Amiga, Let's Talk
Amiga, Let's Talk
Mastering Email Marketing: Email Strategies and Engaging Newsletters
How would you like to master the art of email marketing and elevate your business to new heights? In this episode of "Amigas, Let's Talk," I, Damaris Ramirez, uncover the transformative power of owning your email list. We cover how a well-maintained list can lead to higher conversion rates, build trust, and foster lasting loyalty with your audience. By keeping your emails concise yet impactful, and communicating regularly, you can significantly improve customer retention and access invaluable analytics to tailor your strategies.
Ready to craft newsletters that your audience can't wait to open? Learn the secrets of engaging content, from personal updates and industry insights to book recommendations and exclusive promotions. Discover the ideal timing and length for your newsletters, and get the lowdown on top email marketing platforms like MailChimp, ConvertKit, and Kajabi. Plus, get inspired by successful companies like the Honest Company and Spanx to elevate your newsletter game. So grab your coffee or tea, settle in, and let's talk about growing your business with effective email marketing and newsletters!
Hello and welcome to Amigas, let's Talk, the show where we discuss life and business and everything in between. I am your host, damaris Ramirez, and every week, we will bring you stories and insights, hopefully to inspire you to think differently. My goal is that every woman lives her best life. So, amiga, grab a cup of coffee or tea and let's talk. Amiga, today let's talk about two powerful tools that can help you grow your business, and that's having an email list and having a newsletter, and so I want to discuss, like what the benefits are, the specifics of setting them up, what platforms are out there, specifically the ones that I use, and why you shouldn't solely rely on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram to have your subscribers in, to have your audience. So let's talk about why it's important. The primary reason for having an email list and a newsletter is because you have ownership. When you build your mailing list, you're going to own the contact information of your subscribers, and when you're dealing with social media platforms, the algorithm and policy changes. They can drastically impact your reach and your engagement. So that doesn't give you direct access to your audience. But if you start creating an email list, you will have that option to be able to reach them to them whenever you want. So let's talk about some of these benefits. Number one of you having an email list is it can create audience building. So you want to start collecting email addresses as soon as possible from your first customer. You know, immediately after you create that website and they give you that one email list with your company name, start sending out emails to your customers. You know even the ones that have previously purchased, because a lot of times we'll start a business. Maybe you don't even do a website, so by the time that you don't even do a website, so by the time that you do, you already have customers. Even the people that you maybe gave out some samples to, they're your customers. So add them to the email list. Start sending them emails with that email address so that they know even if it's family and friends that you have an official email address.
Speaker 1:The next one is direct communication. Right, you're going to be able to send personalized messages directly to your customers' inboxes. You're going to have, through email, a direct line of communication. That's going to be more personal and engaging for your customers. So the next thing is you can get higher conversion rates through emails.
Speaker 1:Usually, people are more likely to take action on an email, whether it's through purchasing or signing up for an event, or maybe there's a free resource that you're providing and they're going to download it and through these communications. Next thing you're going to do is you're going to build trust and loyalty with these customers, so regularly sending valuable content through your email or through a newsletter. This is going to help you establish authority and build trust with your audience, and the loyalty is then going to translate into repeat customers. You know business referrals, so you want to continuously have contact with them. You're also going to get better analytics through email marketing platforms. They're going to offer you analytics, so you're going to be able to track what are the open rates, like how many people that receive your email opened your email click through rates. Do you have something embedded in your email that you want them to click to right? Maybe you have a call to action you want to say click here and it'll give you the information as to how many people went that extra step, and it could give you other metrics too. So this data is going to help you understand how your content is resonating with your customer and your audience. That way, then, you can adjust your strategies accordingly, based on you know, maybe you use a different color for an ad, maybe you offer a different special to certain areas. You're going to be able to say, well, you know they like this better, or you know this color in this ad worked better, so you're going to be able to then do some adjustments with your marketing strategy. And then the last one is, of course, you're going to be able to do better customer retention. If you're using a newsletter, people like to stay informed about new products, upcoming events, special promotions. The other thing is this is going to keep your brand on top of the mind of your customer and then also encourage that repeat business the mind of your customer and then also encourage that repeat business.
Speaker 1:The frequency of sending emails to customers can vary, really, from industry to industry and what your specific business goal is, but there are some general guidelines based on some testing that has been done by either MailChimp or HubSpot, and so what they say is usually the most common frequency is going to be your weekly email for most businesses. So you can send one email one time a week just to keep your audience engaged without overwhelming them. And you could also if you decided. Well, you know, one time a week is too much. You can also do bi-weekly, and that might be if you're starting out new. Maybe you don't have enough content. Then maybe the bi-weekly is going to be more effective for you.
Speaker 1:Sometimes I get questions. Well, if I'm sending out these emails to Maris, what would you recommend would be the optimal length for a business email? And the most important thing is what the content is? Right, because you don't want to just have content that's not relevant to your customer. So as long as you know that your content is going to be informative for your customer, then your word count should be typically between 50 and 125 words, and there has been studies that an analysis I have shown. With between 50 and 125 words, you're going to get about a 50% response and that's pretty good. You're not going to always get 100% response and you'll see that via your analytics. And if you're thinking of it, okay, not just word count, reading time, right, how long is it going to take them to read your email? So it should take them about one to two minutes often for that to be the most effective. People are busy, so you know they want to make sure that they can you know that your email is easy to read, that it's skimmable, clear, concise sentences. You could even do bullets just for easier reading.
Speaker 1:Okay, let's talk about newsletters, the specifics about newsletter, whether it's the frequency, the length, the platform suggestions. So really, frequency, that really depends on how much time you have. So a good starting point is to send a newsletter bi-weekly and, of course, if you could weekly would be more ideal, but aim for bi-weekly because consistency is going to be key. You want to choose a frequency that you can maintain. So, for example, mine, weekly, bi-weekly, because consistency is going to be key. You want to choose a frequency that you can maintain. So, for example, mine, weekly. Bi-weekly is just too much for me because I have a lot going on. So I usually send my newsletter quarterly. And then the other thing is, I am able to tie it to seasons. But, more importantly, most of my courses are extensive and they're long, so I usually get around two newsletters within a course cycle, so I can kind of talk about how it's going. I can talk about what's coming as far as the new courses. So that's what really works best for me.
Speaker 1:I would also suggest that you name your newsletter right. Make it memorable, make it fun. For example, my newsletter is called the Scoop, so I send it to all my students, past and present, even the ones that are currently registered, and what I include in mine is really the Scoop. What am I personally up to? What book am I reading? I even give a personal review of how I feel about that book. I talk about upcoming classes, I talk about industry changes. Sometimes I embed some promotional specials inside of the newsletter and usually within the hour I'm getting bombarded with responses via my email, because the newsletter goes out through the email.
Speaker 1:So one of the suggestions I would say is, when you're going to release or drop your newsletter, make it at a time that you're going to be available to respond immediately when you get those answers. So, for example, I might get hey, damaris, it was nice hearing from from you. How are you doing? How's everything? Oh, I love that picture of you, you know, in Utah doing hiking. Or I love that picture of you at the opera. So I always get these responses and what I've learned is I try to respond to them right away. A lot of times also they'll say hey, I have a friend that's interested in taking your class. You know when is the next class on this topic. So you want to be able to immediately respond to that, so that they feel like they're being listened to and you can have that immediate engagement.
Speaker 1:The other thing I would say is length. Right, how long should your newsletter be? And I will say the same thing I said about the emails as long as it can provide value, that's how long your newsletter should be. You want it to keep the reader's attention. As you see, I have about four sections, so three to five sections is the average. A little mix of everything in your newsletter, and make sure that it's fun, make sure it has you know. You can have snippets from articles. We want tips, promotions, updates. It definitely should not just be a page of an ad of the product that you offer, because then that's not a newsletter, that's an ad page. So make sure that you can make it fun.
Speaker 1:So, as far as the platforms that I use for my email and newsletter, I actually use two platforms, but let me tell you the ones that I recommend. You can use MailChimp, convertkit or Kajabi. Those are the three main that I've come across that I would recommend. I am currently using MailChimp and Kajabi, so I started with MailChimp and that's really good for beginners and they have a free plan with up to 500 subscribers and then you could also then increase your plan to additional contacts and then you're able to send additional emails. So, little by little, I went from MailChimp free plan to then the lowest paying and then I think right now, because I have over 1500 subscribers more in the second level of paid plan, which is only still economical because it's $23 a month. I also use not ConvertKit, but I highly recommend it because I did check it out.
Speaker 1:But by the time I checked out ConvertKit, I already was also using Kajabi. So Kajabi unfortunately doesn't have a free option and it's a little costy. So I would say for more for advance. So at the point that I started developing my courses online, I use Kajabi. I was also able to get a lot of feedback and information on how to use Kajabi, because I was able to take the course with Amy Porterfield, which I highly recommend, on how to do an online course successfully, and they recommended Kajabi during that class and I was able to get a discount. So that's how I ended up in Kajabi.
Speaker 1:But I would say, as I said, it's not a free version and it's more for if you're advanced. But, as I said, there is in between ConvertKit, and one of the things I do like about ConvertKit which I would have used if I wouldn't have started with MailChimp is that they have something called the newsletter plan and it's free. It allows you to have 10,000 subscribers in the beginning. What that would do for you is allow you to begin there, right, it's free, and then you can decide before and you could stay there if you want the next paid level. The first paid level for them is $29 a month, but then it goes down to a thousand because at the 10,000, the free version of ConvertKit they're also going to do some marketing. They're going to do some ConvertKit recommendations, which basically is their place where they can put sponsored content, think like advertising. So when you get into their paid version, they go down to a thousand and that's how maybe your costs might go up.
Speaker 1:But you can stay for free, whether it's in MailChimp, which is 500 subscribers, or ConvertKit, which is also free for 10,000 subscribers, and then you can do your own research and see where do you want to go next. That's what I would suggest, so you could start creating your mailing list in both of you know, either MailChimp or ConvertKit, and then also send out your emails through those platforms, and they're going to help you then to be able to develop, you know, your mailing list and promote your business, and that's going to be really important. You're going to always need to have contact with your customers and so, again, you can check out Mailchimp, convertkit and, when you're advanced, kajabi. I highly recommend that you also follow very successful companies and that way you can see how are they doing their marketing, how are they sending out their emails and newsletters. So two that I highly recommend that will be familiar to you is the Honest Company and Spanx. So for the Honest Company, you can go to their website and then just sign up for their newsletter. The same thing with Spanx go to Spanx and go and find where it says newsletter sign up and sign up there. That way you're getting emails and newsletters from companies that are doing marketing through that type of modality, and then you can get ideas from what they're doing, because they're also trying to leverage their email newsletters so that they can share new products. They can, you know, give you advice. They can also keep their customers informed. They'll send you information on their sale events. They'll even send you, like style inspiration, so it'll give you ideas of some of the things that maybe you could do with your business via these emails or newsletters.
Speaker 1:I mean, as always, here's some book recommendations on the subject of email marketing that you can find on Amazon. So these three books, I have read all of them, so I highly recommend them, and what they did for me is they provided me insight on, you know, how can I be more successful in building my email list, how can I create more engaging emails, and, of course, with the ultimate goal of converting my subscribers into customers. And these particular ones I'm highlighting I like because I think they're useful for small business owners and or solo entrepreneurs. So the first one is Email Marketing Demystified by Matthew Paulson. The second one is called Ultimate Guide to Email Marketing for Business by Susan Gunlius Business by Susan Gunlius. And then the last one is called Email Persuasion by Ian Brody. So go check them out.
Speaker 1:I think you'll really enjoy just hearing from other people a perspective of why they think it's important and what are some of the techniques that they use to do successful email marketing. And then I want to leave you with a quote by Steve Jobs and we know how successful Apple has been and he said get closer than ever to your customers, so close that you tell them what they need well before they realize it themselves. So here you have it, amiga Information on why you need a mailing list, and we'll talk soon. Until next time. Thank you for making Amiga's let's Talk part of your day. We hope you enjoyed listening to today's episode and be sure to hit the subscribe button to get notified when we release the next one. And if you know someone who would enjoy the show, please share it with them. I would really appreciate it. Thanks for listening and remember to smile, listen and be patient today. Until next time, bye.