The Secrets to Email Marketing Like a Pro with Allea Grummert
Do you know what marketing strategy I’d choose over social media ANY day?
Email marketing.
You read that right! Email is a powerful channel to connect with your community, engage with them authentically and eventually serve them as loyal customers and clients.
If you haven’t invested the time and effort into growing your email list, or perhaps you have a list but haven’t given it much love lately, this episode is going to jumpstart your email strategy!
Our guest, Allea Grummert, is an email marketing strategist and conversion copywriter. She’s sharing why email marketing is important and how to get in the right mindset when it comes to sending emails…no spam here!
And even more — Allea is divulging her biggest secrets that have helped her clients achieve incredible engagement and drive sales through their email marketing.
This show is going to be PACKED with practical tips and strategies you can start implementing today. So, be sure to put away any distractions, grab a pen and paper, and get ready to take some notes!
Links from this episode
Connect with Allea on Instagram
Get Allea’s FREE guide: Your First Welcome Sequence
Learn more about how to work with Allea at Duett
Sign up for my FREE Culinary Roadmap and learn how to start a flexible and fulfilling online business.
Say hello to Cynthia on Instagram → @culinarycynthia!
Rate, Review & subscribe on Apple podcasts
Love this episode? Want to support our podcast and help it grow? One of the best things you can do is leave a rating and review here on Apple Podcasts!
Don’t know how to leave a review? Here’s how:
Head over here then click on Listen on Apple Podcasts. This will open your podcast player.
If you want to get our latest episodes, be sure to click Subscribe.
Scroll to the bottom then select your star rating ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.
Then, click on Write a Review. I’d love to hear what you enjoyed most about this episode or our podcast in general!
-
CYNTHIA SAMANIAN: Hey everyone, welcome to The Experiential Table. I'm Cynthia Samanian, your host and creator of Cooking Class Business School. I absolutely love helping culinary pros like you create profitable online cooking classes and memberships so that you can unlock more freedom, flexibility and fulfillment in your life. Now today we are talking about one of my favorite topics. And I'm willing to bet it will shock you when you find out exactly what it is. No, it's not niche marketing, which if you've been a longtime listener, you know is near and dear to my heart. And it's not about mindset or confidence, which are also topics that I could talk about for days. In this episode, we are diving into one of the most important marketing channels for your business. We are talking email. We're so lucky to be joined by Allea Grummert, an email marketing strategist and conversion copywriter. Now if you have no idea what that means, don't worry. We're going to chat all about the basics and more. Allea knows exactly how to craft smart email marketing strategies and write irresistible must-read emails. So if you want to learn why email matters and how you can step up your email marketing game, keep on listening.
Hi, Allea, welcome to the podcast.
ALLEA GRUMMERT: Hello! Glad to be here.
CYNTHIA: I'm so glad to have you here. Now, before we get into your juicy tips, I'm going to share a little bit of background info for our listeners. All right, friends. As I hinted earlier, Allea Grummert is the ultimate email expert. She's the owner of Duet where she helps her clients, including food bloggers, service providers, products and course creators and membership communities make a killer first impression through email. She helps her clients create strategic email sequences that engage subscribers, build brand loyalty, and generate sales. Sounds like what we all want, right? All right, Allie, I want to start at the very beginning. How did you become a conversion copywriter? Is this something that you just woke up one day and decided, ‘I think I'm going to go do that.’
ALLEA: Even when I was a copywriter, probably a conversion copywriter for a couple years, it took me a long time to even call myself that. So my background is actually in advertising and public relations. That's what I studied in college. And then I became a personal finance blogger because I know how to have a good time. So I did that and just used my blog as my digital playground to take everything that I was learning in classes at school and be able to implement and create something. But I'm very much self taught. So I watched a lot of webinars, a lot of courses, all the works. And then email became one of those things that other bloggers in the space were like, “I have no idea. Can you help me?” And it became one of those things when everyone's like, “Allea, those emails. Allea those emails.” Like, oh, maybe this is something I'm good at. This is something you should lean into. So now I serve the blogging community. I no longer have my old personal finance blog, rip sweet thing. So with conversion copywriting, that was really interesting, just learning that copywriting is more than just whatever comes up to my mind of like, I think they should hear about this. It's more like, what does your audience need? And requires a little bit more digging and background. And so it's a lot more intentional and much more strategic in that way. Conversion copywriting is like what gets people to act essentially. So let’s just say like, I have a sales email go by my thing. It's like, oh, what do I need them to be thinking or doing even before I send the pitch email? If that makes sense.
CYNTHIA: Yeah, absolutely. And we are going to get into all the nitty gritty of that, because I suspect a lot of people listening had never heard the term conversion copywriter. So I wanted to make sure that we set the foundation and made it clear what it's all about. So thank you for doing that. Now, I do just want to ask you a quick question. Personal Finance blogging. Okay. Wait, what? So Have you always been interested in personal finance? I’m just so curious how that was something that you dove into as kind of a side hobby or project of yours.
ALLEA: Right. Believe it or not, there are like 2500 personal finance bloggers. We're going to be at a conference in September. There’s a lot of us. So I don't know. I just remember watching my mom budget at the kitchen table and having always just been really responsible with money. And I don't know if it was like a control thing. It was like, I know. I don't know. I was frugal and I paid off my student loans three years early, paid off my car four years early, just like really dedicated to that. But if you flashback to 15, I didn't even have a car yet. Maybe I did. But I had my first job. I remember writing a check to Waddell and Reed to my investment company. And it was for $100. I was like, “Mom, can you make sure this gets put away and my mutual funds?” That's who I was at 15.
CYNTHIA: Wow.
ALLEA: So it's just kind of always been there and an interest of mine because especially as a millennial, so many of my friends are just weighted down by debt. It also really came to a head that I needed to write more about it when I had a friend basically almost cry and get defensive at the same time talking about student loans. I’m like, “Girlfriend, you're gonna have these two loans for 10 years. We need to talk about it.” You're gonna be dealing with money the rest of your life. We need to talk about it.
CYNTHIA: Well, I can only imagine that writing about topics like personal finance, which are personal, I mean, there's a lot of emotion involved and people, like you said, they get defensive, or they feel guilty, that I'm just going to assume has influenced the way that you approach your work today because you have that empathy, or at least an understanding as to what the person on the other side of your email or blog post is feeling or their mindset.
ALLEA: Absolutely. And it's kind of twofold too. Even how I work with my clients. Even in my old job, I had an older coworker, and she goes, “Thanks for never making me feel dumb for not understanding this.” And I’m always just like, “No. No one should ever make you feel dumb. You're not a millennial. You didn't grow up with computers. You don't know how zoom works, or whatnot.” And so the same thing goes with my clients. I'm like, “You don't have to learn email marketing. That's why I'm here to set it all up for you.” But I also want them to feel empowered to know how to use it, but I'm never going to put anyone down. Like, “Have you not done this yet?” So my marketing for my business is very empathetic. But then yeah, with my clients, I have that food blogger clients who focus on Italian food, it's like, “Okay, think about if someone has never made Italian food, what do they need to know from you?” It allows me to really think back to the very beginning of like, if this is their first introduction to you, how do we make sure that they are prepared to get the most out of your content? And so we might have like an email all about, “These are the ingredients that I use all the time.” We feel like dumbing it down for people. It's like, no, you're making it accessible for people.
CYNTHIA: Yeah. And I definitely want to dive into that topic more. I think understanding what to include in your emails is a challenge for a lot of people, including myself and our listeners. But before we dive into that, I just want to talk about the elephant in the room. This idea that email can feel spammy and that our inboxes are overloaded with email. And as business owners, how can we think about email in a way that serves us and our audience, rather than kind of getting caught up in this mindset that it's just a spammy place? Because we've all received emails that we get super annoyed with, right? We unsubscribe, we don't want to be that sender. So help us think about the mindset around email.
ALLEA: Absolutely. So think about it as in, you're sending them something valuable. If you don't think it's valuable, then we need to assess what you're sending them. So we're not here to waste anyone's time. I think about Instagram and how many times we post on there. That feels fine, because it's on this platform, but you can post 10 times in a week, and no one will say anything. But if you send 10 emails in a week, people are like, “Oh, man, that's too much.” So there's different platforms that can allow different levels of engagement. But yeah, if you know that you're sharing something valuable for your reader, and it's on brand with who you are and what you've promised to send them, then it's totally fair to send it. It can be one email a week, it can be three emails a week, you can also use email platforms to ask your readers. Like, “If you only want one email a week, just click here.” So that way, they're getting the amount of content they want from you. And I think a big mindset thing is to kind of like, “I don't want to make them mad and not unsubscribe.” Well, if people unsubscribe, they're probably not a good fit for what you're sharing, if what I just said, like everything is aligned and resourceful, and helpful, if they're still not a good fit, they're going to unsubscribe, which is better for you, because you don't have to worry about making everyone happy. And it reduces the number of people who aren't opening your emails. Is that somewhat encouraging?
CYNTHIA: No, that is. And you brought up a really good topic of unsubscribes, which I know that back when I started my email list two years ago, I would look at who unsubscribed and every time there was an unsubscribe, which happened often, it would just be like this little poke in my heart, like, ‘Oh, this person has rejected me or they don't like what I have to say.’ But I have to say, over time, I now celebrate when people unsubscribe because, as you said, it means they're not right for my content, or they're not finding it valuable, or whatever it may be. So how can people think about unsubscribes in a way that doesn't feel like a hit to their ego or their confidence as business owners?
ALLEA: Absolutely. I mean, don't even look at your unsubscribes. Just start there, especially if you're starting out. I really haven't looked at my data for my email list for the two years I've been building it, really. I'm like, it's all just happening. I'm getting into the rhythm of sharing what I have to share, connecting in a way that I believe is aligned with my messaging and my branding and who I want to help and how I want to help them. And what that does is it means you're not swayed by every little thing. You're like, “My click rate went down a half a percent, it must mean that I'm doing it wrong.” No, a huge part of email marketing is just consistency and sharing. Because think about the opposite. If you're not emailing, you're not going to get the unsubscribes, right? But that's too safe. And that's also disappointing for the people who are on your list who asked to hear from you. So you kind of have to toe the line of “If I'm going to share content, it's going to be valuable. And if people don't find it valuable or it's not an interest of theirs, they can unsubscribe.” The big thing to think about too is the internet is huge. If your particular niche is not beneficial to someone, they can find another person who is more beneficial. There's more than enough to share, then people on multiple email lists. So that's kind of a scarcity mentality of like, “Oh, no. I lost another person.” It's like, well, that person's maybe just don't best fit for you, but you will find your people.
CYNTHIA: Right. Okay, so maybe you just don't even look at that unsubscribe rate.
ALLEA: Don't even look at it. I have a friend email me to say that he unsubscribed from my email list. I was like, “Please just don't do that. I don't need to know that.” But part of it too. If you think about it, I've unsubscribed from people's list who I adore and respect. It's not because I don't like them. It's because the contents are no longer a good fit for me, or I just have had too much noise in my inbox. And I just need to clear it up. Think about all the different reasons people could have for unsubscribing. It's not because you've offended them. Well, pretty likely, you're not just out there spewing things and people are mad at you.
CYNTHIA: Exactly. And if they are, then once again, they might not be the right fit for whatever you have coming down the pipeline, whether it's classes or memberships. So yeah, I think that's really, really good advice. Because I think the mindset piece is where people can get hung up. They may technically know how to send that email campaign out to their list. But there are a lot of mental hurdles that come between where people are now and where they need to be to hit send. So one quick question. I guarantee there are people listening who have a list, and they haven't emailed their list in six months, eight months, maybe a year. We're not going to make them feel bad about it. But is there something that they should be doing for that next email, they said that? Let's say after this episode, they're inspired, they are ready to get back in touch with their lists. Do they apologize and say, “Oh, I'm sorry, you haven't heard from me.” What should they do to re-engage their list?
ALLEA: The important thing is just to get back on the horse. So any email will do. But it doesn't hurt to say, “Hey, the last six months, I was on maternity leave, or we moved.” You can tell them kind of what you're up to, if you want to share that more personal side, or you can just start hitting them with your valuable content. I would say it's always better to kind of address the elephant in the room, if you can. But you don't have to make excuses. That's been my most annoying thing about Instagram where people like, “Sorry, it wasn't on yesterday.” And I was like, I have other things to worry about whether you were on Instagram yesterday. As a consumer, I'm not waiting for you to keep posting, in most cases, just get on with it. Maybe that's the Midwest, Nebraska girl and me. I'm just like, we're not the center of attention here. It's not really about me. It's about what content I can share that would be valuable.
CYNTHIA: It's not about you. Yeah, I love that. And I think a lot of people in the culinary community get that. And that may be why email marketing feels uncomfortable. Because sometimes it feels like it's about me, me me. Like, here's what I'm cooking. Here's what I'm doing. And I think in the culinary world, we are about serving others and sharing your passion with others. So I think that inherently is how we are yet sometimes it's challenging to make that come through in the emails.
ALLEA: Absolutely. Oh, Cynthia, that is such a good point. Because like, if you feel like you have to do email marketing the way that everyone else does it, that is also a mindset issue. If you feel you have to be like, “I have to be overly confident. And I have to tell everyone how to fix their lives with my recipes.” If that doesn't feel authentic to you, don't do it. And if people don't like your laid back style, they'll find someone else who's more intense. Or if they don't like your intense style, they'll find someone who's more laid back. And that's not to say that what you share wouldn't be valuable for them. But everyone's kind of got their different flavors and who it is they want to listen to. And so I'd rather have you be yourself and people adjust to that or stick around for that, then you feel like you have to chase every whim or every trend, or be someone that you're not because that's just going to get harder to send emails. And if emails aren't for you to send, then your content isn't being shared. And I find that really unfair, both to you and your subscriber.
CYNTHIA: Yeah, that totally makes sense. It's about tapping into your own voice, which from my experience, you get better with it, the more you do it, but it's not something that happens overnight.
ALLEA: That's what I'm saying. Just get back on the horse. Just send the email. And we always think, I don't know, maybe it's just me, the perfectionism like, “Well, it's not perfect, the email, the subject line.” It's like, get that recipe in someone's hands. Get that opportunity in someone's hands. You can always adjust and tweak later. And that's why I like using an email platform. For me, it's super simple to write and send an email in 10 minutes. It’s really important. I don't need to be spending time creating graphics and columns and fancy things because that's gonna make it harder for me to get it out to my list. And I don't have time for that.
CYNTHIA: Yeah, okay. You just brought up So many things I want to dive into. This is good. So now let's talk about what we should be putting in our email. So when it comes to getting started, you just said, just start writing. But let's say that people have sent out their emails, they're maybe just sharing what they're cooking or what's going on, but there really isn't any structure around it. So how would you suggest they approach writing emails in a way that doesn't make them go crazy, stress them out?
ALLEA: I don't know if anybody told you this. I mean, it's like a dirty secret. You can go join other people's email lists and go see what they do. See if you can find a little bit of inspiration for starters, then you'll see how simple some of the emails can really be. But I'd recommend creating a simple format that you follow and just run with it. You don't have to mix it up from week to week. I have a big systems and operations person, like a major nerd, if you didn't catch that.
CYNTHIA: No surprise, no surprise.
ALLEA: It's like people are like, “I don't want to have a process for my client work because all my clients are unique.” And I'm like, “Yeah, the process allows me to not worry about the stuff that should always remain the same, and then be able to personalize the stuff that is being creative. So think about that. I know your listeners are probably all creative in some way, right? But if you think about like, if I have this simple email structure, it's got parts one, two, and three. And that's what I send out every week, that gives you the space and the decision fatigue kind of disappears. These are the three things I'm sending. What are they? Fill it in, send it. Make that easy for yourself versus feeling like everything has to be new or experimental. That part of the process can be simple. It's the content itself that's valuable.
CYNTHIA: That's such a great point. Because you're right, everyone listening, they love to create, but they like to create in the kitchen. I'd rather generalize. But I'm going to say most of the people I work with at Cooking Class Business School, and I get to meet through my community, are not super excited about creating new email formats. So yes.
ALLEA: Well, people think like, oh, I need all these images. And it's like, make it easy for yourself. So in that case, what could a newsletter look like? It could be maybe once a month, you send out a round-up of five different recipes that can be related. They could be not related. I have a client who she created like a weekend menu, and was like, this would be your appetizer, your entree, your bread, your dessert. And that's what she would send out once a week. So she's like curating this menu for her readers. So that's what I mean. Create some sort of structure. Or if it's like an introduction, a video GIF, and then a button to click through and watch or register.
CYNTHIA: Right. So you can use your email to send people to content you already have. That's what I'm hearing you say here, right? Like your email newsletter doesn't have to be just a bunch of text that you create every week, or every few weeks, or once a month. That's just, let’s say, completely unique to that email. You can repurpose content you already have.
ALLEA: Oh 100% highly recommended. Because if you think about it, how many times have you posted on Instagram and not everyone on your Instagram, like all of your followers, they don't see it. Every day, you're not stopping, you’re not watching every story, but like, this is back to my marketing days, my advertising degree, it's called an integrated marketing campaign. You're going to reach the old school, you'd reach some people by billboard, other people by radio, other people by TV ad. Same thing with online. Some people you're going to catch on Instagram, other people you're going to catch being on a podcast or other people you're going to catch with a Facebook ad or on your website or through email. So I don't know what people's hang up is about resharing their content. But by resharing your content, you are doubling down on your niche and who you're serving, and it only reinforces your brand.
CYNTHIA: Here's what I think it is, Allea. I had this blog as well. And I got over it because I realized how efficient it was to repurpose content. But I think sometimes it makes us feel lazy as creators. We think that we have to be creating new things for every platform all the time. And what if someone saw the Instagram post and then they saw my email that had the same thing in it? Does that make me look like I said, a lazy creator or business owner? That is maybe a fear that others could share?
ALLEA: Well, how do you get over it?
CYNTHIA: You know, I realized that if the content is valuable, it's valuable. And I also realized that every audience has its superfans, people who can't get enough of you. So for me, it was about reframing it and saying, okay, now I'm not going to just copy paste the caption from Instagram in an email and literally have it be word for word. For me, it was about reframing the story, maybe telling it from a different perspective or highlighting something that I didn't touch upon on the Instagram post. So I could still be talking about my mom's Persian rice dish and how amazing it is and blah, blah, blah, but I could be talking about it in a different way. So that's what helped me get over the hang up of feeling like maybe I was being a lazy creator.
ALLEA: Yeah. Do you want to know what I do?
CYNTHIA: Of course!
ALLEA: Stealing secrets. I'll write my email knowing it's going to turn into a blog post. And then my assistant takes that and turns it into an Instagram post. And then I take the email that I already sent. And if it could live seasonally, any season, if it's evergreen, I will turn around and just add it to an ongoing nurture sequence so that all of my new subscribers will eventually get that email someday.
CYNTHIA: Nurture sequence, we're going to talk about that.
ALLEA: It’s just like four different ways of using the exact same content in a way that maximizes it. If you're gonna spend your time creating something, we want to make sure that you maximize the reach of that as much as possible.
CYNTHIA: Right. Okay. Yeah. So we're definitely going to talk about this idea of email sequences, whether it's a welcome sequence or nurture sequence. That stuff is really, really important, I think, very valuable. Going back to the content, though. So when you talked about having a consistent format? Are you talking about having a template? How pretty do our emails need to be?
ALLEA: I think you want your template to match your brand. If you have a very simple brand, let your template be simple. I think visually, what we want to do is connect it to your visual brand. So if people aren't on your Instagram or your website or get an email from you, they often see that it's from you.
CYNTHIA: Okay, so colors, colors, logos.
ALLEA: Yeah. I have a photo of me at the top of all my emails, mostly because I was like, “I'm new here, and no one knows my name or my face.” So the top was like, “You will learn my face and my name sometime over time.” But I'm even thinking about the template layout of like, I have a header in the middle with some kind of maybe a funny pun at the top. And then I have a little intro text. And then I've got a header with the focus of the main topic of the email, and then you sign off and you have a little PS. So you have your social links, that kind of filling in the blanks, if you will. So what are the three things I need for every email? For me, it's the subject line. It's the preview text, which is what shows up in your inbox behind the subject line. And then the body copy. And that's basically it. So sometimes I link to my blog, sometimes I link to pages on my site, sometimes I link to podcasts. But it's just like, what can I teach in this email? Or what valuable content can I share? So I don't really have much of a template, other than it's a subject line.
CYNTHIA: Yeah, I mean, there are key pieces that you absolutely should focus on. And the subject line is definitely a big one. We could probably do a whole episode just on how to write good subject lines.
ALLEA: Yeah. So the point of the email template, like I said, it's just really for branding. But most of my clients that I work with, it's still pretty text based. So it's like a text and a photo, it looks a lot like a Google Doc, basically. But there's not like, you know, in this box has a text box around it in blue and like none of that.
CYNTHIA: Ah, okay. Okay, that's a really good distinction. So we're not really talking about a visual format, where, like you said, we need a blue border around this box, and then a big image. So help me understand why you work with your clients in that way. So you have text with some images, but maybe not a ton of images. Is there a reason for that?
ALLEA: Yeah. So there are a lot of different reasons. But deliverability is one of them, and making sure that your emails land in the inbox of your subscribers. But like I mentioned before, part of it for me is the simplicity of getting the message out. Like if I'm spending more time tailoring the look of the email than actually writing or sending the email, I would rather spend more time on the content than how it gets sent. So the simplicity of being the one sending the email. And as far as the recipient goes, it feels a little bit more like getting an email from a friend, because it's just a simple text, maybe header text, which that's branding, graphic design words, but like a little bit bigger text, and maybe it's in your brand color. We want it to be really readable for your subscribers. One thing to keep in mind is your images might not always appear in your subscribers inbox. So making sure that all of the content or asking them to click through to something isn't just on an image, you have to have it on text. So there's a lot of things around that as well. So visually, I mean, then you get in your inbox, and you're like, how can Target send so many images in an email and it still gets delivered? And I have no idea what kind of deal they have with the internet. There's so many images.
CYNTHIA: I mean, it's Target. Its Target. Everyone loves Target. Even all of the email Gods behind deliverability. I'm sure they also spend $75 at Target every time they go.
ALLEA: It's like you shall pass. You shall live in that inbox. I think the biggest thing is that it does feel really personal. Feels a lot more personal than a really polished brand. I want to say that. Even with simple templates in your email service platform, you can still feel polished. And that's what I mean. Your font kind of matches the font on your website or your colors match and your imagery kind of matches too. That is a little bit of intentionality, but it does feel more polished because it feels cohesive, I suppose.
CYNTHIA: Yeah. And when you and I chatted before this interview, just to geek out about email marketing, one of the things I shared with you is that a lot of people who I work with have these really elaborate email newsletter templates that have two columns and tons of photos and probably no less than ten links. And there's just so much content in there. And I think that is a kind of an old school way of the email newsletter. We've seen those newsletters before. But honestly, that takes so much more work to do every week or every two weeks, then the type of email you're talking about. So right in that email, and that one massive email newsletter, info dump email, you probably have ten weeks of content. I think sometimes we feel the need to put as much in there as possible, rather than focusing on a simple message. Can you talk more about that?
ALLEA: Absolutely. So the way that I approach email is that each email has one purpose. What's the one big idea of this email? And even, let's zoom back a little bit more. Let's talk about your general email marketing goals. Are you driving traffic somewhere? Are you trying to drive sales? Are you trying to build a relationship? That will kind of determine what each email's purpose really is. So if you're just telling a story, because you want to connect with your list, let that be okay. You don't need to drive traffic with that email. You don't need to drive them to YouTube or anything with that email. You could just tell the story. Whereas another email focus is like a roundup of different recipes that you really enjoy. And so the goal might be to drive traffic to those pages, or it might be a sales email, driving them to your shop page, or an affiliate referral that you're a fan of. Think about what the goal of that email is, and just let that be the focus. We often try and like you said, shove too much in one newsletter. All I could think about is in fifth grade, I was part of like a, they call it lab, when you got to be the computer lab, like lab class for fifth graders. And they were like, you're gonna make a newsletter. And you would, you'd kind of frame it like a small newspaper, you're like, in this section and this section and this section, this section and you print it, and that requires so much emotional and mental bandwidth to create it. No wonder you're dreading sending it because you're putting too much weight into this one email. Whereas you could say, what would be helpful to my readers today? Or what have I seen lately that could be encouraging to them? And then just write the email and just send it.
CYNTHIA: Right. Yeah, just send it. So we didn't touch on this earlier. Maybe we should have but I'm already on the email marketing train. Maybe some of my listeners are, maybe they aren't. But you talked about using email to share a story and share a recipe. Why can't we just do that on social media alley? Like why do we even need an email list? We can just do this on Instagram.
ALLEA: Well, what happens when Instagram gets bought out or goes away? I hate to say it. No one's using periscope anymore, or Vine or MySpace. These platforms could disappear overnight. But with email marketing, you can literally download a CSV file of all the subscriber’s names and email addresses and upload it to another platform. If you need to, say like MailChimp is retiring, you could just download that and move it to another platform, and you can still have direct contact with your audience. So social media is great. But the long game is email marketing, because when's the last time you changed your email address that wasn't like because you switched jobs? Your personal email address doesn't change very often. It's also shown that over 50% of adults check their phones first thing in the morning. Email has proven to outperform Twitter and Facebook conversions towards sales or signing up for webinars or whatnot by 40 times. It's huge. So it just has a lot more effectiveness. And yeah, there's something to be said for having this thread of consistency in your messaging. It's like, here's where I know I always show up, even if those other platforms go away.
CYNTHIA: Yes, that's so powerful, especially the first point around you being able to contact your community. And you're right, if Instagram disappeared tomorrow, or maybe more realistically, they changed their algorithm, or they skewed their focus to be like a Tik Tok competitor, like 1,000%. They're moving in that direction. And maybe you're like, I don't know if this is my style. Well, you're stuck. You better create that content, or get your community in a place where you can reach them. And email is that destination, right?
ALLEA: Well, yeah. And then this is just my cynical side, because I had an advertising internship way back in the day where I spent two hours writing tweets to schedule them. Do you know how long a tweet lives? Nowadays, it's like 30 seconds. Back then, it was like a tweet has a lifespan of 20 minutes. And I'm like, that makes me want to cry. I know you're paying me minimum wage to write these, but this is sucking my soul. Whereas with an email, so say someone's out on vacation, and they miss everything you shared on Instagram, they're still gonna have it in their inbox. It's still gonna live a little bit longer.
CYNTHIA: So let's talk about the longevity of emails, or essentially this idea that you can decide to wake up today and send an email to your list or you could do something a little bit more sophisticated, which is build a sequence. You hinted at a nurture sequence earlier and I was like pumping the brakes on it. Allea, we're not there yet. But I do think that some people think, “Okay, I'm going to spend all this time writing an email, and I'm going to send it to my list.” And on a good day, 30% open, if we actually think about open rates. So does that mean now the other 70% will never see that email and it's wasted content? How can we get around that with sequences and all that good stuff?
ALLEA: Oh, lots of different ways. So the first one I immediately think of, I know there are some platforms where you can actually resend the email to anyone who didn't open it before. So you can send it a week later or three days later and say, “Hey, I want to show you about this.” That's really helpful for if you're running a campaign, maybe not with your regular ongoing content. 30%, open rate is fantastic. So the idea of a sequence is, it's an automated way of setting up your emails to go out to your subscribers. That's my simple way of explaining it. What I focus on, my specialty is on welcome and nurture sequences. So what is that initial experience that you have with a new subscriber? How can you just well the socks off of them, share your best content, and make sure that they know who you are from the very beginning. Now, what's cool is that once that's already set up, basically all of this new content that you're creating and sending out and working so hard on, you can just tack that on to the end of your nurture sequence, so that all new subscribers, whether they join tomorrow, or in six months, will eventually get that email.
CYNTHIA: And this is, like you said, I think you referenced the term evergreen earlier in the episode. So this would be content that isn't tied to a specific season. So it's not like cooking with squash, and they're gonna get the recipe in spring, or it's not about a classroom teaching in the holidays, that they might open up that email in the summer. So you're focusing on content that, like you said, is evergreen, it doesn't have any seasonality to it, and they could read it at any time and it would still make sense.
ALLEA: Right. And so just think of this, you've already written this email. So let's make sure that all of your new subscribers eventually find out about it. So maybe it's some of your top classes that you've taught. If you send out a little Roundup, but like, here are the top three classes that I've taught in the last year, you can drop that into a nurture sequence as well. Even if those top classes change, it's still, here's some valuable content.
CYNTHIA: Right. So let's say people have a link in their Instagram bio that says, “Join my email list.” When someone signs up, you're suggesting that this welcome sequence, it's an email that they get, it's a sequence meaning multiple emails, but how far spaced out should they be?
ALLEA: Welcome sequences are often like maybe like three days in a row for three different emails. And a welcome sequence can be anywhere from one email to like five emails. Kind of depends on how much you want to share. And like I mentioned before, if I tell you each email only needs one topic, three emails shouldn't freak you out because you're not like jam packing them with everything under the sun. Let's just say if you only had one email to introduce yourself, and say, “Hey, new subscriber, I'm so glad you're here. This is my name, this is a bit of my story, here's what you'll find. And here's how often I'm gonna email you.” That's perfect. The alternative is they join your list, and they don't hear from you until your next monthly newsletter in three weeks.
CYNTHIA: Womp womp womp womp.
ALLEA: We want to really optimize that relationship from the very beginning. So that's why I'm saying if you wanted to make it more than one email, maybe the second email is like, hey, tell a story. Tell them about a cookbook that you have available, and maybe share a testimonial of someone who enjoyed it, and then ask them to check it out. So every new subscriber is going to know about your cookbook, or every new subscriber wants to know about your live classes. So think about it that way. I think that takes a lot off of my brain knowing at least everyone on my list knows about why email marketing is important, or why audience research is important, because I cover those things really early on. So they're kind of up to speed when they're getting my new content as well.
CYNTHIA: Yeah. And then what do you think about this idea of a call to action? There's always a call to action in an email. It's, ‘Click here, download this.’ What about asking your subscribers to reply? Is that a tactic we should be using?
ALLEA: Absolutely. And I know a lot of people who use that in their welcome sequence. You do it with clients as well, for deliverability purposes. So the computer gods are like, “Oh, if people are replying back, this person must be real.” So they're more likely to deliver your emails. So it's kind of building a healthy relationship with the email deliverability.
CYNTHIA: Interesting.
ALLEA: So that's part of it. I mean, in addition to just connecting with your audience, I'll often ask, one of my questions is like, what's the number one question you have about email marketing right now? That makes it really easy for them to reply back and be like, “I don’t understand automations.” Here's a resource for you. And that's a way of doing some audience research. Be listening to your list. What is it that they're struggling with? Or what is it they're hoping to do? What questions do they have? How can you encourage them?
CYNTHIA: Oh, I love that. So asking your audience to reply to an email serves multiple purposes, right? So the first is when they reply, it will improve your deliverability so that your emails don't get hung up in spam as often right? because like you said, someone’s replying and there's a real person on the other side, which is you. And then second is you can use the question for research. So you want to be really strategic about what you ask, right? You may not want to just ask what did you have for lunch today?
ALLEA: That's a great point.
CYNTHIA: Maybe there's a way we can ask questions that help us understand the content we need to create or the classes they would be interested in taking. One thing that I do with this strategy is make it relatively simple, not a yes or no question. But I feel like if you ask a question that requires a really thoughtful in depth response, the chances of people replying, it just goes down significantly.
ALLEA: Yeah, it's too much work for them. Not that they don't care. But people are busy. So how can you make it really, really easy? So some questions you could ask could be like, what's one kitchen skill that you wish you had. And maybe it's a knife skill, or what's the one vegetable you've never known how to cut up? Or whatever. I'm just using these as examples. But say, then, later, in your welcome sequence, or beginning of your nurture sequence, share a video about how to cut up a sweet potato without cutting your finger off. I can't tell you how long it took me to learn. I would have loved a video like that. This is personal. So when you get those answers, and you're like, oh, that's filling some of the content you can share.
CYNTHIA: Absolutely. So that's the welcome sequence, like you said. A series of emails, it could be one, three, five. So what's a nurture sequence?
ALLEA: So people lump them together. I like to keep them separate. The welcome sequence is really this, like who you are, who you're here to serve, what you're going to send them. Sharing just the top best content. And those emails might have more than one call to action. It's like, “Hey, follow my podcast here.” or, “Hey, get my cookbook here.” It's like a little roundup of ways you can connect and follow me on Instagram. It's just like the welcome basket, the housewarming gift, if you will. And then the nurture sequence kind of gets back into that one email, one focus kind of idea. And what that is, is like, we really want to well their socks off with the stuff that you know all of your subscribers already love. So maybe it's the top watched videos. Maybe you can spread that out every three weeks or share a video. And every three weeks you share a round up. And every few weeks, you share a personal update. And so you can kind of use that same theme in a nurture sequence, but it's just automated. So maybe what you do is you start sending those emails, and then you just turn them into an automated sequence. In the case of my clients, we’ll do a bunch of research to figure out like, hey, if your bread making course is connected with your cookbook and it's making you money, we need to mention that more in your nurture sequence. It's a little bit more strategic, and we're planning it out in advance. But for the most part, what it is, is just making sure that every new subscriber knows about that wonderful lasagna recipe that everybody else on your site knows about. We're cluing them in. It's like, “Hey, you're here. You're new. But here's all the stuff that everyone else has loved.” I want to make sure you're up to speed.
CYNTHIA: Yeah, I love that. It's like catching them up on the good stuff. And at some point, that sequence could end and then now they are on your weekly email newsletter or monthly, whatever cadence you have.
ALLEA: And they could actually be getting both at the same time.
CYNTHIA: Oooh.
ALLEA: So here's what I do. My content that I started writing in October 2019, is my nurture sequence. So everything that I've sent out eventually gets added to that. I've heard it's called an endless broadcast. It's just going to go out. Those go out on Tuesdays and then my new content goes out on Thursdays. Now, the reason why I wanted to send out new content too is there's timely stuff. If you publish something, or if a cooking class is coming up, and you have an announcement, you want people to get that right away. But it also pairs well with this older content that makes sure that they're up to speed on the kind of email service platforms I recommend, or what’s sharing your emails. They're getting that but they're also finding out that I'm on a podcast, or that I'm part of a summit. So it pairs well together as well.
CYNTHIA: So you can email your list twice a week is what I just heard.
ALLEA: Yeah, yeah.
CYNTHIA: As long as it's valuable, as long as it serves them. You can do it.
ALLEA: Yeah. And then it's funny you said you can do it. My brand is Duett. And I'm always like, “Let's do it!” What is it too, I think, when it comes to sales emails, kind of a rule of thumb is for every three value based resourceful emails, you get one sales email. So if you think about it that way, if you know you're sending out really just valuable content every Tuesday, you're gonna feel that much better about sending a sales email when you have a course available or class available. Because you're one, nurturing them, and because of your nurturing them, like you said on the podcast before, that know, like, and trust factor, which is like the coveted relationship in online business, you're gonna feel like you can actually pitch something in because your readers will know you they're going to respond more favorably and take action.
CYNTHIA: Absolutely. And I think that is one of the biggest mistakes business owners make, not just in the online cooking class space, but across the board, is that we use our email list when we need something from them, which is that sale. And we don't think about the relationship building and the fact that that takes time, and that you don't just skip to marriage. You've got to go on some dates. And that's something that I think we understand. But when we have a class next week, and we have zero sales, we basically are desperate. And so we do all the things. We post on Instagram, on our Facebook page, we blast our email list. And if your email list hasn't heard from you in six months, then you've got some work to do. So that's what I'm hearing you also echo, which I'm so glad you talk about because that's where sometimes people are like, “Oh, my email list doesn't generate any sales for me. It's so quiet.” And it's like, well, are you putting in the time to connect with your audience? Because the answer's no, then you shouldn't be surprised.
ALLEA: Yeah, I had a client company once saying, I want my email list to be more than a monologue. And a monologue is basically we're just the actors just talking to themselves onstage for five minutes. It can be a two way relationship. And you learn about your list based on what they click on. But like you mentioned, you can also ask them questions. You can pull the audience and engage with them that way. So that's where you'll hear things like a warm email list, or a cold email list. A warm list are people that you've stayed connected with, and then a cold email list or cold subscribers are people who either you haven't connected with, and they're gonna forget who you are, or they just stopped responding to your emails. You want to keep them warm and nurtured like any good relationship. It's like, you give more than you receive.
CYNTHIA: Ah, this has been so good, Allea. I can't believe our time is up. But this was so valuable. Now, before we move on to the rest of our conversation and wrapping things up. I do want to ask you a question I asked everyone. I'm gonna tailor it for you. So what is the single most important element of an incredible email experience?
ALLEA: Oh, I love this question.
CYNTHIA: You get the email edition.
ALLEA: Yes, I love it. Based on our conversation today, I feel like it's just important to reiterate that the most important thing is that you're using your readers’ time well because you're sending them such valuable content, they know that you're only going to send them wonderful things, instead of just feeding them half your heart, if you will, half your effort. What would it be like to really make this worth someone's time? Having their email address is a private thing. Think about the privilege that you have as someone who owns this email address, owns access to someone. Make it absolutely worth your time and theirs.
CYNTHIA: That is a beautiful response. I love it. And that's why I customized it for you because I'm like, we're gonna talk about an incredible email experience, because I knew you had an answer to it. That would be really well said. Okay, so you shared so much info with us today, Allea, and I know that our listeners are going to be re-listening to this episode, at least once, if not twice. I know I probably will. Now if our listeners want to learn more about what you offer and how they can get connected with you, where should they go to find you on the internet?
ALLEA: You can find me on Instagram @alleagrummert, spelled funny, so I'm sure that you'll link to that. The other way to get in touch is to join my email list. That's where I'm most active and where you'll learn the most for me. And if you can do that, I have a free PDF called Your First Welcome Sequence.
CYNTHIA: Oooh.
ALLEA: That’s duett.co/yourfirstwelcome. Totally free. It's got my framework for like, okay, if you're going to sit down and write down these things that are important for everyone to know, it'll walk you through what to include.
CYNTHIA: Oh, that is awesome. Thank you so much for sharing that there is no reason why anyone listening cannot do a welcome sequence. You don't need to have any subscribers to do it. There's no reason why--
ALLEA: Absolutely
CYNTHIA: -- the welcome sequence.
ALLEA: Right. And think about it too. Once it's written, you're gonna feel even better about getting email subscribers, because you're like, “I'm ready for them. I've got this welcome mat rolled out.” So you'll know you’re connected to them with the right places and introducing yourself and you'll feel even better about growing your email list.
CYNTHIA: Fantastic. Yes, we will include all of the links that you mentioned in our show notes. Yes, and your name is spelled a little differently. It's alley but it's Allea, but it’s A-L-L-E-A, everyone. So we're going to make sure that you find Allea on all the places on the internet. Okay, everyone. If this episode has whet your appetite for stepping up your marketing game for your online cooking classes, then I do want you to join me in my free masterclass. In it, I share my four step framework for creating and marketing profitable online cooking classes so that you can unlock a new income stream without feeling overwhelmed and burnt out and stressed. This is the exact framework I teach in my paid program, Cooking Class Business School. You'll also learn the top three mistakes everybody makes, yes, everybody, when marketing their classes, and the secrets to attracting loyal students who just can't wait to sign up. To save your spot for this free training, head over to Hiddenrhythm.com/masterclass. Finally, if you enjoyed this episode, which, how could you not? Allea is amazing. Share some love by leaving a review on Apple podcasts
Okay, friends, thanks so much for listening today. And until next week, get excited to get experiential.
