Transcripts
Hello and welcome to the Women Conquer Business Show.
Jen:I'm Jen McFarland, joined by Shelley Carney.
Jen:We're your go to small business marketing show covering breaking marketing news
Jen:that affects you cool apps we found, and how to deep dive into a marketing topic
Jen:with a side of motivation and inspir.
Jen:We'll also talk a little about our own entrepreneurial journeys as well.
Jen:Are you ready?
Jen:Let's get started.
Jen:Hello and welcome to Wacker Business.
Jen:Today we are gonna talk about how to build a profitable email list.
Jen:Plus a few automated emails that you're just gonna wanna send out.
Jen:We know, we all know that we need an email list and maybe even start
Jen:building one, but how do we build it up and make it profitable?
Jen:Hint, get the right people on the list.
Jen:How do we automate emails and when should we send them out?
Jen:Plus a handful of automated emails that we must send along with a couple
Jen:of manual ones to keep people warm.
Shelley:So,
Jen:so what, Say you, Shelley?
Jen:I say,
Shelley:Just to let everybody know we have pre-recorded this
Shelley:episode because Jen is on a tropical island having a wonderful time.
Shelley:I'm sure
Shelley:, Jen: I'm not gonna brag, but yes,
Shelley:time and I'll be at home doing work
Shelley:. Jen: I am excited and happy
Shelley:I had a trip planned to go to Tows New Mexico in May of 2020, and as we know,
Shelley:a lot of things happened in 2020 and we have not gone on any vacations since.
Shelley:I've also had a lot of things just like everybody else happened in my family and.
Shelley:Work life and everything that have kept it away, not just covid.
Shelley:And so I'm very excited to finally have a chance to get away.
Shelley:It's coinciding with a time where I'm making some business transitions,
Shelley:hiring someone to help me, looking at how the work is getting done.
Shelley:I'm writing up some workflows for how I.
Shelley:The future to be.
Shelley:So it's a really exciting time.
Shelley:And also I need to rest before I do all of that, because it's a lot.
Shelley:It's definitely a lot.
Shelley:That's right.
Shelley:And I'm happy for you.
Shelley:I'm, Toby and I been doing New Mexico day trip, so we are taking a day trip every
Shelley:week, and sometimes it's even a stretch Oh, where are we gonna go this week?
Shelley:And would you really take a, would you really take somebody there if.
Shelley:Traveling to New Mexico, would you suggest they go there?
Shelley:And then what do our viewers wanna see?
Shelley:They wanna see us outdoors and sometimes they wanna see us making
Shelley:mistakes and having fails and, just sharing that with them.
Shelley:So there's a fine line between is it something that a tourist would
Shelley:do or is it something that people.
Shelley:Want to get to know you better because you're out in a difficult
Shelley:situation out in the outdoors.
Shelley:So we're, we're figuring it out.
Shelley:, see how it
Jen:goes.
Jen:Yeah.
Jen:Super fun though.
Jen:Yeah.
Jen:All these little adventures are super fun.
Jen:That's right.
Jen:Well, are you ready to dive into some breaking news?
Jen:Let's do it.
Jen:All right.
Jen:So this breaking news is related to what we are going to be talking
Jen:about, because anytime we talk about building a profit, Email list.
Jen:It also intersects, if you will, with content writing , and a really
Jen:hot topic in content creation right now is AI writing tools.
Jen:The largest AI writing tool on the market right now is Jasper.
Jen:I was an early adopter of Jasper.
Jen:I do not use Jasper.
Jen:It's not for me.
Jen:These AI tools for writing content.
Jen:HubSpot has announced now that they have invested over a hundred
Jen:million dollars into Jasper.
Jen:And it is it's, it.
Jen:I don't know how I feel about it.
Jen:I'll just be honest.
Jen:People think of tools like Jasper as a replacement for actually having to write.
Jen:That's not the purpose of it at all.
Jen:And I feel like what HubSpot's investment could potentially
Jen:mean even more bad content.
Jen:just going out into the world.
Jen:Particularly on things like social media, which HubSpot is.
Jen:Is pretty integral to that, but maybe under HubSpot's kind of stewardship, if
Jen:they're putting in that much money, then it might change things a little bit.
Jen:Hubs Jasper is really hard to find good information about.
Jen:They have a similar model as ClickFunnels where they're really trying to build
Jen:a community and a lot of affiliate.
Jen:So it's people like me who aren't making all of their money on affiliate
Jen:marketing and analyze products for something other than whether or not I
Jen:can turn around and write a blog post about how wonderful it is and make money.
Jen:A lot of us don't like Jasper . I've used other AI tools for creating
Jen:content like pepper type.
Jen:I like that one way better than Jasper.
Jen:I got it on App Sumo Super easy.
Jen:Another one, Niches.
Jen:I think better than Jasper as well.
Jen:These tools though don't really replace your writing.
Jen:They're not as good.
Jen:They're not as reliable.
Jen:And sometimes, as was the case with Jasper anyway, they are scraping the
Jen:web and just serving it back to you.
Jen:So they may not even be entirely unique.
Jen:So there are a lot of concerns that I have.
Jen:Jasper and HubSpot being married, but we have to trust these companies that will
Jen:, at least in some way be transparent and really help people use AI effectively.
Jen:The company that, of course I've talked about several times that I love, that
Jen:uses AI and makes it clear that you still need the human touch is lately
Jen:lately also integrates with HubSpots.
Jen:So maybe they're looking at lately and they're looking at Japer and think.
Jen:That they can be investing in these companies and supporting these
Jen:companies to position themselves for this future that we don't really
Jen:know how AI is going to be part of content creation in the future.
Jen:Mm.
Jen:Where it is today, it can't really replace a human.
Jen:No.
Shelley:But a human can use it as a tool, and I'm wondering if it's
Shelley:a really good tool for people who.
Shelley:Produce newsletters that aggregate information, say like, Here are
Shelley:the top five best whatevers.
Shelley:And and it helps you pull that information all together.
Shelley:But then you write your, in your own voice around that information
Shelley:and present that information.
Shelley:And that would be the way I would wanna use it as a tool is just
Shelley:to pull in all that information.
Shelley:It that you're trying to use as a, top 10 list or some kind of a graph
Shelley:statistics that you can use them to support your own writing that
Shelley:you're doing in your own voice?
Jen:Absolutely.
Jen:And I would say that I use PEPPER type to learn some of these
Jen:frameworks for sales pages.
Jen:What these different types.
Jen:Persuasive writing can be like, and I'll use that as a guide
Jen:and then I just make it my own.
Jen:And I think that that's the key with any I AI product is they present
Jen:you with something as a guide and then you as the human need to
Jen:adjust it and make it your own.
Jen:But it, these tools, and this is why it relates to building a profitable
Jen:email list, these tools can really help you when it comes to formulating.
Jen:Some of the templates you're going to need, some of the automated emails
Jen:you might send, cuz they do give you a framework for what that could look like.
Shelley:Yeah.
Shelley:And if you're the type of person that stares at a blank page and
Shelley:can't think of anything to write, this is a good starting place.
Shelley:But I wouldn't, like you said, I wouldn't use it.
Shelley:I would use it as a tool, not as the, as an assistant.
Shelley:Right.
Shelley:I'll say that.
Shelley:Yeah.
Jen:Okay.
Jen:Are you ready to, What was that?
Jen:Anything else?
Jen:No.
Jen:Are you ready to get into it?
Shelley:Yeah.
Shelley:Let's learn,
Jen:let's power up, get into our presentation.
Jen:So how to build a profitable email list.
Jen:Do you wanna kick us off here?
Shelley:How to build a profitable email list Profitable.
Shelley:Jen, as she was introducing this topic made a hint for us and she
Shelley:said choose the right people.
Shelley:Get the right people on your list.
Shelley:We talked a couple weeks ago.
Shelley:An opt-in, the perfect opt-in and that perfect opt-in is the door.
Shelley:That is only open to the people you would want to work with.
Shelley:The people you want in your community, and people who do not want to be in
Shelley:you, do not want in your community will self-select out of that.
Shelley:They'll say, No, that's not for me, because you've got the perfect opt-in.
Shelley:Which weeds out the people that don't belong in your community basically.
Shelley:So you now have a great email list and Jen and I talked about our open
Shelley:rate on our email list is in the high sixties and seventies, Some.
Shelley:A lot of times.
Shelley:So that means people are engaged and they're reading what you have
Shelley:to say and they're excited about it.
Shelley:So this is a very warm audience that you can sell to and that's
Shelley:what makes your list profitable.
Jen:Absolutely.
Jen:And I would say that, when it comes to like how to build a profitable email
Jen:list first of all, you have to tell.
Jen:I have a dues letter, I have an opt-in.
Jen:I have, this is what I'm offering.
Jen:Join me.
Jen:And that's the mistake a lot of people make is, Well, I've had this out here, and
Jen:they are not promoting it on social media.
Jen:They're not going on podcasts and talking about it, or when they go on
Jen:podcasts, they're not talking about it.
Jen:They're not putting out the information so that people can engage with you.
Jen:There are probably a lot of people who are interested in who you are and what you do.
Jen:They want that easy entry into learning more.
Jen:But the first step really to building a profitable email list is making
Jen:sure people know about it, because if you have listened to a couple of
Jen:episodes back to how to create that perfect opt-in, that lead magnet,
Jen:that really speaks to your people.
Jen:The next thing you need to do is promote that and put that out there.
Jen:If you have, if you really believe and you have a little bit of a
Jen:budget, you could even run some ads about it and try and get people in,
Jen:although it just doesn't work as well.
Jen:Like it, it's almost better if they're organic people.
Jen:. I also have had the good fortune of, and I know this is how I know that social media
Jen:works at the good fortune of having a.
Jen:Pinterest go semi viral.
Jen:It might sound familiar to some of you.
Jen:It was called the ultimate podcast Planning checklist, which is
Jen:now went from being a freebie.
Jen:Then I expanded it and started selling it on App Sumo, and now it's on as a part of.
Jen:Epiphany courses, and it continues to be sold on App Sumo.
Jen:So when you have that good opt-in and people really, you're into it and
Jen:it's on a topic that's really great, it can grow into other things, and it
Jen:can also be a way to consistently and constantly grow your email list and
Jen:let people know what you're doing.
Jen:In that case, it was like I, I have an opt-in about the ultimate
Jen:podcast planning checklist.
Jen:Everybody seems to be interested in it.
Jen:, I talk about marketing.
Jen:Marketing is a big part of having a podcast, so all the wheels come together.
Jen:Now in my newsletter, I do talk about Pinterest on occasion, which may
Jen:surprise people who are fairly new to the email list, but I still have to
Jen:honor the fact that a lot of people came in initially to my list from interest.
Jen:So I know that that's where they came from, and I still
Jen:speak to that on occasion.
Jen:, and that's one of the other ways that you build a profitable email list.
Jen:So your lead magnet is aligned with who you are and what you do.
Jen:You post about it and where the people come from that
Jen:are attracted to your opt-in.
Jen:If you can track that through things like Google Analytics, plausible
Jen:some of your email marketing platforms can even do it for.
Jen:Then that will tell you more information about the people who are subscribing,
Jen:potentially what you could offer them, and ultimately how you sell.
Shelley:That's right.
Shelley:So that is how to build a profitable email list.
Shelley:And if you have any questions on that or you want to dive in deeper we
Shelley:do have other videos out or you can write to us and ask those questions.
Shelley:Let's get into how to automate emails.
Shelley:So what, what are the the things that we need in order to automate an email?
Jen:So the things that you need to automate an email really
Jen:depends on the tools that you have.
Jen:What most people don't know when they first start their business, but
Jen:hopefully more seasoned people know, is you can't just send from your Gmail
Jen:account, you need to have an email marketing platform, and almost all
Jen:email marketing platforms will allow you to send the automated email out.
Jen:You put your form from, MailChimp, send Fox.
Jen:Active campaign mailer light.
Jen:You put that somewhere, people give you their name and email address, and then
Jen:you set up an email that comes to that person and says, Hey, thanks for getting
Jen:the ultimate podcast planning checklist, , here's a link to download that checklist.
Jen:Or here's, here's the next step that you need to take to get there.
Jen:That's an automated email because when people opt in, you're not
Jen:gonna be sitting there, Wait.
Jen:So that you can send up a personalized email.
Jen:And so really that's probably the first automated email is you have a lead magnet.
Jen:You're giving them what they have asked for when they get the lead magnet.
Jen:That's your first automated email.
Jen:And for a lot of people, that initial automated email can get you a.
Jen:That could, that can be your one automated email for a long time
Jen:when you're just starting the next one that you're really gonna want.
Jen:Did you, oh, did you have any other questions about how to automate emails?
Jen:How,
Shelley:do you have anything else in mind?
Shelley:There, like Jen said, you wanna go through your email marketing
Shelley:application and there are certain times.
Shelley:When you want it to be triggered.
Shelley:So it's going to ask you, when do you want this to be triggered?
Shelley:And you'll say, Oh, when they get the free download, I wanna trigger this.
Shelley:And then a day later, 24 hours, I wanna trigger this next one.
Shelley:So it'll ask you for your triggers and it'll give you some, maybe some
Shelley:Suggestions of when you might want to have an automated email go out.
Shelley:And then a lot of times like for Send Fox, I know you can do this,
Shelley:you can take them, send them some emails, and then change them over to
Shelley:a new list so that they all end up on the main list for your newsletter.
Shelley:And then there's also, segmenting and all of this.
Shelley:But those.
Shelley:For further on down the road because Yeah, it can be kinda
Jen:complicated.
Jen:And that's the thing, like your first automated email is really they filled
Jen:out a form and they get sent something.
Jen:And for a lot, like I said, for a lot of people, They don't
Jen:have the welcome sequence, they don't have any of that stuff.
Jen:It's really just fill out form, send out email that either says,
Jen:Hi, thanks for signing up, . Or it says, Thanks for signing up.
Jen:Here's the thing that you signed up for.
Jen:Mm-hmm.
Jen:. And that for some people it's as simple as that.
Jen:, that's the whole automation.
Jen:And then what Shelley was talking about are like the next steps.
Jen:So the next stage, once you're at a place and you're like,
Jen:No, I really wanna get serious.
Jen:Building a profitable email list.
Jen:I really wanna follow up with people.
Jen:I wanna have a newsletter, which as we know, a newsletter isn't automated,
Jen:although parts of it can be is, the first thing that you're gonna want after you get
Jen:through that automated opt-in lead magnet part is a welcome sequence and everybody
Jen:talks about having a welcome series.
Jen:What does that look like?
Jen:That's also automated.
Jen:That's like a three to five email arc describing your
Jen:business in one way or the other.
Jen:So a really simple one would be, it would be like this.
Jen:Somebody signs up for your email list, you say thank you, and give
Jen:them whatever they opted in for.
Jen:So that lead magnet, you're sending it to them, you wait a couple of
Jen:days, and the next one is, Hey, have you had a chance to look at.
Jen:Here are some things you might wanna think about.
Jen:Here are some other resources that I've created.
Jen:So if it's like the podcast planning checklist, the first one is, Hey, have
Jen:you had a chance to look at it yet?
Jen:I've made these other podcast related resources.
Jen:Be sure and take those.
Jen:Take.
Jen:Be sure and read these because it'll help you or listen to these
Jen:podcast episodes and it'll help you.
Jen:They send that out.
Jen:Wait a few days, probably two or three days, and then you tell
Jen:'em a little bit about yourself.
Jen:So in the case of the podcast playing checklist, the next one
Jen:would be, Hey, I'm Jen McFarland.
Jen:I've had a podcast since 2018.
Jen:I started my podcast so that I could learn public speaking.
Jen:I feel like it's really helped me with that.
Jen:Now I'm on the stage a lot.
Jen:Here's how it could possibly help you, . Have you opened that thing yet?
Jen:Have you gotten started?
Jen:Hit reply and let me know what you think.
Jen:Mm-hmm.
Jen:, Right?
Jen:So that's the next one.
Jen:Wait a few days and then it's Hey, do you need help starting your podcast?
Jen:Reach out to me.
Jen:I could help you set up that tech.
Jen:Stack the first, infor, the first marketing technology you need.
Jen:I can help you find the right podcast hosting platform and help
Jen:you automate your podcast so that it takes you less time and is easier.
Jen:And that's just an example, right?
Jen:That's a typical arc.
Jen:And then after that, you would automate them to go into, say,
Jen:your newsletter sequence, right?
Jen:Typically, when they're going through the welcome series, you
Jen:pause sending, Newsletters to that person because you want them to be
Jen:fully focused on the welcome series.
Jen:You want them to, that's the most likely time they have to buy.
Jen:So you don't wanna confuse them with newsletters and other automations.
Jen:You want them to be in that focus space.
Jen:Going through that, that sales funnel, that's your first funnel.
Jen:Most funnels you don't even need landing pages for.
Jen:They're pretty simple email funnels you're sending them through.
Jen:And then after that you can tag them.
Jen:A lot of times that's where your first segment usually comes from.
Jen:Segmenting means you are putting people in your email list into various groups, and
Jen:you're doing that through tags or through engagement, different things like that.
Jen:So somebody goes through the welcome series, they don't open anything . You
Jen:can tag them as not engaged, and then if they don't open anything
Jen:for a while, you can actually.
Jen:it so that they're deleted from your list.
Jen:Because if they signed up and they never did anything, they're
Jen:just deadweight on your list.
Jen:Why should you carry them?
Jen:Right.
Jen:The other thing you can do is if they're highly engaged,
Jen:, they're opening everything.
Jen:Maybe you have someplace where they're highly engaged and you ask
Jen:them if they wanna schedule a call.
Jen:You know you can do that with your email list where you take
Jen:that next step before you send.
Jen:To the newsletter, if they've opened a handful of emails, but they're not
Jen:replying and nothing big is happening, they go on to your newsletter list.
Jen:So what you're doing is you're personalizing the experience based
Jen:on and segmenting and grouping people based on engagement.
Jen:You can also do this if you wanted to say, ask questions, so sometimes.
Jen:Welcome series is also about what type of information you wanna hear from me.
Jen:So you can set up like a survey and say, Okay, do, are you interested in podcasts?
Jen:Are you interested in small business marketing?
Jen:Do you wanna hear about something else?
Jen:What is that?
Jen:And you break people off into those segments and then you're like, Okay,
Jen:if I have a new podcast episode, I'm gonna send it to this group, it.
Jen:These people just want a general newsletter.
Jen:I'm gonna send that to this group.
Jen:This group is really interested.
Jen:Small business marketing.
Jen:That's what I'm gonna send here.
Jen:So you can put people in, into all kinds of groups and make the automation very
Jen:specific, very personal, annual increase the likelihood of a conversion from
Jen:your list, the more that you do that.
Jen:So that's how you would take a basic lead magnet, which is where everybody.
Jen:and then the next steps to get them into a welcoming, a welcome series,
Jen:a welcome sequence, and then how you would split them up after that.
Shelley:And one of the ways you can split people up is if
Shelley:they've purchased something.
Shelley:Another sequence that you can automate is customer onboarding.
Shelley:So Jen, why don't you get into the customer onboarding that was, That was
Jen:like, this is, Yeah.
Jen:So this is a lot of the type of thing that I'm working on
Jen:right now in my own business.
Jen:I do this a.
Jen:With people that I've worked with before, I worked with a lot of coaches.
Jen:They hit the stage, they get done . They've stood up there.
Jen:They're like, Hey, if you wanna learn more, you can do this.
Jen:I've set up sequences for people before where it's like, Okay
Jen:the speaking engagement is done.
Jen:What happens if they want to learn more?
Jen:And sometimes the offers are different.
Jen:Sometimes the offer is if you subscribe within the next.
Jen:You're gonna get this discount.
Jen:And so we'll set a timer for when they get the discount, and then if they
Jen:sign up and pay, then they go through a different section of the funnel.
Jen:Like it changes what they do.
Jen:A more typical customer onboarding is somebody comes in as a lead, you
Jen:decide to work together, you send.
Jen:Their contract and their invoice and then, and those can be automated.
Jen:And then what happens next?
Jen:And that's the part of the customer onboarding series.
Jen:Like all those emails that you send back and forth as a coach or as a consultant
Jen:or as a service based business, that back and forth could really be automated.
Jen:And then at times , if you need to, you can personalize that experience.
Jen:Answer questions and anything like that.
Jen:But it's also some things that you do over and over and over again when you
Jen:bring on somebody new that can also be automated and onboarded using automation.
Jen:And that automation could be in your email marketing platform.
Jen:I use a tool called boni and it does automation like as soon as somebody
Jen:pays and they sign the contract and all that kind of stuff, and then I can
Jen:and then I can send 'em off into the.
Jen:Stage, and those are really powerful because sometimes we spend a lot of time
Jen:on admin tasks that we don't really need to be worried about, and that's another
Jen:way that customer onboarding could work.
Jen:The thing about customer onboarding is, and with any automated sequences
Jen:that we're talking about, is you wanna make sure that you're.
Jen:bombarding somebody with a whole bunch of emails, . So your welcome series
Jen:and your customer onboarding ideally, would be happening at different times
Jen:so that emails aren't getting lost.
Jen:So you wanna definitely make sure that you check for that.
Jen:Have you done anything like this with customer onboarding?
Jen:This is usually something that people always want to
Jen:have , but they usually don't.
Jen:Yeah,
Shelley:well, with me, I don't have an enough customers that I can't
Shelley:do that just personally, I tailor each, every, everything's customized
Shelley:because I don't have a plethora of customers purchasing items at, So no,
Shelley:I don't have a customer onboarding.
Shelley:But it is something that you can do, especially if you're a
Shelley:coach and you have a course that they're going through that is drip.
Shelley:You can set up emails that help them to take them through the course and to remind
Shelley:them to do different things at different times, and those should definitely be
Shelley:automated because you wanna make sure that they get them at the right time.
Jen:Yeah, absolutely.
Jen:Yeah.
Jen:And that's the thing about courses.
Jen:They can be, a lot of times courses are released in Drip.
Jen:That means you are op a lesson is opened up to you maybe once every
Jen:Monday and there's an email set out saying, Hey, the lessons open.
Jen:Certainly those would all be automated.
Jen:There are certainly other types of products where you would have an
Jen:automated sequence to support that.
Jen:and you would want to plan all of that out.
Jen:As you maybe can tell, automated email sequences need to be meticulously
Jen:planned , cause it's really easy for them to get host . Like things are stepping
Jen:all over each other and confusing for yourself to know what's actually wrong.
Jen:And then also ultimately, you, what you really wanna avoid is really scaring.
Jen:Your customer's off with disorganization, you wanna go
Shelley:back and revisit those emails every six months and make sure that
Shelley:you didn't have something in there that you discontinued, or you were
Shelley:just talking about something that, that you never really happened.
Shelley:So you get, take things out or, freshen it up.
Shelley:Yeah.
Jen:Yeah, the links changed or, gosh, there's so many different things
Jen:that can happen So just make sure that you're checking in on that and.
Jen:The third type of automated emails to send, and I've done this and I
Jen:held off on doing it is to use, So every website, every podcast, , every
Jen:podcast website, , if you wanna be that way, has what's called an RSS feed.
Jen:It's basically a spot that says, Hey, this is when this website
Jen:was updated, and it just keeps adding, like all the new article.
Jen:To it in part that's used for SEO and all different kinds of tools, but it's
Jen:also something that you can connect to any email marketing provider I
Jen:know in Send Fox, MailChimp mailer, light active campaign, just about
Jen:anything you can name , you connect your RSS feed, which is usually your
Jen:website URL with I with a, slash.
Jen:RSS or slash feed are the common ones, and you connect that to
Jen:your email marketing software.
Jen:And then you can say, Every time a new article comes out, send it.
Jen:You can say every three articles that go out automatically send an email in Ghost.
Jen:It's a little bit more Masai website.
Jen:It's a little more direct where anytime I publish a new article, It asks me if I
Jen:just wanna send it out and anything I can send any new content, I can choose whether
Jen:or not it goes out to the list or not.
Jen:And that's pretty powerful stuff too.
Jen:So you can either do it depending on your.
Jen:Website, you can either do it directly from your website, although nothing
Jen:would stop me from hooking up my ghost website to active campaign.
Jen:And then every three podcasts, , it would send it out, or I could even
Jen:trigger it so that when there's a new article, it's like, Okay.
Jen:Is that article tagged as a podcast?
Jen:Yes.
Jen:Okay.
Jen:When I have three podcast episodes that'll send out, No, skip that
Jen:one, . Until the next podcast.
Jen:Next podcast.
Jen:Comes up.
Jen:So like for Shelley, she could have a tag for, say a live stream
Jen:and she could have just articles and content about live streaming.
Jen:She could have and send that out to a certain group of people.
Jen:And she could also have just podcasting and that could go
Jen:out to another group of people.
Jen:As an example, if you use tags on your website
Shelley:or blog, And it's great.
Shelley:I know some of them, like you said, they'll set it up for you.
Shelley:They'll go, Okay, you bring in, they bring in, they ingest whatever you send
Shelley:them, the RSS fees that you send them, and then they set it up and then you can
Shelley:go in there and look at it and adjust it and make it the way you want it.
Shelley:And then hit send.
Shelley:It can save you some time in other ones will just send.
Jen:If you don't, if you're like, I know it's gonna be fine.
Jen:It's good.
Jen:Yeah.
Jen:Or it's good enough, I'm not gonna worry about it then absolutely
Jen:it'll just send it for you.
Jen:That's
Shelley:what, it would just be a very simple thing that says, I just put out
Shelley:a new blog post and it just sends it.
Shelley:Yeah.
Jen:Yeah.
Jen:Wonderful.
Shelley:It's great.
Shelley:Yeah.
Shelley:That way you don't forget.
Shelley:, I like those automations because it keeps you from forgetting and Right.
Shelley:You can focus on the other things.
Shelley:Yeah.
Shelley:So two manual.
Shelley:Manual, one.
Shelley:Yeah.
Jen:So you do those exactly.
Jen:Like what The one thing I always say over and over and over again is you automate,
Jen:so you can be more human in your business.
Jen:So you wanna have these automation set so that you've you're keeping people
Jen:warm , like that's the whole point.
Jen:You're keeping people warm.
Jen:You're not gonna forget who you are.
Jen:They're gonna know what you do.
Jen:That just keeps going and going.
Jen:You're gonna have a way to welcome new customers.
Jen:make sure that they know what's happening next.
Jen:They can schedule with you.
Jen:They have all the links in one spot.
Jen:That's what all the automated stuff does.
Jen:But then there's the mo, the manual, the human parts that have
Jen:to go on, keeps people warm, makes people feel like they know you.
Jen:And those are all of the other updates.
Jen:This is your ongoing thought leadership.
Jen:This is your newsletter.
Jen:That's one of them.
Jen:Mm-hmm.
Jen:one of your manual.
Jen:Newsletters.
Jen:That's one thing that you can be sending out.
Jen:I think that monthly is a good one.
Jen:If you haven't sent out any emails and you're scared about it, I always say,
Jen:Can you, can we agree to quarterly?
Jen:And that usually people are usually okay with four times a year.
Jen:, I'll send something out and that's for the people who are just.
Jen:Don't have a big list, they're fearful of it.
Jen:And it's just a good way to seasonally be in touch with people.
Jen:I think for most people monthly is really good.
Jen:And if you're super interested in building content creation, you can do weekly.
Jen:I'm in marketing.
Jen:I have friends who email every day.
Jen:They make me crazy.
Jen:I personally don't foresee email.
Jen:Daily or multiple times a day
Shelley:Unless it's for a big event that's coming up and you're trying to drum
Shelley:up a lot of participation in that event.
Shelley:And that would only be maybe once or twice a year.
Shelley:Right?
Jen:Yeah, that's what I mean.
Jen:It would, I would have to be convinced of it.
Jen:It would have to be a.
Jen:Yeah, a big deal.
Jen:It can't just be like, cuz I have colleagues who send out, I'm like, What?
Jen:I, This doesn't matter.
Jen:This is dumb.
Jen:Why are you sending this
Jen:Yeah.
Jen:It's not a big promotion, it's just to be in people's inboxes
Jen:and have a snappy headline and I don't like to waste people's time.
Jen:So if it's important, I put it out.
Jen:But I'm not gonna do every day unless it's.
Jen:Right.
Shelley:Right.
Shelley:And if you're drumming up people to come to an event, I think That's
Shelley:the one time I would recommend it.
Shelley:That's the only time I would recommend it more than once a day or even once
Shelley:a day, once a week is what we recommend because we put out a weekly show.
Shelley:We put out the weekly podcast and the weekly blog.
Shelley:So we put out a weekly newsletter to announce all of those things, to keep
Shelley:people updated on what's going on.
Shelley:Weak.
Shelley:I feel that is perfect.
Shelley:If you do more than that, people tend to start to tune
Shelley:you out because it's too much.
Shelley:They get overwhelmed with too much information.
Shelley:So yeah, absolutely
Jen:agree.
Jen:Yeah, and that's what I mean about my colleagues.
Jen:Sometimes I'm like, too much.
Jen:Yeah.
Jen:Not important.
Jen:Not important enough.
Jen:And so totally on the same page.
Jen:So yeah, if you have specials, news products, service updates,
Jen:something that's a new offer.
Jen:Be sure and get that out there.
Jen:These cannot be automated.
Jen:These are manual, ideally, highly personal when you're talking about
Jen:this, meaning it's a real hands on thing if you're promoting a new product
Jen:or service for the first time, I think you really wanna speak to your people.
Jen:Yeah.
Jen:And not automate that.
Jen:Tho that is basically how you and the whole time, not just at the
Jen:beginning, you have to keep telling people that your email list exists
Jen:and what you're offering on there.
Jen:, it helps sometimes if there's exclusives that people can't see
Jen:elsewhere and that are items that are only offered to your email list.
Jen:Yeah.
Jen:Very
Shelley:helpful.
Shelley:Yeah.
Shelley:Keep it.
Shelley:Friendly.
Shelley:Remember, I when you say people are afraid to email their list I don't know why,
Shelley:Because these people have self-selected.
Shelley:They've opted in.
Shelley:They want to hear from you.
Shelley:And I'm not saying every day, but once a week is nice.
Shelley:If you have a best friend, don't you contact them at least once a week?
Shelley:These people wanna feel like your friend.
Shelley:They wanna feel like they're part of your community, part of your world.
Shelley:They wanna feel special, so reach out to 'em once a week and say, Hey,
Shelley:it isn't that hard, , put it on your calendar every Tuesday like I do, and
Shelley:say, we're going to, we're gonna email everybody on Tuesday and say, Hey.
Shelley:We're out here, we're doing this.
Shelley:Check it out.
Shelley:Celeste,
Jen:if you're listening or watching, Sorry I don't reach out every week.
Jen:I think I'm trouble with my besties , but yeah, no, I, Yeah, totally agree.
Jen:No you . I don't like reaching out to people once a week.
Jen:All every week.
Jen:Yeah.
Shelley:That's okay.
Shelley:That's okay.
Shelley:You don't have to, that's a personal thing.
Shelley:Personal choice.
Jen:All right, so if you liked this training, I highly encourage you to
Jen:go to course dot agk media.studio.
Jen:That's Shelley's new course, How to create, publish, and
Jen:distribute content consistently.
Jen:And that is again, at course dot Agk media.
Jen:Dot Studio now through November 18th.
Jen:You get it for free if you use coupon code A G K Saver.
Jen:All caps, all
Shelley:caps, all free.
Shelley:And don't forget to subscribe to the Women Conquer Business email list and
Shelley:get a free marketing self assessment.
Shelley:And that link is send fox.com/wcb.
Shelley:And If you haven't done that yet, what are you waiting for?
Shelley:Come on, Jen doesn't even email that often.
Shelley:. I don't.
Shelley:Hey,
Jen:I aspire I, I do.
Jen:I send out good stuff and yes she does.
Jen:Absolutely.
Jen:One of, one of the reasons why I'm hiring somebody so I can get
Jen:back to emailing more often cuz there's just a lot out there.
Jen:That's right.
Jen:So are we.
Jen:Are we good?
Jen:Are we ready for tweak of the week?
Jen:Do it.
Jen:Woo.
Jen:Do it.
Jen:All right, . So this week we're gonna talk about pipe drive.
Jen:I get asked all the time.
Jen:Jen, what's your favorite crm?
Jen:Am I answer M CRM means customer Relationship Manager.
Jen:It's a way to stay in contact.
Jen:Your customers.
Jen:It sometimes does include email marketing.
Jen:In fact, Pipedrive is an add-on for that.
Jen:But it's usually not as good as like a full service email marketing.
Jen:It's how you stay in touch with leads, things like that.
Jen:The answer to what the best client relationship management system is
Jen:for you as a business owner, the answer I always have is So sorry.
Jen:It depends on if what you want that client relationship management tool to do.
Jen:For example, pipe drive is incredibly sales focused.
Jen:That is really what that is for.
Jen:It is for your pipeline.
Jen:It's really there to say, I have a lead.
Jen:I have qualified them and they are moving through my sales process.
Jen:Until the time where I need them to sign a contract, in which case they
Jen:have the lead has converted then into a customer and it's really it.
Jen:They're trying to have more automation built into it, but really it's for that
Jen:sales pipeline and it works really well.
Jen:I think if you have more of a team, it's not as great.
Jen:I think if you're doing it by yourself, there are other tools
Jen:that are good for solopreneurs.
Jen:I'm using it right now and I don't have a big team and I'm finding it's fine too.
Jen:The thing that I've done is I've also integrated web forms into my website.
Jen:That is great because you can go, if you go to my website at
Jen:this time to womenconquerbiz.com.
Jen:There's a little chat bot that opens here and it says, Welcome.
Jen:And then it asks you why you came.
Jen:And if you say you're interested in services, guess what?
Jen:It will schedule and put it on your calendar.
Jen:So it's there's schedule, you get people to give you their name and email address.
Jen:You can add them to your list.
Jen:They show up as a lead in pipe drive.
Jen:You can do all different kinds of things with pipe drive to really
Jen:attract new people and help.
Jen:Grow your list and increase your sales.
Jen:Other CRMs have different focuses, like one of the best client
Jen:relationship management tools out there is Square, and a lot of people
Jen:don't realize how great Square is.
Jen:They think of it as just payment processing.
Jen:If you have a restaurant or if you use Square as your primary tool
Jen:for like in-person transactions, you can use that and that would be
Jen:a better fit for you than a pipe.
Jen:Pipe drive is different.
Jen:This is for people who are more consulting and doing some sales.
Jen:They talk to a lot of people and they need a way to track all of
Jen:the people that they're talking to.
Jen:A couple of caveats about pipe drive is there are a lot of add-ons, so
Jen:you can do just about anything that you wanna do, but if you wanna send
Jen:email to your sales leads that cost.
Jen:If you wanna have that little form I just showed you that I have on my
Jen:website that costs extra if so it can get really expensive, which is why I
Jen:don't know if I'm gonna use it forever.
Jen:I'm testing it out right now just to see if it works for me, but it does
Jen:get expensive to have all of the bell and whistles that they talk about
Jen:that make it actually a fully feature.
Jen:Client relationship manager.
Jen:Now it will do the reminders , so you remember to follow up with people.
Jen:It will do different things with your scheduling.
Jen:Those are all great.
Jen:But not all of the integrations are great and it doesn't natively integrate
Jen:with a ton of other applications.
Jen:You are gonna need an intermediary, like a Zappier, a ley to connect it to
Jen:other tools, and that's a limitation.
Jen:It's the tweak of the week , but it's a tweak of the week with a caveat
Jen:because if you're looking for client relationship management software, it's
Jen:really the case that you need to test it out, make sure it's a fit for your
Jen:business, make sure it fits into the workflows and the sales that you're
Jen:trying to go through for your business.
Jen:If you're really looking for a record or you really wanna tie it
Jen:into your email marketing active.
Jen:also has a really good client relationship management system.
Jen:It just depends on the tools that you're using and what's gonna make
Jen:it easiest for you and which one are you actually going to use.
Jen:Cause it's not gonna help you if you don't use it.
Jen:And that is today's tweak of the week.
Jen:Week
Shelley:of the week.
Shelley:Let's move into some inspiration.
Shelley:You did the techie side.
Shelley:Now we do the feeling side . Here's a quote from Zig Ziegler that I try to
Shelley:live my life by, and I know Jen does because I see her do it all the time.
Shelley:You will get all you want in life if you help enough other
Shelley:people get what they want.
Shelley:Not only is that great sales, but it's just a great way to live your life.
Shelley:Focus on being the best person you can be in the present moment and
Shelley:on doing the right thing right now.
Shelley:Be good and noble.
Shelley:Now, while it still matters and while people are paying attention we, people
Shelley:children and everybody who watches us, they learn about us by what we do.
Shelley:The actions that we take how we treat other people.
Shelley:All of these things are very important and they stand out.
Shelley:For our customers, they're looking at us, they're saying, how does,
Shelley:how do I resonate with her?
Shelley:Does she, is she a, does she walk or talk?
Shelley:Does she help other people without expecting anything in return?
Shelley:And and the now that the election is minutes away, we wanna know that
Shelley:there are people out there who are in it just to help other people.
Shelley:And share information, share knowledge, share tips and tools and tweaks and,
Shelley:and because we wanna help other people, we want everybody to rise together.
Shelley:Right?
Shelley:So that's great.
Shelley:Why inspirational Nugget for today?
Shelley:What do you think, Jen?
Jen:I totally agree.
Jen:Yeah.
Jen:That's awesome.
Jen:Thank you so much for sharing that.
Jen:I, Yeah, yeah.
Jen:You know, it, you.
Jen:Everybody needs a life jacket.
Jen:The boat floats for everybody.
Jen:Yeah.
Shelley:Yeah.
Shelley:Let's all lift each other up and take each other up to that
Shelley:tropical island in the sky.
Jen:Have a great week, everybody.
Shelley:Thank you for joining the Women Conquer Business Podcast, hosted
Shelley:by Shelley Carney and Jen McFarland.
Shelley:Please subscribe and leave a comment or question regarding your most challenging
Shelley:content creation or business problem.
Shelley:Then share this podcast with family and friends.
Shelley:So they can find the support they need to expand their brand and
Shelley:share their message with the world.
Shelley:Check the show notes for
Jen:links
Shelley:to valuable resources and come back again next week.
