EntreLeadership - The Keys to Making Email Marketing Work for You with Amy Porterfield

Episode Date: September 20, 2021

Email is one of the oldest forms of digital marketing. It’s also one of the most saturated. Some experts think you should focus your efforts on TikTok or Instagram. But Amy Porterfield thinks otherwise. In this week’s episode of The EntreLeadership Podcast, we sit down with Amy to discuss why email marketing is still the most effective form of advertising for any small business—and how you can use it to grow your business. Then, in our second segment, George Kamel sits down with the executive director of ramseysolutions.com, Kacy Maxwell. He walks us through how you can develop a newsletter that your customers can’t wait to open!   The EntreLeadership Podcast Amy Porterfield's Website Amy Porterfield's podcast Online Marketing Made Easy with Amy Porterfield ConvertKit The Dotted Lime in Columbia, TN Ramsey Solutions' Website Check out the Ramsey Newsletter Schedule a call with Tim, the Producer.   Learn more about the offers from our EntreLeadership Partners: BELAY  |  Gravy  |  Hite Digital Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Do you want to hear something crazy? According to a recent study done by the tech company DOMO, it's estimated that 188 million emails are sent every single minute. You've probably been told that email marketing is essential for your business. But how do you cut through all that noise in your customer's inbox? From the Ramsey Network, this is the Entree Leadership podcast, where we help business leaders grow themselves, their teams, and their profits. I'm your host, George Camel, and today's episode is all about how to use email marketing in your business,

which connects to our business driver of Plan. Our first guest is Amy Porterfield. She's an online marketing expert and host of the top-rated podcast, Online Marketing Made Easy. Through her digital courses, she teaches online marketing to entrepreneurs and students all over the world.

In our conversation, we walk through a step-by-step process that will help you develop an effective email marketing strategy for your business. In our second conversation, I talk with Ramsey leader Casey Maxwell on how to create a company newsletter

that your customers will actually want to read. So stick around for that. Let's get to it. Here's my conversation with Amy Porterfield on email marketing. Amy, it's so good to have you today. How you doing? Good. Thanks. I appreciate you having me here. Well, I'm a huge marketing nerd, and so I'm excited to dig into this stuff. And, you know, there is a lot of new social platforms out there. And I think as the business owner, you're like, oh, I guess I got to get on TikTok now. And I got to get on the new social platform, which makes me think, you know, there's this myth out there that email marketing is dead.

Is the myth true? myth is absolutely not true. And here's why. First of all, email converts four times faster than any social media platform. It's been proven over and over again. But here's something I think everyone listening needs to know. If you build your business on social media with Instagram and TikTok and Facebook and all the things, you are building your business on rented land. You do not own social media. And we've seen it time and time again. The algorithm changes like that. And now how you are doing business has to change. It's not the same for email marketing. When you grow your email list, you have an asset you own. It's yours. You get to control it. And so you have a bigger opportunity

to do big things with that email list. So social media is great, but don't build your business just on social media. That's so strong. I love that analogy of renting versus owning, because as we've seen, a social media platform can disappear like that. We all thought MySpace was going to be around forever. And now it went the way of Blockbuster and Toys R Us. So I love that concept of owning the email list and not having to worry about, is this platform going to continue? Is the algorithm going to change tomorrow? It's a one-to-one connection that you'll always have with that customer. And, you know, most people listening, they may not be really doing much marketing right now. They may be doing just fine without all of the fancy email marketing and social media marketing.

And the truth is they probably don't have a team. And it feels like one more thing to do on their list. So what is the reason you would say to focus your time and effort on marketing? Okay. So when you have an email list, you actually have a huge opportunity to make more money in your business. It's an asset that can pay off over and over and over again. I want to give you a quick example. In my business, we recently launched a new offer. And it's been a while since I put something new out there. So we were excited to do so, but we did not have time for like a big launch or anything like that. So the first week we launched this new offer, we ran some paid Facebook ads, and we posted on social media. And we did well. We were

happy with our results. The next week, we ran some paid ads, same amount of money. We posted on social the same way, and we sent two emails out. The second week, we made $100,000 more than the week before. And we were able to chart where the sales were coming from, and they were coming from our email list. When you nurture your email list, you have a built-in audience that is more likely to buy from you when they hear from you consistently. So if you think you don't have time for it, you also don't have time to not hit your financial goals. You don't have time to be working on things that aren't moving the needle as much as, let's say, your email marketing strategies could. And the truth is you don't have to do it yourself. You can delegate it to somebody else on your

team. You can hire it out. You can outsource it to a company that can help you. It doesn't always have to be used. Sometimes I work with one man or one woman shows and they're like, this is way too much. Don't think it just has to be you, but I do believe it's important to get it done. You know, I started my career here as an email marketer. And like you're saying, the revenue, the lion's share comes from the email marketing portion more than social media because it's a less passive audience. They're more engaged. They're further down. They're more of a raving fan, probably if you're on the newsletter list, right? Because we're more protective of our inbox than we we are who we follow on social media. So very true. So very true. And the secret.

to that, to get them more engaged, to get them to actually open up those emails, is to be consistently reaching out to them. And some of the time I get the question like, what am I supposed to be emailing them? And you're just keeping in touch with them. You're telling stories. You're offering advice. You're using case studies. You're giving them insight that they need. You're meeting them where they're at. Just quick check-ins make a big difference for when you actually use email to sell. People are more likely to buy. Yeah. That's interesting. You say that because I think a lot of business owners, they send an email when they need to make some money and they got to sell something. Right. And then they usually say, email doesn't work. Well, it would never work if the only time

someone reaches out to you is if they want you to buy something. When you think about email marketing, think nurture first, sell second. Nurture is very important. So what would be a good example of kind of the conversation that you might have with the customer? Let's say you're a dentist and you start this email newsletter and you don't want to just send them an email when it says, hey, it's time for your six month cleanup, here's 10% off. What kind of content might you send if you're that dentist office? Okay, so there's a lot of different type of content you can create. So funny enough that you say dentists, only about 20% of dentists actually focus on growing their email list and creating lead magnets to get it out there. So if you are a dentist listing, you will get a competitive

edge if you actually do this. So I know we'll probably talk in a moment about putting a lead magnet out there and actually growing the email list, but the email list you likely already have. even if it's small, you want to think about where is your audience right now and where do you want them to go? So when I say where is your audience right now, what do most people struggle with when you are meeting with them? What do most people in your audience want? What is their desire? What is their challenge? Let's get clear there because you want to meet them where they're at. But also look at your business. What are your offers? Where are you wanting to make your money? Where is the opportunity, the low hanging fruit? You marry those two. So in emails, you

might give away a free teeth whitening if they came in to do something else. Or you could do a free consultation. Or maybe you just need to educate them. Like one of the dentists I saw did a really great opportunity where he outlined how to find the perfect fit orthodontist for your teenager. And a lot of moms and dads are thinking like, I know my kid hates the dentist. My kid doesn't even want to get braces, but we got to do this. So let's find someone who's going to be a good fit. So informative type emails, meeting them where they're at, are really valuable as well. That's good. So kind of focusing on that education part of how can I help this customer with their pain point. And then occasionally you can do the, hey, we're giving this thing away or we're doing 10% off or we've got a new offering.

I like that. It's not all about sell, sell, sell. Let's talk about email service providers real quick just because I think a lot of people, they go, yes, Amy, I'm excited to do email. And then they Google search email marketing website. And they're like, there's 48,000. thousand options. So if you're the small business owner and you just had to go pick this one and do this thing, what would you go with? Oh, all the way, ConvertKit. I love Convert Kit. The reason being is you can start with them for free. They're very easy to work with. They have an amazing customer support and they grow with you. And they give you lots of free templates like to get name and emails and to create different pages on your website. So very easy. Convert Kit. That's awesome. That was easy. Okay, we're moving on. So you mentioned this word lead magnet and it can

feel like a $10 word to a lot of listeners and their brain just kind of melted a little bit. They're like lead magnets. This all sounds very, very nitty-gritty marketing. So in layman's terms, tell us what is a lead magnet. Other words for it are a freebie or a giveaway or something that you give to your audience for free in exchange for their name and email. You've got to look at it like this. A name-in-email is a hot commodity these days, and people don't want to part with that

unless it's something of value. So to grow your email list, to get your audience to want to want to be a lot of, to be on your email list, we've got to put something of great value out there. So it kind of goes back to what I talked about, what you'd be putting in an email. But in this case, it might be a short video or some kind of guide cheat sheet checklist, or it could be a coupon code or a free consultation or something like that. But you're giving them something that they're going to say, I really want that. Again, meet them where they're at. So you want to solve a problem or meet a desire with your your lead magnet, your freebie, but also you have to make it easy to digest. It's not something that's

going to take them hours to get through. They will never do it. So you want it easy to digest and easy to access. So once they give you their name and email, boom, you're going to give them whatever you promise them. That's really good. So you don't want to send the 87 page ebook that's real technical. You just want the one page thing, the promo code that can help them today. Yes, right now. It's an instant gratification is something you want to think about when you're creating a lead magnet. And for the industries that may go, Amy, that sounds great, but hey, we're a construction company. We don't really have a freebie to give away in the construction business. How would you help a business owner think through that if they go, this is an industry that I can't really think

of anything creative to offer? Okay, so we go back to, all right, what is your audience want? What are they looking for? And let's say it's a construction company that if people were to invest with you, they're talking like hundreds of thousands of dollars. of investment. So it's not like the sale's going to happen like that. So let's meet them where they're at. What do they need to know right now? I teach it as though it's an invisible bridge. Let's say your client, if you're a construction company and you're looking for clients, your client is here. They need to cross an invisible bridge to get to the other side so that the other side is, I'm ready to spend money with you. You're my people. I want to hire you. So to get them to cross

that invisible bridge, what do they need to know, believe, understand or have a mindset shift in some way or another, what needs to happen for them to get to a place that they're ready to buy? So no, understand, believe so that they're ready to buy. That's what you would put in a lead magnet. That's why information, education becomes really valuable. I got to give you a quick example. One of my friends Marcus Sheridan years ago owned a pool business, so they would install pools. And the reason why his business exploded and did way better than that, than anyone in his local area is because he started giving information that other pool companies wouldn't give. He'd talk about the difference between this pool material and that pool material. He'd tell you

how much he charges for a pool and they're big investments. He tells you the do's, the don'ts when you're working with someone to install your pool. It wasn't all about work with me, work with me. It was, hey, I care about you making a good decision. Let me tell you all the stuff other pool companies won't tell you. And when he did that, the trust factor shot up, people started joining his email list, asking him questions, and hiring him. So it's a different way to look at it. Yeah. And I love that you said it built that trust. And I think that's a huge part of this is I'm not going to give you money until I trust you, that you're going to deliver on your promises, that it's going to be a good product, a good experience. And so if you think about how can I build

trust with them, a lot of it is showing them the behind the scenes and going, hey, this is how we do this. This is our team. And, you know, I just thought of this. But, you know, when it comes to these lead magnets, it could be, hey, we're doing a free consultation. Exactly. We'll just and free estimate. We're going to come to you and talk through your project for free with, you know, no questions asked and no commitments. And that kind of makes me feel like, okay, obviously they want to earn my business, but there's something that makes me take an easy step towards that invisible bridge that you talked about. One million percent, spot on. So when it comes to sharing this lead magnet, let's say we create the lead magnet, maybe it's a PDF, maybe it's just, hey, a free estimate.

How do you go about sharing that? Because if you just make it, that's going to be zero people who really show up to your website who get there. So what is the best way to get the word out about this? So I always say with the lead magnet, it's not field of dreams, build it, and they will come. It does not happen that way. And so you do need to be really proactive. The first thing is, I'd love for you to link it into your social media bios. So on Instagram and Facebook and wherever else, LinkedIn is a great one. When you're talking about who your company is and what it's all about, make it a point to that link is very visible and accessible. so people can opt in right away.

So social media, bios 100%. The other place is mentioning it on social media. And here's what most people don't know that have never kind of dealt with lead magnets. You're mentioning it often. It's sad but true that one mention on social media, probably 5% of those who follow you on social media are actually going to see it.

You need to do this on a consistent basis. So make it a point that every single week find a new way to talk about the lead magnet, mention the lead magnet, put it out there. So maybe it's on Instagram story one day and then the other day you find a way to mention it on LinkedIn. I want you to kind of mix it up and get it out there regularly. One lead magnet is all you need. We don't need a bunch of them, but you do need to talk about it a lot. Another great way to mention it is if you ever get interviewed, anybody else's podcast or if someone's doing a write-up about

you, any kind of media, get it out there as much as you can because this is another great way that people can engage with you right away. So there's little easy ways to do it, but the ticket here is that you mention it often. That's good. And when it comes to social media, do you think that, you know, some paid ads maybe on Facebook or Instagram could be a good way to get people over to your lead magnet? I'm so glad you mentioned this. Yes. So for me, I think the best way to use any kind of paid ads, whether it be paid Facebook ads or Instagram ads or whatever you're doing, the best way to use ads is with a lead magnet, meaning running ads just when you have a promo, that conversion rate is going to be tough and expensive.

Running ads to something free tends to be a whole lot cheaper. And then once they get on your email list, now you get to nurture them. So when it's time to buy, they're more likely to buy. And so I love, and we do this in my company every day, we love spending money on ads that will lead to lead magnets. That is one of the best ways you could do it. That's awesome. Yeah, I can think of multiple times that I've fallen for the ad because it was free versus saying,

hey, spend $100 with us. It just said, hey, give us your email and we'll give you X, Y, Z. And I went, yeah, okay, that sounds like a good deal. I'm willing to give that up. So that's awesome. I love that. How often should you introduce a new lead magnet? You said, hey, you don't need to have a bunch of lead magnets, but is there a time where,

hey, it may be time, it's been six months, it's been a year, let's come up with something fresh. So you want to look at your metrics. As long as there's a really solid conversion rate for a lead magnet, which typically is around 30%. So what I mean by that is you send somebody to a page to get that free consultation at the dentist. If about 30% of people who hit the page actually are signing up for it, you're golden.

You're doing really good. And so if you start to see the conversion rate decline and you start to kind of first play around with who's being sent there, maybe change your ads up a little bit, maybe talk about it a little different way. If you don't get that conversion rate back up, then you want to think about a new lead magnet.

Never change. a lead magnet if it's doing well. There's no reason to do so. So let's not create more work for yourself. One lead magnet, as long as it's converting well, you're golden. That's awesome. That's very encouraging, because I'm sure people are going, Amy, I can't sit around making lead magnets all day. This is just too much work. No, none of us can. Yes. That's awesome. So as we create the lead magnet and we're starting to kind of build this list, I think a lot of business owners go, listen, Amy, I'm in a small town. I'm not going to build a list of 100,000 people. So what's the point? Do you need a large email list in order to see revenue and big numbers? Absolutely not. So think about a lot of people that are listening are in more of a service-based

business in the sense that they're working with clients in real life, like any local business that's listening. You can't have 1,000 new clients all at once. It's typically not the way it works. So when you have, let's say, a hundred people on your email list and you say, but Amy, it's only 100 people. I always say, okay, let's invite all 100 people to your office right now. Let's cram them in and you tell me if it's only 100 people. So we have to remember that everybody on our email list is a real person wanting to have your support and looking for a solution. So you do not need a big email list in order to serve. As long as you're nurturing, reaching out to them often, you can convert a small email list into the sales that you're looking for. And I've seen it done over and over and over again. I have a lot of students who, sell via email. And many of my students have less than 100 people and they've made five figures

with just one email. So it very much can be done. Wow. That's awesome. Does that come down to the intentionality with the content of that email, the subject line, the body, what you include in there? Because to convert, you know, you can't just put anything in there even with 100 people and expect them all to go, yes, click by. So what do you need to be thinking about when it comes to that content? Okay. I love this question. The first thing, even before we get there, you've got to be reaching out regularly. So maybe it's once a week, once every other week, not much less than that because it's the consistency in the, again, nurture the relationship you have with them that matters. That's going to be that affects the conversion. Whether you write a bad email or a good email,

you're more likely to sell if you're consistently in contact with them. And then to get to your question, yes, subject line matters. And so there's a lot of tools out there. I can't think off the top of my head, but I'm still going to give the suggestion. You can Google, subject line tools. And there's a lot of tools out there that will help you know if a subject line is a good one that's going to convert or not. So studying good subject lines is actually important. Maybe piquing somebody's interest, making it personal. Like the best compliment I could get is when someone says, Amy, I thought you were writing that email just for me. I didn't realize until the end that you had sent it to your whole list. You want to make it personal. You want to talk to as though you're

talking to one person and you're talking to a friend. So back to the subject lines. Either peek their curiosity, make it super informational telling them exactly what it is you're doing so they know what this email is about or make it an email that makes them feel as though, oh, she's just talking to me. Perfect. They're more likely to open it. Once they open that email, you want to make sure that whatever you're talking about, you grab their attention from the get-go. Those first two lines are very, very important. The great news is you do not need a super long email. A lot of my students are, they feel like overwhelmed, like,

writing emails is so hard. And I always remind them, we could do short paragraphs. Here's another little tip that's working really well. There's a software called Bomb Bomb. I don't know why it's called that. B-O-M-B-O-M-B. So Bomb-B-B-O-M-B. So Bomb-B is a video marketing tool that you can make a quick video,

you put it in your email, and when someone opens the email, they actually kind of see you moving and talking where they press play and then you start talking. And if you don't want to write a big email, what if you just turn the camera on real fast? Let them know what you wanted to tell them. You're good to go. You're in. You're out. That goes a long way. The subject line could be, hey, John, I made this video for you. And so they open it up and there you are. There's really cool things you could do with email marketing and you don't have to write a novel. That's awesome. That's super helpful. That was going to be my second question was do you need to write a novel because I think a lot of the business owners are going,

Amy, I don't have time to write articles for these people. I'm running a business here. So you're saying it's not about the length. It's about making it personal, making it connect, and making it helpful. Yes, for sure. That's so good. And if you're not comfortable on video, let's say, you know, some people are going, Amy, I'm not putting myself on video. Okay, I'm not here to be the personality of the business. Is it okay to just do text? Oh, it's 90% of us are just going to do text. I don't even do video. That little video, was for the courageous ones that want to actually spice things up. Most of us are just doing text.

And that works like gangbusters. Yeah. I love that. So that's helpful because I think content is one of the biggest issues when it comes to email. And outside of the content, when it comes to selling stuff, this is where people go, Amy, I feel icky saying, hey, buy, buy this thing, buy this thing. How do you sell in a way that doesn't feel salesy? All right.

The first thing is what we talked about earlier, you're not just automatically, jumping into their inbox and it's been months and now you sell them something. We're not doing that because it doesn't work. The second thing is when you're going to sell something in an email, think of it as a campaign. So let's say over the next seven days, you're going to sell one of your services that you do. So over seven days, you're going to send maybe a series of three, I know this is going to sound crazy to some, three to four emails that you're going to talk about the service. But the reason why you want to send three to four emails is one, the more emails you send, the more likely you're are to sell. So there is a correlation. But two, maybe in one email you tell a story of one of your

clients who has gotten some great success that others want. And then, hey, by the way, if you want this to, click here. So it's not this big, long thing about what you're selling. It's a story. The second thing is maybe to list out the benefits of this thing that you are selling. So not the features. The features is not sexy in an email. What I mean by that is let's say that you have an hour-long consultation where if you're in a construction business, they come to your house and they do this seven-point checklist. Well, the seven-point checklist, you can mention it, but that's not as sexy in an email is if you take them up and have them do the project, what that means for them. You've got to get down to the emotional side of it. Let's say they were totally relanscaping your

front yard. What does that do for you now? How is that person going to feel? How are they going to feel when people come over to their house. We have to talk about benefits of the results, not the features of what you're selling. So anyway, that was just one thing that is really important that I see kind of mistakes made there. And then in addition to that, you do want an email that fully maps out exactly what they're going to get, and that typically is the last email. So kind of work up to it. So it's a series of emails. You're doing stories and examples and case studies and benefits so that it's a whole campaign and not here's an email I'm selling this is what I'm selling goodbye that does not work so that's why I wanted to spend some time on that that's really good it's kind of like

you know you don't go on a first date and go right so ready to get married you have to go on a bunch of dates before you can even then build that relationship and propose and so it kind of reminds me of that analogy and what you're talking about with the email consistency I can think of multiple times that I've unsubscribe because I was like oh I don't even remember subscribing to this this because they never email me. Yes, exactly my point. I love that you said that. And versus the people that email me more frequently, well, I'm like, oh, I'm used to this

and I actually like the content and I won't unsubscribe because I'm like, well, I'll go back and read that later. There's some good stuff in here. And so to your point, that consistency makes me go, I can trust these people. They're not just here to sell me. They've been delivering content to me that's helpful for months now. And all of a sudden, I have a sale and I might be ready to make a purchase. So true.

That's really good. let's talk about metrics. This is the part, again, can melt people's brains a little bit, so make it easy on us. What metrics should we be looking at to determine the health of our email list for doing things right? Okay, so first of all, email open rate is very important. And if you think about it, the only thing they're likely seeing is the subject line. And so that's why it's so important that you get that right. Now, sometimes you can set up your email where they see subject line and like maybe the first two sentences, which is why I said the first two sentences of any email are really important as well. So industry standard, I hate to throw out these

numbers because every industry definitely feels like it fluctuates, but you want to get to at least 20% open rate. So that's what you're going for, at least that as your first benchmark. So email open rate, very important. The next metric is click through rate. Now the click through rate, this one gets really low and so it might be daunting for some to hear. But the click through rate is they're reading your email and now you want them to go somewhere else. If you do, you don't always have to have them go somewhere else. But let's say in my case, I send out an email and encourage people to go check out my podcast. So I'll say click here for the latest episode of my podcast.

They'll click there, go there. Email open rate, usually around 2, 3%. It's very low, but it's an important metric to track. And then from their conversion rate. So if you're selling something, you do want to pay close attention to how many people actually click on the link to buy and how many actually do buy, that number's going to very much fluctuate. My advice to you is figure out your benchmark and then always trying to improve from there because that one really is run to the gamut for different industries. And then finally, unsubscribe rate, but let's not put too much

focus on unsubscribe. Every time you send an email, people will unsubscribe every time. Like if they don't, I'm going to be very, very, very surprised. The only thing you need to worry about unsubscribes is if you see a big spike in unsubscribes. So if you send out an email and typically you get three or four unsubscribes each email and this one you got 50, somehow or another you probably offended somebody in that email or like really miss the mark. Pay attention to the spikes, not the regular unsubscribes that happen all the time. So don't focus on those critics.

I mean, it's just people going, hey, I got to clear my inbox. I still care about you, Bob's construction, but I just can't have another newsletter in here. And that's okay. That's okay. Yep. That's why we're always growing our email list. I have this motto, which is always be list building. It should happen organically in the back of your business.

Once you set it up with your email service provider and you got your lead magnet set up, I don't wake up every morning thinking, I've got a list build. But every day I grow my email list. It happens in the back of my business because I set up the foundation. So anybody listening right now that's kind of overwhelmed, you're thinking, I don't know if I want to do this, but I'm kind of struggling. I'd like to see more sales. Let's just get the foundation set up.

And I promise you it gets a whole lot easier. Yeah, that makes me think. Should you be setting goals for how you want to grow the list? You go, all right, if we just get a subscriber a day, that's 365 one year from now. Is it healthy to kind of set those goals when it comes to your marketing? I absolutely love it. And those goals will be so individual to what your business is. But someone with a list of 365 people that they're nurturing and they actually have a relationship with. And let's say they are a business that people are coming through the door or they're working one-on-one. And let's say that they got 10 new sales, even in one year from their email list, that could really add up. So yes, we do not need big

email list in order for this to work. That's good. And I remember the abbreviation now, A, B, LB, always B list building. I got that. Okay, I love that. That one's free. That one's free. That one's free. So we talked about the headline, the subject line. We talked about the structure of the emails. It's not about being long or short. It's about delivering helpful content consistently over time. So have you seen any kinds of content? What are the emails that you open and you read and you go, oh my gosh, this is really good? You know, because you're such an expert in the industry, what stands out to you in today's modern world? I love the subject lines that are very personal and really casual. So they're just like, what would you say to your best friend if you wanted to

reach out to them and you wanted to make sure you grab their attention in their inbox, what would you say? So the emails I write, I literally think, oh, she's talking to me. And those are my favorite. The emails that I open and read all the time are always meeting me where I'm at. They identify what I'm feeling right now because they know their audience well. They address it, and they're not scared to put the different things that are going through my mind out there, even if it's objections to me working with that person, they'll say things like, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking that buying another XYZ is just going to be, you know, just a waste of time. So they address what I'm thinking and then they give me insight and solutions to my challenges or

desires. So that's really what it is. Think about talking to your friend in these emails, even if you're in the construction business, even if you're a dentist, we are humans and we want to connect with other humans. We are not brands. So don't sound like you are writing from your brand or from your logo one person to another, that's what makes the huge difference in success with email marketing. I love that. Keeping it personal, pretend like you're talking to your best friend. I'm going to put you on the spot here. Do you have one like in the last week, if you pulled out your phone right now, I'll even give you a time if you went, oh yeah, I opened that one because I was just really intrigued or entertained by this subject line or this content. Okay, yes. I just, I know who it

is. So actually, if you're going to put me on the spot, let me, I can literally do a search. Hold on. it right here. I love it. We're doing it live. Okay. Let's see here. Oh, but I know we're doing it live and now I'm going to get nervous, but I really, um, I'll buy us some time. And hey, if you're listening, you can steal this, this subject line and try it out and let us know how it went. Oh, I love that. Okay, I can't find it here because I think that she sends me the emails to another address that's not on this phone. Oh, you get your newsletter emails. I mean, how many are you subscribed to as a professional email marketer? And subscribe to tons. But, um, She comes into my personal email, which I don't have on this phone on purpose so it won't distract me.

That's smart. That's another hack for you. Yeah, it is. It allows me to stay focused. But her name is Jasmine Star and she teaches Instagram marketing. But the reason I always open up her emails is because literally her subject lines feel as though she's in my head. And that's what I love. And then every time I open her email, if she's promoting her podcast, she's promoting her product, she's promoting a mastermind, whatever it is,

it starts out with a little story of her right at the very beginning, but it's very personal and very relevant. And I love those emails. So I'm always opening them to say like, I wonder what she's up to now. So again, it's that personal connection that I feel and why it works so well. That's really good. And speaking of Jasmine, we're actually having her speak at Christy Wright's Business Boutique Conference in October. So I'm excited to see her. Yes. Anybody going to Business Boutique and watching Jasmine, you are in for a treat? It's like you're going to business church. That's all I could say.

It feels like you're going to business church. She is going to bring it. She's one of my favorite speakers. That's awesome. Well, I want to know lastly, kind of the frequency. You talked about this a little bit, but you don't want to badger them every single day because that's a sure way to get an unsubscribe. But you also don't want to reach out once every six months either with just your sales pitch.

What is the right rhythm based on the content? So I love once a week. I always teach my students once a week. let's reach out. If that feels too much for somebody listening right now, let's do every other week. But let's be consistent. Let's not do every three weeks and then maybe come back to every other. No, every other week, rain or shine, make it a commitment. And that's how you get into that flow of communicating and nurturing. That's so good. So as we close here, what should a small business owner, let's say maybe they're a million dollar business or five million dollar business. They have a team of five, ten, maybe 15 or 20 people. What should they focus on in the next week or two to start

to grow that email list and really make this revenue happen. Okay, real quick. If you already have an email list, let's get into the consistency of emailing them once a week or once every other week. That's the tip for anyone who already has an email list. If you don't have an email list, let's get that email service providers set up. It's very easy. It won't even take that long.

And let's create a lead magnet. Now, if you create a lead magnet, give yourself the commitment that I'm not taking more than three hours to create it. That's your max. I'm not saying anything elaborate. three hours, you get that lead magnet done, and you get it out into the world. That's so great. Super practical. This whole conversation has felt like just like a quick masterclass on how to get started as a small business owner in the world of marketing,

which can be daunting because it's more complicated than ever. It's easier than ever, but there's just so much out there that you don't even know where to start and you gave us so many great tidbits that help us go, all right, I know what to do tomorrow. I know where to put my time. I know where to put my energy. So Amy, thank you so much for what you're doing, to help so many people out there get a hold of this marketing stuff to change their lives, change their business, and really improve their teams, their communities, and everything involved. So thanks so much for your time. Well, thanks so much for having me. It's always so much fun. Take care.

You too. Thanks so much to Amy Porterfield for a great conversation on marketing. Love her heart to help entrepreneurs really get a handle on this stuff. So now that you know how to use email marketing in your business, it's time to go create an email newsletter that doesn't suck. We'll have a conversation about that right after this. All right, coming up, I talk with Ramsey Leader Casey Maxwell. He's the executive director of Ramsey Solutions.com,

and he leads the team that creates our Ramsey newsletter that goes out to over 1.4 million active subscribers every single week. He shares his advice on how you can put together an effective newsletter that will help you create an ongoing conversation with your customers. Casey Maxwell, good to have you back on the podcast. Hey, excited to be here again. So you are the executive. director of Ramsey Solutions.com. That's a pretty cool title. I like it. I mean, you're directing a website,

which is interesting. Most people don't need that. But our site is a little different because we have millions and millions and millions of people coming to the site to find things that they need help with, right? Oh, yeah. And we have to figure out a way to make a scalable site that goes across our entire company. And we have a lot of different services and products, et cetera. So my team focuses on how do we pull that all together into one consistent online experience? And with your role, you are in charge of our company newsletter. So we're here today. We're talking about how to add value to your customers through email marketing, through a good

email marketing strategy. And it starts with the company newsletter. So what is that? That sounds like a real stuffy, antiquated term. What does that really mean? Yeah, a company newsletter, we call it CNL around here. So if I accidentally say that, just buzz me. A company newsletter, when you look across the industry and you're subscribed to as many

as I am, it runs the gamut. everybody chooses to do a company newsletter in a different way. And when you think about it, a company newsletter, if you look at like origins of the word newsletter, which sounds pretty geeky, but when you get in there, you see that it's just sending news to a specific set of people. And when you attach company to it, it's company news. And when you look at a lot of newsletters, that's all people are doing is just sending, here's stuff about my company. Here's more information about my company. Exactly. It's all about the company. And they send it to their customers. and then the customers don't like it, and then they say, oh, well, let's not do a newsletter.

It doesn't make sense. Well, we've had a company newsletter here for many, many years before I've been here, and I've been here for about five and a half years. And we have 1.4 million active subscribers in our email newsletter, and we send information every Sunday morning. Now, that information is always helpful. We always try to make it helpful for our customers. So we're sending interesting blogs.

We're sending tools. We're sending information, and yes, we're sending company updates, but we're sending so much more content every week. So I actually used to send this email because little known fact, I started at Ramsey as an email marketer. And so my job for a few years, one of many things was sending this newsletter out, compiling all the information together, making sure that all the words are right, the eyes are dotted, the teaser crossed. And I had a lot of fun with that. And I got to see firsthand how the sausage was made here. So I want to unpack this for the listeners. how do you put together a newsletter that people actually want to read? That's helpful and not just about

me and my company and how awesome we are. Yeah. Yeah, you have to start with the customer first. When we think of where the company newsletter falls into our overall strategy, the way that we think about that is we want to build trust with our customer. And the way that we do that is consistently sending helpful information every week. So we send this, like I said, on a weekly basis. And our goal is that every time someone opens up that email newsletter, that they are getting something valuable. And that valuable information is not information just about our company. It's information about the problems that they have. It's useful tools that can help them solve that. And so when you think of how do I create an email newsletter that is going to be valuable, there's really three main areas

that I try to stick in. The first is you got to get to know your customers, right? Don't start with your company. Start with the customers that are going to be in your email list. We don't think about those 1.4 million subscribers as a number. Each of those email addresses is attached to a person who has problems, who has wants and has needs. And we need to make sure that we can understand who they are and what those are so that we can send them interesting things. So there's a lot of ways to do that. If you don't have a list already, when you build the list, that's one way that you can find out what type of customers.

So you could just put a form and say sign up today. Or you can say, hey, we are going to give you this on a weekly basis. We're going to send you tips. We're going to send you interesting tools, et cetera. Set the expectation when you're building the list. And then, you know, somebody just gave you an email address. They're wanting the stuff that you said that you were going to give them. And so that'll give you some understanding of who's on the list.

If you already have a list, then do a survey. We do surveys on a regular basis to understand what the people, people are in our list, how they're changing. We ask for demographic information, and that stuff's important, but we also ask what's important to them? We don't give an open field and say, what do you care about or what should we create for you? Because most customers won't be able to answer that. We say, hey, if we sent this, how likely would you be to read it? If we sent that, would you unsubscribe? Would you look at it every morning? And based on that information, we get a really good understanding of how should we tailor this newsletter to

make it relevant on an ongoing basis. The last is figuring out frequency and send times. Now, depending on the size of your business, the size of your team, you've got to figure out what works for you. When we started sending the CNL, we sent it monthly and it was on Mondays because we thought that was the best time. So we started surveying. We started testing. And we said, actually it's Sundays. People want to get this information on Sunday because they want to be able to read it on an ongoing basis. And so they need more time on a Sunday so they would get it in that morning, we sent in the morning, and they'd have more time. When we sent it on a Monday, they would be busy, they'd forget, and so they wouldn't actually look at it. The last thing is testing, testing, testing, testing.

You're going to find out information about your customers. You're going to find out sun times, but you can't stick in that forever. You always got to be testing. the content and the information that you're sending to make sure that it's relevant. Yeah, we do a lot of tracking around here, looking at the metrics, how many people opened it, what did they click on, what did they end up doing after they clicked on it, and we do a lot of A-B testing, too, where we say, hey, did they like this subject line or this subject line? And there's a lot of great tools out there to even do that for your small business. So I love this content and this conversation, but as you're talking, I just kept thinking,

well, you know, Casey, we're a content company. So it's really easy for us to put out content in a newsletter. But I keep thinking about the listeners that I've met at Entrae Leadership Events. Maybe someone runs an HVAC business with 10 people. Maybe they have a dentist office and they have some locations. And I keep thinking, what are they going to put out there? They're going, hey, I'm not a blog writer, Casey. I don't have time to write all these articles about the dentistry industry.

What are they going to put out there? What are some ideas that you could give to, you know, some small business owners? This might be in the trades industries to actually add value to their customers. Yeah, I think one is, like I said, make sure you understand who's subscribing to your list. That's going to help you figure out what to send to them. But also, I subscribe to this newsletter that sends me interesting links that they found that are not on their website across the internet. And all they do is compile that list, put it in an email, and send it to me every Sunday. And I open that and look at that.

And it sometimes has something to do with their company, but it just builds that trust. It's a chance to get in, do a brand impression every week. So email newsletters are kind of like podcasts. I only have bandwidth for a certain number in my world. And with email newsletters, you know, I subscribe to 100, and then I call it down over time to really 10 or 15 that I really want to hear from, right? I don't really care to hear from my dentist until it's time to get a filling. And I'm like, oh, gosh, this is expensive.

I wonder if they're going to send me a promo code or, you know, a special discount in the email newsletter. So that's one of the reasons I sign up. How do you cut through the noise as a small business owner when you're competing with big companies and retailers? One of the best things you can do to cut through is provide something of value. When you look at, let's say Gmail, for instance, there's different tabs. One is a primary tab, one is a promotions tab, and one is an updates tab. The promotions tab is where everything goes from a marketing perspective. There was this one email newsletter that my friend told me about, and I signed up for it.

And the first newsletter I read was really, really good. second one that I read was really, really good. And then I missed a couple weeks because it was in that promotions tab and I didn't see it. And I got frustrated. So I went and drug it out of the promotions tab into the primary tab so that I would see it. So if you can create something that is very valuable that people actually look forward to, you're going to get people to make a time to find it and use it. Now, the interesting thing about that story is when I signed up for that, I read that email newsletter for around two years before I did anything with their company. And a lot of times we think, oh, I sent out this email and they didn't buy a thing.

It was useless. Well, in that two years, I was telling people about this company. I was sharing that email newsletter, and that company had no idea. And then two years later, I bought a book from them. And then another book. Then I signed up for a thousand dollar course from them. It wasn't Ramsey. It was another company.

but when I did that, they couldn't track that back to the email because I didn't click on an email to do that. And so marketing analytics, like that stuff is very important. You always need to look at that. But there is a branding aspect that being in an inbox over and over and over again, to your point about the dentist, finding something that you can get in their inbox on a frequent but not too frequent basis, whenever you do have that cavity or you need to go get a checkup, you're going to go back in there and find that and actually do business. with that company. Yeah, that's really good. And as you were talking about, you know, adding value,

it made me think, you know, maybe we shouldn't be sending company newsletters. We should be sending human newsletters and actually being real people. And there's one, as you were talking about this stuff, I thought of one that I actually subscribed to that I enjoy. It's a local restaurant in Columbia, Tennessee, the sweet family. They're on an awesome restaurant out of Columbia, Tennessee, called the dotted lime, and I'm subscribed. And they're sending me weekly emails, and she has so much personality that you feel like you're getting to know this person. You already like them because you've been to the restaurant, and now you're going, oh, I get to kind of keep up. It's almost like what the original intent of social media was, right, where we can keep up with friends and family.

And so I love subscribing, not because I care about what's on the menu this week, but because I love the way they communicate and they tell stories and they let us know what's going on. And maybe there is some specials that week. And I go, oh, gosh, we got to go there on Saturday morning, get a great breakfast. And so there is a piece of this that makes me think, what is unique about your business and your people and your team and how can you, how can you kind of let the culture be seen publicly through the newsletter? And so at Ramsey, you know, we're, we are very intentional about being who we are, you know, we're bold in the marketplace. And I think a lot of small businesses feel like they have to be stuffy, you know, have the buttoned up shirt when they communicate to the customers. What are some ways that we can kind of be real

and stand out in the inbox by being ourselves? Yeah, you gave a really good example. A lot of times it's just, if you're a small business, you as a founder, your story and the story, and the stories of your customers is a great way to be real. We send out information about our customers all the time. Now, we get their approval. You got to be very careful about when you send that out. Permission. Permission to send that out. But sending out stories of how people are having success, I'm not subscribed to the dotted line, but if they're sending out, hey, this is one of our customers and this is what they're saying about us, or here is a way that we've helped people, we have debt-free screams all the time showing how they follow this and they do. They do.

did a debt-free scream and they won. It allows people not only that validates your brand, but allows people to connect with you and see that sort of human side. If you get very stuffy, if you get very corporate, or if you come off as thinking that your customer cares about your brand as much as you do or thinks about it as much as you do, customers are not sitting with their phones, refreshing saying, oh, I hope they send me an email soon. I hope they send me an email soon, right? They're living their lives. They have problems. When they go into their inbox, if you're not going to meet their needs or you're not being real, and it's just a buy this, buy that, buy this, buy that.

They're going to unsubscribe and they're just going to leave, and you're going to lose that chance to talk to them on an ongoing basis. I mean, email more than any other medium is the way that you can have an ongoing relationship. If you think of buying paid ads or doing social media, to have that sort of consistent conversation, you can't have. You've got algorithms in social media that they may or may not see your posts. You have to depend on what they're searching for, whether your ads are going to show up. But email, they're going to be subscribed.

So when you send this, as long as you send them good stuff and they don't unsubscribe, you can continue and build upon that conversation for the long term. Yeah. So what I'm hearing is there's not a lot of prescriptive, hey, send your email on Tuesday afternoons and include these three links, and you're going to crush it. It's all about setting the expectations, asking for permission, being super consistent, and always thinking about how can I add value to the customer and not just sell to them with another promotion.

And sometimes it may be the time to go, hey, we do have 20% off and here's a promotion we're doing and your customer goes, oh, okay, they're not just here to sell to me and I'm happy to get a discount next time I go to that retailer. And email really is a very personal thing, right? Even with the advent of technology and social media, the inbox still feels very personal.

It's almost like a text message. If you've got my number, I better know you and like you. And it feels that way if I subscribe to your newsletter. So there's some great reminders here. And I want to wrap with, you know, the small business owner out there who says this, Casey, I don't have time for this, man. All right, I'm trying to run a business here. Now you want me to be a little writer and have fun, quippy subject lines and all this stuff.

What would you say to that, to the listener who feels like they don't have time for this and it's not important? Time is an interesting conversation. When you say, do I have time for something and do I not have time for something? Everybody has a task list that is longer than they would be able to complete. but when you look at a leader, when you look at an entrepreneur, what is important to them, they find a way to get done. So I don't think the conversation is around, hey, I don't have time for email. I think the conversation is actually around, is email actually important to my business?

And one way that you can find this out is go put together a list. So here's the takeaway for today. If you don't have an email newsletter and you're trying to think of, should I create one? Is this going to be valuable? Go make a list of all. all the different things that you could do to have a consistent ongoing marketing presence with a customer on an ongoing basis. That could be something like, I'm going to print flyers and put them on doorsteps, or I'm going to buy a billboard, or I'm going to buy an A-frame, or one of those air guys that go back and forth.

Those are awesome. Those always do catch my eye. So put all of those down and say, okay, how much is that going to cost? How much time is that going to take? and what you'll quickly realize is that email is one of the most affordable ways to have ongoing brand impressions. So you might find some of these other things, oh, no, that's good. Well, that's actually going to take a lot of time. Now, once you realize how important it is, then you can figure out how to do it. There are endless amounts of ways that you can do a newsletter. There's all of these free services out there

that you can go and start sending emails for free. You can hire a freelancer to batch three or four emails for a couple hundred dollars. You can find a way to make it work. The first thing you have to do is realize how important it is to your business. Well, Casey, I just really appreciate your brain on this stuff and helping us put the cookies on the bottom shelf because a lot of listeners out there, email marketing is not their forte. It's not why they got into business, but it's such an important part of a healthy strategy when it comes to marketing. So I appreciate what you're doing on the Ramsey team and how you're helping the listeners today. Thanks so much. Thank you, George. Always fun hanging out with Casey and Talking Shop about marketing.

As you mentioned, an email newsletter is an important part of your overall marketing strategy. And you heard us talk about our Ramsey newsletter. If you want to check that out, you can go to ramsysolutions.com slash newsletter to sign up or just click the link in the show notes. Hope you enjoyed today's episode of the show. If you did, leave us a review and subscribe so you don't miss the next one. And if you're a small business owner with 2 to 200 team members, we want to hear what you think of the show.

where you like, what you don't like, and what we could do better. You can give us your feedback by clicking the link in the show notes to schedule a call with Tim, our producer. If you want to keep up with us on social media, you can follow us at Entree Leadership. This episode was produced by Tim Hull, edited by Jacob Harrison and Bob Orquez, and mixed and mastered by Will Rutter. I'm your host, George Camel, and on behalf of the entire Entree leadership team, thanks for listening. Until next time, keep learning and keep leading. If you enjoy this podcast, you should check out other great podcasts from the Ramsey Network, like The Rachel Cruz Show.

Hey guys, it's Rachel Cruz, and I'm so excited to tell you about my podcast. A lot of people are living paycheck to paycheck. They're in debt. They don't even know where to begin, but they have this need, this want to get in control of their money. And if that's you, you have come to the right spot. So in each episode, you're going to get a ton of inspiration and practical advice. If you're not subscribed to the Rachel Cruz Show podcast, make sure you do it today. To hear full episodes, just search Rachel Cruz wherever you listen to podcasts or go to Ramsey Solutions.com slash shows.