Upscale your Email Marketing List

by | Mar 14, 2023 | 0 comments

Building your email and SMS lists is a key factor for the success of your business. Today, Kim and Cara are here to help animal-based business owners with three effective strategies for growing their list. Firstly, you should provide your leads with something truly valuable, such as a thoughtful lead magnet or a generous coupon. Secondly, take advantage of every single opportunity to add qualified leads to your database. Finally, don’t forget to remove contacts that aren’t engaging with your content, and replace them with ones that are more likely to interact. Doing so will ensure that your list remains up-to-date and that you can focus on the people who are genuinely interested in your services.

Transcript
Jaz:

Welcome to The Business Animal podcast. Saddle up for a

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gallop to the top of the animal industry, where you'll learn how

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to tame your wild business beast, with tips, techniques,

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and tools that will take overwhelm to obedience school,

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and have you wagging your tail with joy. And now your hosts,

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Kim Beer, and Cara Taylor Swift.

Kimberly Beer:

Hey there business animals. It's Kim with

Kimberly Beer:

Be More Business

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and Cara with Fast Horse photography. Hi, Kim. How

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are you today?

Kimberly Beer:

I'm doing well. Cara, how are you today?

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I'm good. I'm sitting here at my desk and my dogs are

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all around me. And they have been very busy with barking this

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morning. So hopefully they will be quiet. But I hear that you

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have been delivering kids all morning or all week. It feels

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like all week.

Kimberly Beer:

Well, it's actually for the last week and a

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half. We've been having little baby goats. We have three mamas

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with their little babies on the ground. And we had four and last

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one. So we're running a 75% live baby operation around here right

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now. But yes, they're cuter than little bugs and feisty and the

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ones that are a little bit older are just like full of

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themselves.

Cara Taylor Swift:

So I want to come play with them.

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They are so much fun to play with. And they're so

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adorable. There is really seriously nothing cuter than a

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baby goat. And we have two sables, which are they're all

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dairy goats, but those are colored their creamy colors when

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it was creamy colored when it's black and white. And then the

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other one is a LaMancha, which is the goat that doesn't have

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ears. So it's actually a LaMancha Alpine cross. Yeah,

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they just have little teeny tiny like

Cara Taylor Swift:

one of those fancy designer goats. Is it like

Cara Taylor Swift:

a designer goat? breeds of dogs, like a fancy goat?

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It's a fancy goat, but they're all fancy

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goats because they're all dairy goats that are purebred at kinda

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because they mix up the dairy goat breeds a little bit. They

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call them experimental. So but this particular one is hola

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mancia it's they're so cute because they have these little

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like elf ears versus like full on goat ears. And if you Google

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lamonta goat

Cara Taylor Swift:

you'll see and I have to go look up goat

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ears because I'm not even sure what they look like.

Kimberly Beer:

Yeah, so Google LaMancha goat elf ears and

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that's what baby's ears look like and I swear to God it makes

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him sassier I don't know if it's the lack of ears or the

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specialness or what but they just seem to be a little sassier

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and then the other goats and so the little boy is that he's got

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the little elf ears and he is just awful up so

Cara Taylor Swift:

Oh, do they do a little curl over thing like

Cara Taylor Swift:

little? Yeah, like little curl over? Oh my goodness. It is

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super cute. Okay. Kind of creepy. Look into It's alright.

Cara Taylor Swift:

It's like combination cute and creepy. So I'm just gonna throw

Cara Taylor Swift:

that out there. I'd still come play with them.

Kimberly Beer:

Yeah, they look a little like aliens. Okay, yeah,

Cara Taylor Swift:

like little aliens. That's a great way to

Cara Taylor Swift:

describe it. Little alien goat. Yeah, well, I would still come

Cara Taylor Swift:

play with them. I bet they're super cute. Even if they are

Cara Taylor Swift:

have like, a goofy alien appearance. But that's always do

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and they haven't seen the alien personality.

Cara Taylor Swift:

Yeah, it is. Spring has sprung babies are

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everywhere.

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Yep, the spring papers which are for those of

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you who do not live in an area that has frogs. Those are the

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frogs that come out every spring and they're really the

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Harbingers that say it's really spring now. I mean, forget the

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groundhog I talked to Tony Phil is fantastic. But when you hear

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spring papers in Missouri, that means that spring is here. Okay.

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And I heard my first spring papers. I think it was on

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Tuesday. I announced it on Facebook, because I'm that

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excited about spring getting here. I saw that

Cara Taylor Swift:

but I thought you were talking about baby

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birds. Baby birds and I thought that seems early for baby birds

Cara Taylor Swift:

that I thought you know, you're there. You're the ranch woman

Cara Taylor Swift:

you know more than me. What do I know about baby bird? lifecycles

Cara Taylor Swift:

nothing.

Kimberly Beer:

Nope, those are frogs. Those are frogs. Now the

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more you know, the more you know those are frog well

Cara Taylor Swift:

spring is here definitely in Florida two

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I've been photographing baby foals so it's that time of year.

Cara Taylor Swift:

I love it. It's

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my favorite time of year is that when this the

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spring papers come out and it's all the babies start come in. We

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have little baby calves and we don't have any baby horses

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around here. I don't have my last stallion died. Oh, good

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God, five, six years ago and it's like, I'm not doing I'm not

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doing any more babies. So I'll enjoy other people's other

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people's children and other people's foals.

Cara Taylor Swift:

So you go there you go. Well, I could talk

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about baby animals in springtime, this entire episode

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if you want or we could talk about what we're actually going

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to supposed to be talking about today for our listeners, which

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is what cam what are we talking about today?

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So I also We could spend all day talking

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about baby animals. But I'm sure if you're listening to The

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Business Animal podcast, you probably appreciate that but

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would also like some business kind of stuff to go on to. And

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today we're talking about upscaling your email marketing

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list. And you all know if you've listened to this show for a hot

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minute, I'm a big fan of email marketing, even though the world

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sometimes is a little bit, particularly business owners. I

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don't know about consumers, but business owners are a little bit

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draggy on their feet about utilizing email marketing, but

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it is still valid, it is still one of the best ways to convert

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your audience from being interested people into being

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purchasers. So that conversion, the return on your investment

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for the amount of time that it takes email marketing is super

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important. But your email marketing can't do squat, if you

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don't have a good list to email market to. Now, when a couple of

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caveats for those of you if you're brand new in business,

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and you're brand new to the podcast and don't know, your

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list needs to be an opt in list, it needs to be people who have

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agreed and provided their consent to be on your list and

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shown an interest. And then you have to keep up on the other

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side with thoughtful content that you provide to them that

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keeps them interested and is relevant to wherever they are in

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the customer journey. So those are three sentences for a very

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complex subject that has a lot of moving parts and a lot of

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details. But that's the highlights. Today, what I want

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to really talk about with Cara and with you is how do we really

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upscale our email marketing list? How do we make it more

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effective? And how do we make it so that when we send down an

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email, we have a higher open rate, which everybody wants? And

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how do we make it so that there's more conversions from

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the people who receive that particular email. And to me,

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that falls down to three things. First of all, getting people

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onto your list, getting the right people onto your list. And

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that's big three number one is to provide a very thoughtful

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lead magnet, or a deep bonus coupon if you are a product

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oriented business, that you don't really have the

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availability to do a lead magnet. And we'll get into that

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all the details there. Number two, to use every opportunity to

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add qualified leads to your database. And the qualified is

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the key word in that sentence. I see a lot of people who don't

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always do that. So we're going to talk about that. And then the

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final one, and this is the scary one for most business owners.

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And number three, is get rid of the contacts that aren't engaged

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and replace them than with ones that are. So let's dive in,

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shall we? Or do you have anything to add to my mantra

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about email marketing this morning?

Cara Taylor Swift:

No, I do not. I'm excited because I have some

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questions I want to ask you. So let's get rolling.

Kimberly Beer:

Perfect. So the first one is to create a way an

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avenue for people to get onto your list. And we really want

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people on your list that are going to become customers. We

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don't want to have our email list full of people who are just

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like random relatives, friends who want to be supportive. We

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love their support. Please do not get me wrong, cheerlead.

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Come to my open house. But my email list if you're not

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somebody who's going to purchase from me is not the place that

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you need to be. And the way that we attract people onto our list

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is primarily through asking them, but it feels really

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awkward sometimes as a business owner to just say, hey, I want

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to put you on my email marketing list. And it doesn't work. It

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feels kind of rude actually, when I'm doing a lot of

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networking right at the moment, a lot. Like I'm out networking

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my little I'm the Social Butterfly of Missouri right now.

Cara Taylor Swift:

Yeah, you're a social butterfly right now.

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So I'm out with do the talking to a lot of

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people promoting the podcast footprinting, I just I have so

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many things going on. I want to get people on my VIP List. And I

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do ask if somebody hands me their card. But I feel really

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cheesy running around a room networking saying can I add you

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to my VIP List? Can I add you to my VIP List? You know, that's

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not as fun as me being able to walk up to somebody and start a

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conversation and then find where they fit in my paradigm and say,

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you know, I have this really good white paper article thing

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that I wrote guide. And I would love to give that to you. If you

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give me your email address, I'll add you to my VIP List and

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you'll get that right away. So it makes me feel a little bit

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better. It makes me feel more helpful. An example of this is

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in my photography business. We of course do cowgirls with

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cameras. I think everybody who listens to this show is aware of

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that. And we do photography education over there. And so I

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create did a workflow guide for Lightroom, which is a piece of

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software that photographers use. And this basically teaches you

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how to set up your workflow. And you can get it from my website,

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we put it out on social media on the cowgirls with cameras

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channel, I put it out on mine. And when I'm networking with

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photographers, if they even remotely mentioned that they

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edit with Lightroom, I'm like, you know, I have this great

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light room workflow guide. And well, if you'd like that, if you

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just give me your email address, I'll add you to my VIP List, and

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it'll come right away to your inbox and people sign up for it,

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it makes me feel good, they also get something that immediately

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has a good feeling for them with me, they see what I can do, they

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get an understanding of who I am as an photography instructor.

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And it just builds a really good relationship and rapport right

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from the get go. And it also means that I'm drawing the exact

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right people into my list, because people who are

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interested in improving their workflow in Lightroom, are

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interested in learning more about photography. So now I have

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upscaled my list from just any photographer out there in the

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world, to people who have an interest in learning more. And

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that means that they're more likely to purchase from me and

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they're more likely to open my emails. So that's why I say you

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have to have a very thoughtful lead magnet, you really need to

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gear it towards the target market that you want to bring in

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one at a time, folks one at a time. If you have multiple

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target markets, you can do this, but concentrate on one at a

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time. So that you're bringing them in very specifically, very

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thoughtfully. And if you have a product that you're selling, and

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you're like, I don't know how to write something like a workflow

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guide, or I'm currently working on one for the mindset, Gestalt

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business, that is around three indications you're in your own

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way, which is what I kind of talked about getting people out

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of their own way. So I have three indications you're in your

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own way, and then asterik, what you can do about it, which is

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what that lead magnet is going to be about. If you have a

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business, however, that you're like, I don't know if I could

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write something like that, or I don't know if that lead magnet

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would work for me than having that deep bonus coupon if you

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have a widget or a product that you have. And it doesn't have to

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be for a discount, necessarily, it could be a bonus, or it could

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be a discount off of a additional item, like you sell

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your main widget for X number of dollars, and you don't discount

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that. But maybe you have a service program. And if they

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sign up for the list, they're automatically qualified to buy

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the product at the full retail price. But then they may get the

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service contract at a 25% discount or something like that.

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Or they may get an extra six months on their service

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contract, whatever you want to do. But there's ways to work

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this where it's either really thoughtful about getting the

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right person in, or you're really giving something bonus

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wise that makes joining your list, very appealing to the

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people who are deeply interested in what you have to do.

Cara Taylor Swift:

I love that I was thinking about this topic

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and this particular point of our big three. And there were two

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things that I kind of wanted to just put it out there. And the

Cara Taylor Swift:

first one is is you can think about the different places where

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you might have the lead magnet housed, you want to have it in

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all the right places. So you want to be thinking about where

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those places are. So like your homepage and you can do the do

Cara Taylor Swift:

they call them pop ups. Those little pop ups that come up as

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before you exit a page or when you come on click on pop ups

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the pop ups and there's they you can actually

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workI those it is pop up is the right word. And what's more is

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if you have the right plugins, okay good or your website you

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can actually people have like movements they make with their

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mouse or their fingers right before they intend to exit. And

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so you can actually set your pop up to occur when the computer

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when the software realizes that that person has an exit intent.

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So it's funny because you I'm sure you've noticed one more

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thing. Yeah, one more thing here you go join my list and get this

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so before those people Yeah, it's kind of cool. How does it

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though

Cara Taylor Swift:

it is really cool. And I was just thinking

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about like those places where you want to think about being

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intentional about putting your lead magnet so you're you can

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put lead magnets inside blog posts, you can pin social posts

Cara Taylor Swift:

with lead magnets. But then I started thinking about like my

Cara Taylor Swift:

own thoughts around like creating a lead magnet and being

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thoughtful with that. And I love the idea that you can Look at

Cara Taylor Swift:

your existing content, and you can upgrade your existing

Cara Taylor Swift:

content with your lead magnet. So for example, you can take,

Cara Taylor Swift:

maybe you have already written a really popular blog post. And

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when you look at your analytics, you're seeing that it routinely

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gets a lot of traffic. So you can think about that blog post

Cara Taylor Swift:

and how you can add a lead magnet to it that's relevant to

Cara Taylor Swift:

the topic. So for example, I have a blog post that

Cara Taylor Swift:

historically has done really well for me. And it's something

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on the topic of five tips to photograph your horses for the

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holidays, this is probably one of my most popular blog posts.

Cara Taylor Swift:

And I could go into that then and create a lead magnet,

Cara Taylor Swift:

something like a list of the top five holiday horse poses you

Cara Taylor Swift:

must try or best places to shop for holiday horse props. So

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you're upgrading existing content by adding a lead magnet,

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and you're being intentional about it by thinking about your

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content that's already performing really well. And you

Cara Taylor Swift:

can do this across your website on multiple pages. And Kim said,

Cara Taylor Swift:

have one that you're focusing on at a time. But to me if you've

Cara Taylor Swift:

got a couple different areas where people are coming in, and

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there might be opportunity to create a lead magnet around

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that. I don't think that's necessarily a bad idea. What do

Cara Taylor Swift:

you think about this idea of upgrading existing content for

Cara Taylor Swift:

your lead magnets,

Kimberly Beer:

I love upgrading the existing content to utilize

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that data to tell you Yeah, that's going to tell you that

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people are interested in it if it's been popular, that means

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that you're more likely to get more success with it focus on

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one at a time, like don't offer people like two on the same page

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for sure. As far as the selection because gotta get

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decision paralysis, you don't want to overwhelm them. Yeah,

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they get decision paralysis, and then they don't know what to

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sign up for. So I always think of like, don't have popups on

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every page that would pop up and say, Ooh, get this one or get

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this one. You could also have one pop up that lets them choose

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their free gift as well. Like you could have a pop up where it

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has a selection. And it could say, if you click this box, you

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get this free freebie, if you get this one, you get that one.

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So you choose which one you want as the consumer, I'm still a big

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fan of keep it super simple and very focused. And if you don't

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catch them this round, you'll catch them the next one.

Cara Taylor Swift:

And if you're like me, you serve more than one

Cara Taylor Swift:

type of client. So like I serve equestrian portrait clients, but

Cara Taylor Swift:

I also serve equine photographers. So I have those

Cara Taylor Swift:

two segments. So when someone comes onto my website, they

Cara Taylor Swift:

choose their adventure, and they're either looking for

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photography, or they're looking to learn more about becoming an

Cara Taylor Swift:

equine photographer. So when they get to those places,

Cara Taylor Swift:

there's also opportunity there to make sure that your lead

Cara Taylor Swift:

magnet is focused on what that person would want. So just

Cara Taylor Swift:

trying to be intentional about that.

Kimberly Beer:

Absolutely. Are we ready to move on to take

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every opportunity to add those qualified leads to your

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database? Let's do it. Awesome. So qualified leads, folks are

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people that are really meant for your business. Now if you have

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more than one target market, that's going to be more than one

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encapsulated group. Like Cara just mentioned, she serves two

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different groups. But each of those groups has qualifications

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that work with her, right. So her primary focused group of

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people who are interested in getting equine portraits,

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they're going to have a different conversation than the

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people that are photographers who want to work with Kara, as a

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mentor, or in a workshop or something like that. So it's

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true across the board, I have very diverse clients just like

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that those people those populations very rarely cross

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right? In my world, my populations cross a little bit,

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but not tremendously. The thing is, is that you've got to know

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the qualifications, what makes a good client for every single

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target market that you serve, you really need to understand

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what qualifies an individual to be a good client for you. And I

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know that if you're new in business, you're probably

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thinking everybody is qualified. And the truth is, is they're

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not. And when you're talking to a really broad audience, no one

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listens to you. Or when you're talking about very specific

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things, people's ears perk up, and they come over and they

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really, really listen to you. So get down a list of what makes a

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qualified contact for you. Take a look and see, you know, like

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of the customers that you have, what are the commonalities that

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those customers share in relation to your business, of

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course, and the other stuff that they share is important to find

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them but to qualify them. What in context to your business is

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really common over your customer base. And then when you're

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looking Get adding people to your database, add the ones that

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fit those qualifications. Now you can kind of do a little

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dance here, right? You could have in almost every email

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marketing software out there will let you apply tags to

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people to segment them into groups, which is always

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advisable when it comes to email marketing. If you're really

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smart about how you bring people into your email database, into

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your email list, you'll use those tags rather than just

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blanket drop them in. So one of the things tactics that you can

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use is if they hit those qualifications to be your ideal

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client or so they're qualified, you could tag them with the tag,

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ideal client. If you on the other hand, see somebody who

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maybe doesn't hit all the marks, but has asked to be on your

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list, you could tag them with a different tag that designates

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them as maybe a an less qualified contact. And then

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you're going to want to tweak your communication to both of

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those groups. So that you are really, really focusing on the

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group A, that has the qualified leads, but you're also focusing

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on taking Group B, and qualifying who needs to move

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over to Group A, and who probably is going to fall off

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your list after a period of time. So the next step up from

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just like creating the database, is starting to segment that

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database into understanding how those people fit through your

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business. And just like you Kara, in your case, I'm sure

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you're doing this, but you need to have the leads for your

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portrait clients marked separately for the leads for the

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photographers, because it's a different conversation. And then

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with each and each of those two groups, you need to have an A

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list kind of people a B list, and then maybe people that are

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just interested in you, that's the friends and family group,

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right? Those are the people that are like rah, Euro has an email

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list, I'm gonna join it because I always want to stay on top of

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what she's doing. The reason why you guys this is so important, I

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need you to understand probably more than anything out of this

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episode is email marketing has changed in the fact that there's

Kimberly Beer:

so many marketing emails that are going out into people's

Kimberly Beer:

inboxes, the email service providers like Google and

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Hotmail, and MSN, they're now looking at those marketing

Kimberly Beer:

emails as kind of a nuisance. And so if people aren't

Kimberly Beer:

interacting with your emails, if they're not opening them, if

Kimberly Beer:

they're putting in them in a spam box, if they're deleting

Kimberly Beer:

them, it really does count against your reputation, if they

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look at the domain that your email is marked with the from,

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which should be your domain for your website, or whatever your

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digital presence is, and they start to go, okay, all of these

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emails from Fast Horse Photography are getting read. So

Kimberly Beer:

that means that that email has that domain has authority. And

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we're going to put more emails, we're good with that we see the

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individual that's getting it once that email, we see globally

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that that domain seems to have a good reputation. And so we'll

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watch that one through. Whereas if you start to get a bad

Kimberly Beer:

reputation by emailing too many people and not having a lot of

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opens and dadadada da, then you do hurt your ability to add

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people to your list. And it takes a while to reclaim your

Kimberly Beer:

reputation, so to speak. And there's a lot of factors that go

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into that. I don't want to say that's the only one. But what I

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am telling you is that the qualified part is more important

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than you think. And for more than just a perspective of you

Kimberly Beer:

want the right people to talk to it's important from a tech

Kimberly Beer:

perspective and algorithmic perspective as well. I agree.

Cara Taylor Swift:

I think that qualified part is really

Cara Taylor Swift:

important. And I just want to jump back you were talking about

Cara Taylor Swift:

the segmentation and how important that was because you

Cara Taylor Swift:

don't want to you know, if you're trying to speak to

Cara Taylor Swift:

everyone, you're not speaking to anyone. And when I first started

Cara Taylor Swift:

my email list, I wasn't segmenting. And I recently had

Cara Taylor Swift:

to go through the very painful process of segmentation, and

Cara Taylor Swift:

trying to take the hundreds of emails and contacts in that list

Cara Taylor Swift:

and segment them and I had to go through a whole process to do

Cara Taylor Swift:

that. And I feel like I'm finally there. But I will tell

Cara Taylor Swift:

people, the earlier you can start that process the better so

Cara Taylor Swift:

that you're not experiencing the pain that I felt at segmenting a

Cara Taylor Swift:

large list. And then the second part, Kim's said over and over

Cara Taylor Swift:

again how important that qualified part is, and I 100%

Cara Taylor Swift:

agree with her around that. And one of the mistakes that I

Cara Taylor Swift:

sometimes see that I think is a mistake is when folks do a

Cara Taylor Swift:

giveaway to grow their list. I don't think that a giveaway is a

Cara Taylor Swift:

bad thing. I've done giveaways. aise I have found them to be

Cara Taylor Swift:

pretty awesome, actually. But if you do a giveaway, you can run a

Cara Taylor Swift:

risk of getting a lot of unqualified leads for people who

Cara Taylor Swift:

just like to win stuff, but they're not really your target

Cara Taylor Swift:

market. Because remember, you're looking for qualified leads,

Cara Taylor Swift:

you're not just looking for anyone who's willing to give you

Cara Taylor Swift:

an email address. I don't know about you, Kim, but I have a

Cara Taylor Swift:

dump email that I use specifically when I have to give

Cara Taylor Swift:

an email to gain access to something, but I don't ever want

Cara Taylor Swift:

to hear from that person, if possible. So I actually have

Cara Taylor Swift:

dumped email. And I think a lot of people do today. So what

Cara Taylor Swift:

happens is, if you're creating something like a giveaway, and

Cara Taylor Swift:

the person just wants to win something, but they're not a

Cara Taylor Swift:

qualified lead, then they're gonna use their dumpy email, and

Cara Taylor Swift:

give you this email address that they've made up just for the

Cara Taylor Swift:

purpose of winning the giveaway. And then they end up

Cara Taylor Swift:

unsubscribing later, or you end up in the spam folder. So I

Cara Taylor Swift:

suggest thinking about that qualified part and thinking

Cara Taylor Swift:

about something that if you want to do a giveaway that you can

Cara Taylor Swift:

give away that isn't generic, and that is really specific to

Cara Taylor Swift:

your niche. So even better is if you can do a giveaway with your

Cara Taylor Swift:

own product or your own service, so that you really are

Cara Taylor Swift:

attracting your ideal customer. What do you think about that,

Kimberly Beer:

I'm a little bit where I don't like giveaways,

Kimberly Beer:

particularly because I think there are people out there that

Kimberly Beer:

have this mindset that and I love this mindset, by the way, I

Kimberly Beer:

find nothing wrong with it, but that they're gonna win, so they

Kimberly Beer:

won't buy. So I tend to counsel clients of mine against doing

Kimberly Beer:

any kind of like, product giveaway, the lead magnet, kind

Kimberly Beer:

of like the freebie sort of thing that's freebie

Kimberly Beer:

information, or that coupon, anything that catalyzes them to

Kimberly Beer:

purchase, I think is important. The place that I see a lot of

Kimberly Beer:

these unqualified leads coming from or when like you said, when

Kimberly Beer:

people do like a gift certificate, or maybe they do

Kimberly Beer:

$100 Visa card or something to add an expo booth, and then

Kimberly Beer:

anybody who puts their email into the thing gets a chance to

Kimberly Beer:

win the $100 Visa card or something like that. Yeah, it's

Kimberly Beer:

like a little bit of a raffle II kind of thing. If you do that,

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which happens a lot. And I tell you to get a lot of emails that

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way. But if you do that, make sure you segment those people

Kimberly Beer:

into their own list. And then what you want to do is use your

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email marketing, to qualify them. So send them an email that

Kimberly Beer:

has something very specific that's common to your audience.

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And if they don't open that email after two tries, remove

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them from your list, which is getting us into number three,

Kimberly Beer:

which is being able to say goodbye to those contacts that

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no longer fit for you, or who never fit for you in the first

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place. It's advisable for most email marketing companies will

Kimberly Beer:

advise you to clean your list of people who haven't opened an

Kimberly Beer:

email in three to six months. I think for a lot of small

Kimberly Beer:

businesses, I'm going to tell you that probably that that

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advice tends to rank for medium to bigger sizes, businesses, the

Kimberly Beer:

clients I work with tend to be very small businesses. And I'm

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going to tell you, for a lot of you, after a year, if somebody

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hasn't opened an email for a year, you should remove them

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from your list, you should take them off, not unsubscribe them

Kimberly Beer:

necessarily, but just kind of delete them from your database.

Kimberly Beer:

So that you're you're not emailing them.

Cara Taylor Swift:

Can I ask that? You know, I think how much

Cara Taylor Swift:

does like your frequency of sending emails play into that,

Cara Taylor Swift:

like if you're only sending six emails a year, versus if you're

Cara Taylor Swift:

sending in weekly email, like does that play into that some

Kimberly Beer:

I feel that it does play into it for and again,

Kimberly Beer:

that's why I said small businesses, because a lot of

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small businesses don't communicate to their list as

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regularly as they should, just because the owner doesn't have

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time to do email marketing at quite the same level. But I'm

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still going to say if that person if you're sending out six

Kimberly Beer:

emails a year, and that person has not opened six emails, it's

Kimberly Beer:

probably time to let that person a year in a year. Yeah. Because

Kimberly Beer:

if you have a problem no matter what, in that scenario, right?

Kimberly Beer:

Email marketing only really works. If the person on the

Kimberly Beer:

other end opens the email, there's a little bit of what I

Kimberly Beer:

would think is Shadow marketing. I would call it like that you

Kimberly Beer:

see the email in your inbox and you go ahead and delete it

Kimberly Beer:

without opening it. But the the person who's reading the subject

Kimberly Beer:

line is like, Oh, I remember Fast Horse Photography. And I

Kimberly Beer:

don't really am not interested in that specific email, but I'm

Kimberly Beer:

kind of staying top of mind. There's a little bit of that in

Kimberly Beer:

there. But if you're not putting out emails that are getting

Kimberly Beer:

opened, then you're not being relevant To the people that

Kimberly Beer:

you're emailing. So it's important to understand that

Kimberly Beer:

your open rate does count. For those of you who want to know,

Kimberly Beer:

the typical open rate for an email is eight to 20% of your

Kimberly Beer:

list. So only eight to 20% of the list is going to open that

Kimberly Beer:

particular email. So that should tell you right there, what the

Kimberly Beer:

number is that you need to start trying to attain in the number

Kimberly Beer:

of clients. If you figure on your list, as all of your good

Kimberly Beer:

clients and all your qualified leads, whatever eight to 20% of

Kimberly Beer:

that number is of the number of people you would like to have in

Kimberly Beer:

your business, that needs to equal that eight to 20% of open

Kimberly Beer:

rate, because that's about what you're going to get. So you're

Kimberly Beer:

always going to be emailing to people who don't open your

Kimberly Beer:

emails. However, what we want to do is try to increase that open

Kimberly Beer:

rate as much as possible, because it helps our reputation,

Kimberly Beer:

it means that the person on the other end is getting the

Kimberly Beer:

message. And so our goal is to get that rate as high as it

Kimberly Beer:

possibly can be. And I have clients now who are really

Kimberly Beer:

practicing their email marketing, and they're really

Kimberly Beer:

concentrating on building, they're open rate. And they're

Kimberly Beer:

hitting 30 and 40% open rates, which is huge. That's hugely

Kimberly Beer:

important, because they're seeing a lot more people by

Kimberly Beer:

cleaning their list and taking good care of it. And using good

Kimberly Beer:

list hygiene, they're able to get a much higher open rate that

Kimberly Beer:

increases their reputation, it also means that they're getting

Kimberly Beer:

in front of the right people who can make a buying decision. And

Kimberly Beer:

that's the whole reason we're spending time doing email

Kimberly Beer:

marketing is to get their emails in front of the person who can

Kimberly Beer:

make the buying decision. So it is really important that you

Kimberly Beer:

start cleaning up your email list, take a look at what you

Kimberly Beer:

need to do to get more people to open and to reduce those people

Kimberly Beer:

who just simply are not engaged. Because chances are you

Kimberly Beer:

mentioned the fake email address. Yeah, I don't know a

Kimberly Beer:

single human on this planet that doesn't have that. Chances are

Kimberly Beer:

you're emailing to that fake email address, right. And you

Kimberly Beer:

can do a thing, if you don't want to just cut them off like

Kimberly Beer:

it just say, That's it, you'll notice you get some emails

Kimberly Beer:

occasionally that say this is we notice you haven't opened any of

Kimberly Beer:

our emails in the last year. If you still want to stay on our

Kimberly Beer:

list, you need to open this email. So somewhere in the

Kimberly Beer:

subject line put, you know, this is your last email, if you still

Kimberly Beer:

want to stay engaged, open this email, because that's going to

Kimberly Beer:

help that person go if they're the subject line reader, people

Kimberly Beer:

put it in the subject line. And then they'll be like, Oops, I

Kimberly Beer:

don't want to be off of Cara's list. So they'll open the email

Kimberly Beer:

and engage with it. And then that puts them back into the pot

Kimberly Beer:

with the qualified leads, right. So there's ways that you can

Kimberly Beer:

kind of buffer this and make sure you're not missing any

Kimberly Beer:

people. But my big theory in this is that if they're not

Kimberly Beer:

opening the emails, you're really not losing out by

Kimberly Beer:

removing them from your list because they're just not

Kimberly Beer:

engaged. They're just not that into you.

Cara Taylor Swift:

They're just not that into you. It's a hard

Cara Taylor Swift:

thing sometimes to say goodbye to them, especially if you have

Cara Taylor Swift:

a small list and you're new and getting started. But I agree

Cara Taylor Swift:

with you when I started segmenting. First of all, that

Cara Taylor Swift:

was the first big step I did. And then I started, I sent out

Cara Taylor Swift:

an email looking for engagement basically like trying to

Cara Taylor Swift:

determine people who are still interested. When I did that I

Cara Taylor Swift:

deleted a bunch and my open rate immediately opened over 30%. So

Cara Taylor Swift:

I was ranging between 30 and 50% opens with the emails that

Cara Taylor Swift:

followed that directly. So it made a big difference. And

Cara Taylor Swift:

hopefully that set me up to make sure that my emails get seen in

Cara Taylor Swift:

the future. So this has been a good episode. Is there anything

Cara Taylor Swift:

else that you want to add? Before we wrap it up, Kim?

Kimberly Beer:

No, I think we've probably crammed enough

Kimberly Beer:

information into people's heads. And hopefully some of them who

Kimberly Beer:

already knew a lot of this is like, Darn it. I knew that now I

Kimberly Beer:

need to go do it. So yeah, just get yourself a good caffeinated

Kimberly Beer:

cup of coffee or whatever your beverage of focus choices or get

Kimberly Beer:

started and get started on really cleaning up your list and

Kimberly Beer:

creating that awesome, fantastic lead magnet that's going to draw

Kimberly Beer:

just the right people in to your world.

Cara Taylor Swift:

Awesome. Okay, so just to cover our big

Cara Taylor Swift:

three one more time on building your email list offer a very

Cara Taylor Swift:

thoughtful lead magnet or a deep bonus coupon number two, use

Cara Taylor Swift:

every opportunity to add qualified leads to your

Cara Taylor Swift:

database. And number three, really take the time and the

Cara Taylor Swift:

effort to get rid of those contacts that just aren't

Cara Taylor Swift:

engaged with you anymore and replace them with ones that are

Cara Taylor Swift:

because it's okay if sometimes they're just not that into you.

Cara Taylor Swift:

We hope you guys have enjoyed this episode. And if you did,

Cara Taylor Swift:

please let us know hop over to The Business Animal on Instagram

Cara Taylor Swift:

or Facebook and let us know that you listened also in any of The

Cara Taylor Swift:

locations that you are able to download and listen, we would

Cara Taylor Swift:

love it if you would rate and or review. We would love it if you

Cara Taylor Swift:

would follow or subscribe. Just letting folks know that you know

Cara Taylor Swift:

that our show is here would be awesome. So thank you so much.

Cara Taylor Swift:

It's just a great way to support the work that we're doing. We

Cara Taylor Swift:

hope that you guys are out there taming your wild business beasts

Cara Taylor Swift:

today.

Jaz:

Thanks for listening to this episode of The Business

Jaz:

Animal. Be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. And

Jaz:

if you learned something today, leave us a review. To learn

Jaz:

more, find us at the business animal.com We'd love to hear

Jaz:

from you. Until next time, keep your business well trained with

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