177: The Missing Piece in Your Email Strategy
In this episode of the Creator’s MBA Podcast, Dr. Destini Copp sat down with Melissa Seidman, founder of Not Another VA, a team of passionate email marketing virtual assistants dedicated to helping businesses achieve their full potential. Together, they dive into the essentials of email marketing, discussing common mistakes, best practices, and strategies for maintaining a consistent and engaging email list.
Melissa shares her wealth of knowledge on creating effective email sequences, structuring newsletters, and leveraging email marketing for business growth.
Melissa emphasizes the importance of consistency in email marketing and offers practical tips on nurturing your audience. She also discusses the value of personalizing your emails and ensuring that your content resonates with your subscribers.
Whether you're a seasoned entrepreneur or just starting with email marketing, this episode is packed with actionable insights that can help you enhance your email marketing efforts and drive better results for your business.
Unlocking the Power of Email Marketing: Insights from Melissa Seidman
Email marketing is a cornerstone of effective digital marketing strategies, but many businesses struggle to harness its full potential. In a recent podcast episode, Dr. Destini Copp sat down with Melissa Seidman, founder of Not Another VA, to delve into the world of email marketing. Melissa shared her expertise on creating effective email sequences, maintaining consistency, and engaging subscribers. Here are some key takeaways from their enlightening conversation.
The Importance of Consistency in Email Marketing
One of the most common mistakes businesses make with email marketing is inconsistency. As Melissa Seidman pointed out, "The biggest mistake I see with email marketing over time is people just not being consistent with their list." Whether you decide to email your subscribers weekly, biweekly, or monthly, the key is to stick to a schedule that you can maintain over the long term. Consistency helps build trust and keeps your audience engaged.
When you're consistent, your subscribers come to expect and look forward to your emails. This regular touchpoint strengthens your relationship with your audience, making them more likely to open your emails, engage with your content, and ultimately make a purchase.
Crafting a Welcoming Experience with a Welcome Sequence
Another critical component of successful email marketing is having a well-crafted welcome sequence. Melissa emphasized the importance of this initial interaction: "You should always have a welcome sequence. It’s crucial for nurturing new subscribers and ensuring they are the right fit for your list."
A welcome sequence sets the tone for your relationship with new subscribers. It introduces them to your brand, provides valuable information about your products or services, and helps them understand what to expect from your future emails. This sequence is not just about welcoming new subscribers but also about segmenting your audience and weeding out those who may not be interested in your offerings. Tailoring your welcome sequence to your ideal customer can significantly improve your email marketing performance.
Structuring Your Weekly Newsletters
Weekly newsletters are a staple of many email marketing strategies, but how you structure them can make a big difference in their effectiveness. Melissa shared some practical tips: "Don't be afraid to show your personality in your emails. It creates a connection and makes your emails feel more personal."
Aim to keep your newsletters around 300 words. Too long, and you risk losing your subscribers' attention. Incorporate a clear call to action (CTA) and place it multiple times throughout the email – at the top, middle, and bottom. This increases the chances that your subscribers will take the desired action, whether it’s reading a blog post, listening to a podcast, or purchasing a product.
Personalization is also key. Use your subscribers' first names not just in the greeting but throughout the email. This small touch can make your emails feel more personal and engaging, encouraging your subscribers to connect with your content.
Growing Your Email List
Growing your email list with the right subscribers is essential for a successful email marketing strategy. Melissa shared some strategies for attracting new subscribers: "You’ve got to have a lot of marketing channels, and the idea is that your email list can grow in a lot of different ways, but you do have to market it, and not be afraid to market it."
Utilize various platforms to promote your lead magnets – from social media to your website to collaborations with other businesses. Tools like SparkLoop, integrated with platforms like ConvertKit, can help you grow your list by leveraging referrals and partnerships with similar businesses.
Converting Subscribers into Customers
Once you have a robust email list, the next challenge is converting those subscribers into customers. Melissa highlighted the importance of understanding your audience and maintaining consistency: "It’s not just about the size of your email list but how engaged they are. Consistency and connection are key."
Make sure your lead magnets are directly related to the products or services you offer. This ensures that the people joining your list are genuinely interested in what you have to offer. Regularly nurture your subscribers with valuable content and don’t be afraid to sell to them. A strategic mix of value-driven content and promotional emails can help turn subscribers into paying customers.
Conclusion
Email marketing remains one of the most effective ways to connect with your audience and drive business growth. By focusing on consistency, crafting engaging welcome sequences, structuring your newsletters effectively, growing your email list strategically, and converting subscribers into customers, you can unlock the full potential of email marketing. As Melissa Seidman aptly put it, "I would rather have a smaller list that's engaged and opening my emails than a large list that's not converting." Focus on building a meaningful connection with your subscribers, and the results will follow.
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Transcript:
And my special guest today is Melissa Seidman. Melissa is is founder of Not Another VA, a team of passionate email marketing virtual assistants dedicated to help businesses like yours achieve their full potential. And, Melissa, we are talking about one of my most favorite subjects today, which is email marketing, and I am super excited to dive into this with you. But before we get into all the questions I have for you, can you tell the audience just a little bit more about you and your business and how you help people?
Melissa Seidman [00:00:38]:
Yeah. So my name is Melissa Seidman from Not Another VA. You can find me at Not Another VA if you just Google it. I'm on Instagram, Facebook, and, my website. And we specialize in everything for email marketing from start up jobs to writing nurturing welcome sequences to course launches to do DIY email services where people wanna just get email templates and then support their business with templates that they can edit and modify and make their own. And then we also do done for you services. So we do a ton of weekly emails, biweekly emails, all that fun stuff.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:01:10]:
Okay. So, like I said, I have a lot of questions for you, but the one of the main questions I have is because you're working with a lot of different businesses, a lot of probably different niches out there. What is the number one mistake that you see people making with their email marketing?
Melissa Seidman [00:01:31]:
Yeah. I think the biggest mistake I see with email marketing over time is people just not being consistent with their list. They have a list, they're building their list, they're nervous to send their emails, they either goes to their list too long or they email different times of the week, different days of the week. I think the most important thing you can do is email consistency. And I often use the tagline consistency is what works for your business. So some people, it might be emailing twice a week, some people might be emailing once a week, some peep people might be emailing once a month or twice a month. Let's say the 1st Monday and the 3rd Monday. Do what you can consistently do long term and you will see growth from your email list.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:02:12]:
So let's delve into that a little bit. You said, you know, consistent is what works for you. And what you're referring to here, and I don't wanna put words in your mouth, what you're referring to here is what people most people would call a newsletter. So you're you're referring to the newsletter. Are there any other emails that people should be doing and how does that fit into, like, a weekly email newsletter schedule?
Melissa Seidman [00:02:41]:
Yeah. You should always have a welcome sequence. So when someone joins your list, no matter where they join it from, whether, it's from social media, for a pin, or from a website, or from YouTube, or from a podcast. They should always go through some sort of a welcome sequence, welcome them to your brand, welcome them to your business, welcome them into whatever products or services you sell. And the idea is that you're gonna nurture them along the way, but you're also gonna weed out people that are maybe not interested in your product or service. So I often think a welcome sequence is good for a bunch of different things, but the reality is you wanna, tailor it towards your audience and make sure you have the right people on your list. Amy Porterfield says, write for your ideal customer avatar, and I think that's so true. It's when you write, you should be writing for that ideal customer in mind.
Melissa Seidman [00:03:25]:
And if it's not the right customer, they have the right to unsubscribe. And I think I would rather know that earlier in the email marketing journey than realizing they're not opening my emails, buying my products, or converting my to more sales.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:03:36]:
So welcome sequence. What about, if we're doing like a flash sale? Would that how would that fall into Yeah. Simply news letter email?
Melissa Seidman [00:03:44]:
Yeah. You should have a sales sequence. Obviously, if you were doing a flash sale or a product sale, you should have some kind of sales sequence with multiple emails going out different times during the week. I tend to pause my weekly emails and if I'm doing a special sale or I do an opt in where they, can click to unsubscribe from the sale sequence, give them the option of unsubscribing from the sale sequence but stay on your list. So I often do that also.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:04:12]:
So let's go back to that weekly email newsletter. And I know that, you know, even in the past year, the different it it has changed a little bit. Right? The email newsletters are becoming cooler cool again or cooler, I should say. Tell us a little bit more about how we should structure our weekly new email newsletters, what should be included in them. What are your general tips for kind of making sure that we are delivering what we should be delivering in those weekly newsletters.
Melissa Seidman [00:04:45]:
Yes. I try to keep email newsletters around 300 words. Too long can actually turn off subscribers. People often don't read the entire emails anymore. So what I find is often if I'm trying to use my call to action, whether it's sending them to a blog post or sending them to a podcast or sending them to, a product that I'm selling, Put the link multiple times in the email, the top, the middle, and the bottom including the p s. Remind them of that one call to action. You wanna nurture them, so you wanna not be afraid to show your personality, make it seem personal, use their first name in the email. Often, 2 times, customers come to me and they're not using first names, and I think it makes a big difference of putting someone's first name into the email, but not always at the top of the email.
Melissa Seidman [00:05:27]:
You could add a question and then put their name there. You can put their first name in the middle of the email or the body. Doesn't always have to be, like, hey, Melissa. Hey, Destini. It could be throughout the email. Love that tip.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:05:40]:
I love that tip. Putting it throughout the email. And I I know that I've tried to do that in my own, and I've seen other people do it. And I really love seeing my name in the middle of the email.
Melissa Seidman [00:05:50]:
I get so many replies from customers that think that I'm, like, individually talking to them and not realizing them. It's like an email platform that does it automatically for everybody, but it's so interesting to think about that. It's such a personal thing that you can do and you're gonna create a connection, and the more connections you have, the more customers you will have.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:06:08]:
Do you have any tips for us on kind of putting together our content bank for our email newsletter marketing? Because I know for me, it sometimes it can get difficult thinking about, oh, what am I gonna write about this week? Because I have different sections in my newsletter. So what do you suggest to people if they're doing this themselves? How do they kinda gather all of that information to inspire them?
Melissa Seidman [00:06:33]:
Yeah. So think about the season of life you're in, what type of year it is, what what season it is, what month it is, what your customers' pain points are, and I think that's important to tailor all of that to your audience. But then also keep in mind, like, the season. So if it's summer, maybe you write about the book you're reading about or the vacation you're going on. Like, don't be afraid to put a little bit of personality into the emails. And then, in terms of, like, emails, I have I sell email club, which is a service that I sell that's just templates that gives people ideas for each week. And then I also have a content calendar that I sell that has, 4 ideas each week for emails. So it gives you a ton of ideas to write emails, if you're struggling.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:07:14]:
Okay. So tell us a little bit more about what it in I don't know how much you help clients with this, but let's say that somebody, you know, has an email list, but it's not growing. What are some of the strategies that you would suggest that they do to get, you know, kinda new people on their email list of their ideal customer?
Melissa Seidman [00:07:36]:
Yeah. I I assume with clients all the time and, like, go through their own platforms and try to figure out what marketing strategy they're doing and what's working and what's not working. And oftentimes, like, it's a simple just, oh my gosh, I didn't realize I could do a reel about this or I didn't realize I could do a story about this product and then obviously convert more subscribers. Having your email in multiple places is really important. The link in bio, but less people are clicking the link in bio. But often, I'm finding a lot are wanting to drop a word and then you send them the link directly to them. So you can use automations like ManyChat to do that. I'm also finding posting on Facebook and social media Instagram and Pinterest, having pins go to the free lead magnets that way.
Melissa Seidman [00:08:17]:
You gotta have a lot of marketing channels, and the idea is that your email list can grow in a lot of different ways, but you do have to market it, and not be afraid to market it.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:08:26]:
So do you have any experience with some of the, email newsletter platforms out there or email platforms out there who have, like, SparkLoop or, you know Oh, yeah. Or or jumping into that. Walk us through how that works and if if that's working for any Yeah.
Melissa Seidman [00:08:40]:
You could join if you're in ConvertKit. ConvertKit is the one platform I actually recommend to people, and I I love it. I use ConvertKit myself and I find that they're the features of ConvertKit are way more severe than a lot platforms. I personally, on a daily basis, use about 9 platforms. So, I like ConvertKit the best. They have, a creator network where you can join and use referrals and get paid to refer people to other people's networks, and you can do that to connect your newsletter. You can have other people refer your newsletter if you do that too. It's a simple way to build your email list.
Melissa Seidman [00:09:17]:
ConvertKit's really pushing it right now to use the, SparkLoop to promote growing your email list. And it's such an easy way to find someone who's similar to you and but, and you can grow your own lives together.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:09:32]:
So let's say that somebody is and I'm jumping around just a little bit, but this just kinda popped in my mind. Let's say that somebody is sending out their weekly newsletter emails, but they're not getting sales from them. What would you suggest that people do to get more revenue from email marketing?
Melissa Seidman [00:09:54]:
Yeah. So I would look at your overall strategy. How often are you nurturing? Do you have a welcome sequence in place? Are they the right type of subscribers for your list? Some some people create freebies just to grow their list, but they're not marketing to the right type of client that they want on their list. So I think that's also really important looking at lead magnets. Are they converting at a certain percentage? I like to see each lead magnet convert, 30% or higher. So if the lead magnet's not 30%, reevaluate it, maybe change up the image, make sure it's a high quality photo, make sure the words are converting, that they wanna join that email list to get on, get that freebie. And then make sure your freebies are directly related to products or services you sell. I think that's also really important.
Melissa Seidman [00:10:40]:
In terms of converting to more sales, make sure you're consistent on a schedule. That makes a huge difference with sales. It does take time. Do both value of nurturing, but also of selling. And they joined your email list for a reason, don't be afraid to sell to them. You can do I do 24 hour sales where I'll send an email out the night before. I send it out at midnight. So often, you're the first email in their inbox, and then they see the email.
Melissa Seidman [00:11:04]:
They buy the sale at 6 PM. I have a sales ending in 6 hours type thing, email go out. I also have an abandoned cart email, so if they abandon their cart and they can get a follow-up email that way. And then I also have I I think it's just helpful to follow-up. So it's not just a one email and then you're done type thing.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:11:22]:
I I think that's a really good tip, and I think that's something that we all need to remember is, you know, we have to send multiple emails if we're having, like, a sale and just keep reminding people because they're not always seeing things that we are sending out, or they might just see it and then forget about it. So I think that's a great tip. So, Melissa, any last minute tips for the audience before we wrap it up here?
Melissa Seidman [00:11:50]:
I it does take time. I think people get really frustrated their email list doesn't grow overnight. It does take time to build your email list. And I often say, it's not always about the size of your email list that matters, but how engaged they are. Like, I've seen huge success in my business, and other clients' businesses that have smaller list, larger list, like, you just need to be consistent with it and it does take time. I have clients that have made over $200,000 a year with their email list that is a decent size, and I have clients that have a 150,000 subscribers on the list, and they're not making any money. So you gotta really figure out what works for your niche and your audience and try to tailor your marketing needs towards that particular area.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:12:35]:
Yeah. I just wanna go I just wanna ask you another question on that because that is such a powerful statement where you have a list that has, you know, 150,000 people on it and they're not making money in a smaller list where they're making 200,000. Between those 2, because you see a lot of clients in your business. Between those 2, what do you think is the biggest thing there? Is it that consistency or is it something else that they're missing?
Melissa Seidman [00:12:59]:
I think it's, I think it's consistency. I think it's personality in the emails. So not only writing about, like, the products or services you do, but saying, I'm going for a walk with my dog and I thought of this product or, like like, I think don't be afraid to put your personality into the email. And if you like, I write emails for people all the time that are not obviously, my my own, and I watch Instagram. I watch their clients' stories. I I see what's going on in their life, and I put that personality into their emails. So the copy is sounds like the person is writing it, in terms of content. And I think that's really important in terms of converting to more sales.
Melissa Seidman [00:13:38]:
And it does take time and I would rather, like, make sure those freebies are marketed to your ideal niche and your ideal list because you don't want people joining your email list that are not the right type of client or the right type of customer for your list. And I think that's a big point. I would rather have a smaller list that's engaged in opening my emails and buying my products than a really large list that is not converting.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:14:00]:
So, Melissa, thank you so much for joining me today and bringing all of your knowledge about email marketing Yeah. You
Melissa Seidman [00:14:13]:
Yeah. You can find me at nonanotherva.com, and nonanotherva on Instagram, and I also have Facebook group called email marketing that works. But if you go to my website, nonanotherVA.com/everything, the everything page, which is pretty amazing, has a lot of my really big offers that I do, but it also has at least 10 different freebies and trainings that you can watch and you can join whatever freebie you want. In terms of email marketing, there's a content calendar. There's email templates that are DIY emails. There is a email marketing training of how to, marketing mistake. I have 10 marketing mistakes to avoid. There's a video there.
Melissa Seidman [00:14:49]:
There's a bunch of different options, subject line, cheat sheet, that type of thing.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:14:53]:
Yeah. And definitely go there and check that out. I spend probably, I don't know, 15 to 20 minutes on Melissa's website this morning and going through everything, and she has a lot of great information there for you. So, Melissa, thank you so much for joining me. I loved our conversation.
Melissa Seidman [00:15:09]:
Thanks Thanks so much for having me. Have a good day. Thanks.