sure.

You have just given us that awesome gift.

I would also like to give you a gift.

I'd like to present you with a magical box that contains

unlimited possibilities for your future.

So this is your dream or your goal of almost unreachable

Heights that you would wish to obtain.

Please accept this gift and open it in our presence.

What is inside your box?

I love this question.

Inside my box would be time freedom.

So I've had seasons in business where I've made almost no

money and I've had seasons where I made more money than

I need.

And walking through both of those,

I've realized that the thing that makes me feel richest is

when I have time to do the things that really matter

to me.

Whether that's having margin for a yoga class or being able

to say yes to a friend to meet up with them

for lunch.

So that's really what I'm chasing with my business is to

have more time freedom to do the things that really matter.

Oh my gosh,

I love that.

That just gave me chills.

I mean time you can never get back,

right? So you want to make the most of it and

have it fulfilled in the best way.

I love that time freedom.

You're right.

Well Katie,

it has been wonderful having you on the show.

I know this is going to become one of the most

popular podcast episodes in my list because the topic that we

really haven't gotten a chance to dive into as deep as

we have now and so for that,

thank you so,

so much and I'm just loving getting to know you too.

You're awesome.

Yeah, it was great to be with these Sue and I

really appreciate the opportunity to be here.

Okay. There you have it.

Email marketing,

everything you needed to know.

I really hope you don't just Mark this off that you've

listened to this podcast,

but that you really give the potential for email marketing.

Some thought.

If you're already doing email marketing and you see some ways

to improve,

get to it right now,

or if you don't have an email marketing plan,

take some time out today.

Maybe go treat yourself to a cup of coffee or an

afternoon, I don't know,

ice cream cone maybe and sit and think a little bit

and develop at least the first steps to a strategy for

an email marketing program.

What I really don't want is for you to think that

this is a great idea,

that it's something that you want to implement into your business

and then it gets lost,

so what could have been something really good all of a

sudden just disappears.

The key to not having that happen is to integrate it

into your and to commit time to making a plan and

then executing on that plan,

which, and I didn't do this intentionally.

I swear leads back to what I was talking about before

the show even got started and that is the video that

I have on the power of purpose.

So again,

the link to that video if you want to watch it

is gift biz,

unwrapped.com forward slash.

Planner. Okay,

up next week.

A really interesting show.

I know you guys make so many different things and one

of your challenges is what am I going to do?

Of all the things that I may,

what am I going to build a business around?

The best practice is to start with one thing.

So you become known for one thing,

but over time there is the possibility of adding to your

product mix.

Once you're known and once you're already established and you're going

to hear how one amazing artist has done this and I

think you're going to be surprised at the next product she's

bringing to market.

That's all up next week on the gift biz on wrapped

podcast. After you listened to the show,

if you like what you're hearing,

make sure to jump over and subscribe to the show on

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That way you'll automatically get the newest episodes when they go

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