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
Welcome to The Business Animal podcast. Saddle up for a
Jaz:gallop to the top of the animal industry, where you'll learn how
Jaz:to tame your wild business beast, with tips, techniques,
Jaz:and tools that will take overwhelm to obedience school,
Jaz:and have you wagging your tail with joy. And now your hosts,
Jaz:Kim Beer, and Cara Taylor Swift.
Kimberly Beer:Hey there business animals. It's Kim with
Kimberly Beer:Be More Business
Unknown:and Cara with Fast Horse photography. Hi, Kim. How
Unknown:are you today?
Kimberly Beer:I'm doing well. Cara, how are you today?
Unknown:I'm good. I'm sitting here at my desk and my dogs are
Unknown:all around me. And they have been very busy with barking this
Unknown:morning. So hopefully they will be quiet. But I hear that you
Unknown:have been delivering kids all morning or all week. It feels
Unknown:like all week.
Kimberly Beer:Well, it's actually for the last week and a
Kimberly Beer:half. We've been having little baby goats. We have three mamas
Kimberly Beer:with their little babies on the ground. And we had four and last
Kimberly Beer:one. So we're running a 75% live baby operation around here right
Kimberly Beer:now. But yes, they're cuter than little bugs and feisty and the
Kimberly Beer:ones that are a little bit older are just like full of
Kimberly Beer:themselves.
Cara Taylor Swift:So I want to come play with them.
Kimberly Beer:They are so much fun to play with. And they're so
Kimberly Beer:adorable. There is really seriously nothing cuter than a
Kimberly Beer:baby goat. And we have two sables, which are they're all
Kimberly Beer:dairy goats, but those are colored their creamy colors when
Kimberly Beer:it was creamy colored when it's black and white. And then the
Kimberly Beer:other one is a LaMancha, which is the goat that doesn't have
Kimberly Beer:ears. So it's actually a LaMancha Alpine cross. Yeah,
Kimberly Beer: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?
Kimberly Beer:It's a fancy goat, but they're all fancy
Kimberly Beer:goats because they're all dairy goats that are purebred at kinda
Kimberly Beer:because they mix up the dairy goat breeds a little bit. They
Kimberly Beer:call them experimental. So but this particular one is hola
Kimberly Beer:mancia it's they're so cute because they have these little
Kimberly Beer:like elf ears versus like full on goat ears. And if you Google
Kimberly Beer:lamonta goat
Cara Taylor Swift:you'll see and I have to go look up goat
Cara Taylor Swift:ears because I'm not even sure what they look like.
Kimberly Beer:Yeah, so Google LaMancha goat elf ears and
Kimberly Beer:that's what baby's ears look like and I swear to God it makes
Kimberly Beer:him sassier I don't know if it's the lack of ears or the
Kimberly Beer:specialness or what but they just seem to be a little sassier
Kimberly Beer:and then the other goats and so the little boy is that he's got
Kimberly Beer: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
Cara Taylor Swift: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
Kimberly Beer:and they haven't seen the alien personality.
Cara Taylor Swift:Yeah, it is. Spring has sprung babies are
Cara Taylor Swift:everywhere.
Kimberly Beer:Yep, the spring papers which are for those of
Kimberly Beer:you who do not live in an area that has frogs. Those are the
Kimberly Beer:frogs that come out every spring and they're really the
Kimberly Beer:Harbingers that say it's really spring now. I mean, forget the
Kimberly Beer:groundhog I talked to Tony Phil is fantastic. But when you hear
Kimberly Beer:spring papers in Missouri, that means that spring is here. Okay.
Kimberly Beer:And I heard my first spring papers. I think it was on
Kimberly Beer:Tuesday. I announced it on Facebook, because I'm that
Kimberly Beer:excited about spring getting here. I saw that
Cara Taylor Swift:but I thought you were talking about baby
Cara Taylor Swift: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
Kimberly Beer:more you know, the more you know those are frog well
Cara Taylor Swift:spring is here definitely in Florida two
Cara Taylor Swift:I've been photographing baby foals so it's that time of year.
Cara Taylor Swift:I love it. It's
Kimberly Beer:my favorite time of year is that when this the
Kimberly Beer:spring papers come out and it's all the babies start come in. We
Kimberly Beer:have little baby calves and we don't have any baby horses
Kimberly Beer:around here. I don't have my last stallion died. Oh, good
Kimberly Beer:God, five, six years ago and it's like, I'm not doing I'm not
Kimberly Beer:doing any more babies. So I'll enjoy other people's other
Kimberly Beer:people's children and other people's foals.
Cara Taylor Swift:So you go there you go. Well, I could talk
Cara Taylor Swift:about baby animals in springtime, this entire episode
Cara Taylor Swift:if you want or we could talk about what we're actually going
Cara Taylor Swift:to supposed to be talking about today for our listeners, which
Cara Taylor Swift:is what cam what are we talking about today?
Kimberly Beer:So I also We could spend all day talking
Kimberly Beer:about baby animals. But I'm sure if you're listening to The
Kimberly Beer:Business Animal podcast, you probably appreciate that but
Kimberly Beer:would also like some business kind of stuff to go on to. And
Kimberly Beer:today we're talking about upscaling your email marketing
Kimberly Beer:list. And you all know if you've listened to this show for a hot
Kimberly Beer:minute, I'm a big fan of email marketing, even though the world
Kimberly Beer:sometimes is a little bit, particularly business owners. I
Kimberly Beer:don't know about consumers, but business owners are a little bit
Kimberly Beer:draggy on their feet about utilizing email marketing, but
Kimberly Beer:it is still valid, it is still one of the best ways to convert
Kimberly Beer:your audience from being interested people into being
Kimberly Beer:purchasers. So that conversion, the return on your investment
Kimberly Beer:for the amount of time that it takes email marketing is super
Kimberly Beer:important. But your email marketing can't do squat, if you
Kimberly Beer:don't have a good list to email market to. Now, when a couple of
Kimberly Beer:caveats for those of you if you're brand new in business,
Kimberly Beer:and you're brand new to the podcast and don't know, your
Kimberly Beer:list needs to be an opt in list, it needs to be people who have
Kimberly Beer:agreed and provided their consent to be on your list and
Kimberly Beer:shown an interest. And then you have to keep up on the other
Kimberly Beer:side with thoughtful content that you provide to them that
Kimberly Beer:keeps them interested and is relevant to wherever they are in
Kimberly Beer:the customer journey. So those are three sentences for a very
Kimberly Beer:complex subject that has a lot of moving parts and a lot of
Kimberly Beer:details. But that's the highlights. Today, what I want
Kimberly Beer:to really talk about with Cara and with you is how do we really
Kimberly Beer:upscale our email marketing list? How do we make it more
Kimberly Beer:effective? And how do we make it so that when we send down an
Kimberly Beer:email, we have a higher open rate, which everybody wants? And
Kimberly Beer:how do we make it so that there's more conversions from
Kimberly Beer:the people who receive that particular email. And to me,
Kimberly Beer:that falls down to three things. First of all, getting people
Kimberly Beer:onto your list, getting the right people onto your list. And
Kimberly Beer:that's big three number one is to provide a very thoughtful
Kimberly Beer:lead magnet, or a deep bonus coupon if you are a product
Kimberly Beer:oriented business, that you don't really have the
Kimberly Beer:availability to do a lead magnet. And we'll get into that
Kimberly Beer:all the details there. Number two, to use every opportunity to
Kimberly Beer:add qualified leads to your database. And the qualified is
Kimberly Beer:the key word in that sentence. I see a lot of people who don't
Kimberly Beer:always do that. So we're going to talk about that. And then the
Kimberly Beer:final one, and this is the scary one for most business owners.
Kimberly Beer:And number three, is get rid of the contacts that aren't engaged
Kimberly Beer:and replace them than with ones that are. So let's dive in,
Kimberly Beer:shall we? Or do you have anything to add to my mantra
Kimberly Beer:about email marketing this morning?
Cara Taylor Swift:No, I do not. I'm excited because I have some
Cara Taylor Swift:questions I want to ask you. So let's get rolling.
Kimberly Beer:Perfect. So the first one is to create a way an
Kimberly Beer:avenue for people to get onto your list. And we really want
Kimberly Beer:people on your list that are going to become customers. We
Kimberly Beer:don't want to have our email list full of people who are just
Kimberly Beer:like random relatives, friends who want to be supportive. We
Kimberly Beer:love their support. Please do not get me wrong, cheerlead.
Kimberly Beer:Come to my open house. But my email list if you're not
Kimberly Beer:somebody who's going to purchase from me is not the place that
Kimberly Beer:you need to be. And the way that we attract people onto our list
Kimberly Beer:is primarily through asking them, but it feels really
Kimberly Beer:awkward sometimes as a business owner to just say, hey, I want
Kimberly Beer:to put you on my email marketing list. And it doesn't work. It
Kimberly Beer:feels kind of rude actually, when I'm doing a lot of
Kimberly Beer:networking right at the moment, a lot. Like I'm out networking
Kimberly Beer:my little I'm the Social Butterfly of Missouri right now.
Cara Taylor Swift:Yeah, you're a social butterfly right now.
Kimberly Beer:So I'm out with do the talking to a lot of
Kimberly Beer:people promoting the podcast footprinting, I just I have so
Kimberly Beer:many things going on. I want to get people on my VIP List. And I
Kimberly Beer:do ask if somebody hands me their card. But I feel really
Kimberly Beer:cheesy running around a room networking saying can I add you
Kimberly Beer:to my VIP List? Can I add you to my VIP List? You know, that's
Kimberly Beer:not as fun as me being able to walk up to somebody and start a
Kimberly Beer:conversation and then find where they fit in my paradigm and say,
Kimberly Beer:you know, I have this really good white paper article thing
Kimberly Beer:that I wrote guide. And I would love to give that to you. If you
Kimberly Beer:give me your email address, I'll add you to my VIP List and
Kimberly Beer:you'll get that right away. So it makes me feel a little bit
Kimberly Beer:better. It makes me feel more helpful. An example of this is
Kimberly Beer:in my photography business. We of course do cowgirls with
Kimberly Beer:cameras. I think everybody who listens to this show is aware of
Kimberly Beer:that. And we do photography education over there. And so I
Kimberly Beer:create did a workflow guide for Lightroom, which is a piece of
Kimberly Beer:software that photographers use. And this basically teaches you
Kimberly Beer:how to set up your workflow. And you can get it from my website,
Kimberly Beer:we put it out on social media on the cowgirls with cameras
Kimberly Beer:channel, I put it out on mine. And when I'm networking with
Kimberly Beer:photographers, if they even remotely mentioned that they
Kimberly Beer:edit with Lightroom, I'm like, you know, I have this great
Kimberly Beer:light room workflow guide. And well, if you'd like that, if you
Kimberly Beer:just give me your email address, I'll add you to my VIP List, and
Kimberly Beer:it'll come right away to your inbox and people sign up for it,
Kimberly Beer:it makes me feel good, they also get something that immediately
Kimberly Beer:has a good feeling for them with me, they see what I can do, they
Kimberly Beer:get an understanding of who I am as an photography instructor.
Kimberly Beer:And it just builds a really good relationship and rapport right
Kimberly Beer:from the get go. And it also means that I'm drawing the exact
Kimberly Beer:right people into my list, because people who are
Kimberly Beer:interested in improving their workflow in Lightroom, are
Kimberly Beer:interested in learning more about photography. So now I have
Kimberly Beer:upscaled my list from just any photographer out there in the
Kimberly Beer:world, to people who have an interest in learning more. And
Kimberly Beer:that means that they're more likely to purchase from me and
Kimberly Beer:they're more likely to open my emails. So that's why I say you
Kimberly Beer:have to have a very thoughtful lead magnet, you really need to
Kimberly Beer:gear it towards the target market that you want to bring in
Kimberly Beer:one at a time, folks one at a time. If you have multiple
Kimberly Beer:target markets, you can do this, but concentrate on one at a
Kimberly Beer:time. So that you're bringing them in very specifically, very
Kimberly Beer:thoughtfully. And if you have a product that you're selling, and
Kimberly Beer:you're like, I don't know how to write something like a workflow
Kimberly Beer:guide, or I'm currently working on one for the mindset, Gestalt
Kimberly Beer:business, that is around three indications you're in your own
Kimberly Beer:way, which is what I kind of talked about getting people out
Kimberly Beer:of their own way. So I have three indications you're in your
Kimberly Beer:own way, and then asterik, what you can do about it, which is
Kimberly Beer:what that lead magnet is going to be about. If you have a
Kimberly Beer:business, however, that you're like, I don't know if I could
Kimberly Beer:write something like that, or I don't know if that lead magnet
Kimberly Beer:would work for me than having that deep bonus coupon if you
Kimberly Beer:have a widget or a product that you have. And it doesn't have to
Kimberly Beer:be for a discount, necessarily, it could be a bonus, or it could
Kimberly Beer:be a discount off of a additional item, like you sell
Kimberly Beer:your main widget for X number of dollars, and you don't discount
Kimberly Beer:that. But maybe you have a service program. And if they
Kimberly Beer:sign up for the list, they're automatically qualified to buy
Kimberly Beer:the product at the full retail price. But then they may get the
Kimberly Beer:service contract at a 25% discount or something like that.
Kimberly Beer:Or they may get an extra six months on their service
Kimberly Beer:contract, whatever you want to do. But there's ways to work
Kimberly Beer:this where it's either really thoughtful about getting the
Kimberly Beer:right person in, or you're really giving something bonus
Kimberly Beer:wise that makes joining your list, very appealing to the
Kimberly Beer:people who are deeply interested in what you have to do.
Cara Taylor Swift:I love that I was thinking about this topic
Cara Taylor Swift:and this particular point of our big three. And there were two
Cara Taylor Swift: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
Cara Taylor Swift:you might have the lead magnet housed, you want to have it in
Cara Taylor Swift:all the right places. So you want to be thinking about where
Cara Taylor Swift: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
Cara Taylor Swift:before you exit a page or when you come on click on pop ups
Kimberly Beer:the pop ups and there's they you can actually
Kimberly Beer:workI those it is pop up is the right word. And what's more is
Kimberly Beer:if you have the right plugins, okay good or your website you
Kimberly Beer:can actually people have like movements they make with their
Kimberly Beer:mouse or their fingers right before they intend to exit. And
Kimberly Beer:so you can actually set your pop up to occur when the computer
Kimberly Beer:when the software realizes that that person has an exit intent.
Kimberly Beer:So it's funny because you I'm sure you've noticed one more
Kimberly Beer:thing. Yeah, one more thing here you go join my list and get this
Kimberly Beer:so before those people Yeah, it's kind of cool. How does it
Kimberly Beer:though
Cara Taylor Swift:it is really cool. And I was just thinking
Cara Taylor Swift:about like those places where you want to think about being
Cara Taylor Swift:intentional about putting your lead magnet so you're you can
Cara Taylor Swift: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
Cara Taylor Swift: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
Cara Taylor Swift:when you look at your analytics, you're seeing that it routinely
Cara Taylor Swift: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
Cara Taylor Swift:on the topic of five tips to photograph your horses for the
Cara Taylor Swift: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
Cara Taylor Swift:you're upgrading existing content by adding a lead magnet,
Cara Taylor Swift:and you're being intentional about it by thinking about your
Cara Taylor Swift: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
Cara Taylor Swift:there might be opportunity to create a lead magnet around
Cara Taylor Swift: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
Kimberly Beer:that data to tell you Yeah, that's going to tell you that
Kimberly Beer:people are interested in it if it's been popular, that means
Kimberly Beer:that you're more likely to get more success with it focus on
Kimberly Beer:one at a time, like don't offer people like two on the same page
Kimberly Beer:for sure. As far as the selection because gotta get
Kimberly Beer:decision paralysis, you don't want to overwhelm them. Yeah,
Kimberly Beer:they get decision paralysis, and then they don't know what to
Kimberly Beer:sign up for. So I always think of like, don't have popups on
Kimberly Beer:every page that would pop up and say, Ooh, get this one or get
Kimberly Beer:this one. You could also have one pop up that lets them choose
Kimberly Beer:their free gift as well. Like you could have a pop up where it
Kimberly Beer:has a selection. And it could say, if you click this box, you
Kimberly Beer:get this free freebie, if you get this one, you get that one.
Kimberly Beer:So you choose which one you want as the consumer, I'm still a big
Kimberly Beer:fan of keep it super simple and very focused. And if you don't
Kimberly Beer: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
Cara Taylor Swift: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
Kimberly Beer:every opportunity to add those qualified leads to your
Kimberly Beer:database? Let's do it. Awesome. So qualified leads, folks are
Kimberly Beer:people that are really meant for your business. Now if you have
Kimberly Beer:more than one target market, that's going to be more than one
Kimberly Beer:encapsulated group. Like Cara just mentioned, she serves two
Kimberly Beer:different groups. But each of those groups has qualifications
Kimberly Beer:that work with her, right. So her primary focused group of
Kimberly Beer:people who are interested in getting equine portraits,
Kimberly Beer:they're going to have a different conversation than the
Kimberly Beer:people that are photographers who want to work with Kara, as a
Kimberly Beer:mentor, or in a workshop or something like that. So it's
Kimberly Beer:true across the board, I have very diverse clients just like
Kimberly Beer:that those people those populations very rarely cross
Kimberly Beer:right? In my world, my populations cross a little bit,
Kimberly Beer:but not tremendously. The thing is, is that you've got to know
Kimberly Beer:the qualifications, what makes a good client for every single
Kimberly Beer:target market that you serve, you really need to understand
Kimberly Beer:what qualifies an individual to be a good client for you. And I
Kimberly Beer:know that if you're new in business, you're probably
Kimberly Beer:thinking everybody is qualified. And the truth is, is they're
Kimberly Beer:not. And when you're talking to a really broad audience, no one
Kimberly Beer:listens to you. Or when you're talking about very specific
Kimberly Beer:things, people's ears perk up, and they come over and they
Kimberly Beer:really, really listen to you. So get down a list of what makes a
Kimberly Beer:qualified contact for you. Take a look and see, you know, like
Kimberly Beer:of the customers that you have, what are the commonalities that
Kimberly Beer:those customers share in relation to your business, of
Kimberly Beer:course, and the other stuff that they share is important to find
Kimberly Beer:them but to qualify them. What in context to your business is
Kimberly Beer:really common over your customer base. And then when you're
Kimberly Beer:looking Get adding people to your database, add the ones that
Kimberly Beer:fit those qualifications. Now you can kind of do a little
Kimberly Beer:dance here, right? You could have in almost every email
Kimberly Beer:marketing software out there will let you apply tags to
Kimberly Beer:people to segment them into groups, which is always
Kimberly Beer:advisable when it comes to email marketing. If you're really
Kimberly Beer:smart about how you bring people into your email database, into
Kimberly Beer:your email list, you'll use those tags rather than just
Kimberly Beer:blanket drop them in. So one of the things tactics that you can
Kimberly Beer:use is if they hit those qualifications to be your ideal
Kimberly Beer:client or so they're qualified, you could tag them with the tag,
Kimberly Beer:ideal client. If you on the other hand, see somebody who
Kimberly Beer:maybe doesn't hit all the marks, but has asked to be on your
Kimberly Beer:list, you could tag them with a different tag that designates
Kimberly Beer:them as maybe a an less qualified contact. And then
Kimberly Beer:you're going to want to tweak your communication to both of
Kimberly Beer:those groups. So that you are really, really focusing on the
Kimberly Beer:group A, that has the qualified leads, but you're also focusing
Kimberly Beer:on taking Group B, and qualifying who needs to move
Kimberly Beer:over to Group A, and who probably is going to fall off
Kimberly Beer:your list after a period of time. So the next step up from
Kimberly Beer:just like creating the database, is starting to segment that
Kimberly Beer:database into understanding how those people fit through your
Kimberly Beer:business. And just like you Kara, in your case, I'm sure
Kimberly Beer:you're doing this, but you need to have the leads for your
Kimberly Beer:portrait clients marked separately for the leads for the
Kimberly Beer:photographers, because it's a different conversation. And then
Kimberly Beer:with each and each of those two groups, you need to have an A
Kimberly Beer:list kind of people a B list, and then maybe people that are
Kimberly Beer:just interested in you, that's the friends and family group,
Kimberly Beer:right? Those are the people that are like rah, Euro has an email
Kimberly Beer:list, I'm gonna join it because I always want to stay on top of
Kimberly Beer:what she's doing. The reason why you guys this is so important, I
Kimberly Beer:need you to understand probably more than anything out of this
Kimberly Beer: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
Kimberly Beer: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
Kimberly Beer:look at the domain that your email is marked with the from,
Kimberly Beer:which should be your domain for your website, or whatever your
Kimberly Beer:digital presence is, and they start to go, okay, all of these
Kimberly Beer:emails from Fast Horse Photography are getting read. So
Kimberly Beer:that means that that email has that domain has authority. And
Kimberly Beer:we're going to put more emails, we're good with that we see the
Kimberly Beer:individual that's getting it once that email, we see globally
Kimberly Beer:that that domain seems to have a good reputation. And so we'll
Kimberly Beer: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
Kimberly Beer:opens and dadadada da, then you do hurt your ability to add
Kimberly Beer: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
Kimberly Beer:into that. I don't want to say that's the only one. But what I
Kimberly Beer:am telling you is that the qualified part is more important
Kimberly Beer: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,
Kimberly Beer:which happens a lot. And I tell you to get a lot of emails that
Kimberly Beer: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
Kimberly Beer:email marketing, to qualify them. So send them an email that
Kimberly Beer:has something very specific that's common to your audience.
Kimberly Beer:And if they don't open that email after two tries, remove
Kimberly Beer:them from your list, which is getting us into number three,
Kimberly Beer:which is being able to say goodbye to those contacts that
Kimberly Beer:no longer fit for you, or who never fit for you in the first
Kimberly Beer: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
Kimberly Beer: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
Kimberly Beer:going to tell you, for a lot of you, after a year, if somebody
Kimberly Beer:hasn't opened an email for a year, you should remove them
Kimberly Beer: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
Kimberly Beer:small businesses don't communicate to their list as
Kimberly Beer:regularly as they should, just because the owner doesn't have
Kimberly Beer:time to do email marketing at quite the same level. But I'm
Kimberly Beer: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
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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
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