[Transcript starts at 1:08]
Hello, hello, hello, my podcast people, and thank you for joining me for yet another episode of my favorite podcast. Today we are talking about how often should you email your list. If you're listening and watching on the day that this drops, it is Monday, December 11th. Happy Monday, December 11th. Right off the bat.
Thank you. It is that Spotify wrapped time of year and it is just honestly, it's so dope to see Maestro on the Mic on your list. Like I don't use Spotify really at all, but I definitely don't listen to podcasts on it. So I can't share my wrapped or any of that. But it is just fucking incredibly dope to see Maestro on the Mic on your podcast list and for many people, number one.
So just. Thank you. Of note, we are also, so let's move away from Spotify, as it relates to Apple Podcasts, we got 252 ratings. Thank you. And a new review that I'm going to read because it's from my homie, Nyki. Nyki. Wrote, Straight up, I have never left a podcast review. However, I felt inspired to help spread the word on this one.
Really? The value Shanté shares is beyond business and Instagram, although you'll absolutely get the goods there. Finding someone who shares much of your same values and then listening and watching how she incorporates those values into business is both inspiring and grounding. With the authenticity, honesty, expertise, and humor.
This is 100 percent a favorite podcast of mine. Thank you for your greatness. Nyki. Fuck, thank you. I told you folks, I don't read these before I read them now. And so I'm always like, what did it say? It's like, I don't know. Maybe if you're watching it, you can see my face is light up. If you're listening, hopefully you can hear my excitement, but just like.
Thank you, Nyki, just, because I get it, like, taking the time to leave a review is fucking annoying, but I also get the flip side of when you, like, really feel inspired to do it because you're so grateful for the service or whatever, and just, like, I am really glad that I can provide value for you in that way, in such a way that it, like, inspires you to want to go and do an annoying task. So just thank you. All right, so let's hop into the episode. Today we are answering the question, how often should you email your list? The short answer, as much as you want, period. The more nuanced answer is what I'm going to use the rest of this episode for. So this episode is inspired by a question box, uh, and an article sent to me by one of my Legacy 4. 0 homies, and, uh, I was like, you know what? Let's do a full episode on this. I got things to say. I answered her question, but I was also like, let's do a full episode on this. So right off the bat, I think that email is, or your email list is the most important asset of your online business. It's the only form of contact that you have with your audience that you actually own. Of note, make sure that you back up your email list at least once a quarter. Lex does it for me. Thank you, Lex. Uh, and all that that means is that you're going to export the CSV file. The CSV file, that is just a fancy name for an Excel spreadsheet. And it has the Email addresses and the name of the person first and last thing, depending on what you've asked for people ask, asked for from people, and you literally can just push one button.
I don't care what kind of email marketing service you have or provider you have. You can literally just do it in like one button and it will export a CSV file to your computer or to your email, and then you just save it. Alright, that's it. So do that at least once a quarter. This way, if like the service you use shuts down or whatever, like you still have all those contacts.
Right? It's the only thing that you, as it relates to what email marketing provider I recommend, it is ConvertKit and ConvertKit alone. Why? Well, for a few reasons. Number one, it's made for creators. Number two, it has a great sender reputation. So that means you are more likely to have your emails actually land in people's inboxes as opposed to their spam boxes. The helpful desk is, excuse the helpful desk, the help desk is actually helpful. It integrates with nearly everything, which is a huge thing when I'm looking at software. Zapier, Zapier, however you fucking pronounce it. Don't use it because those shits break, right? So we want direct integration of things.
It has a commerce feature, which is huge, especially for people that are just starting out and don't necessarily want to pay for payment processors and having these kinds of things on their website. You can sell things directly through ConvertKit. It's not what I'd recommend for like the long term, but you can get, go very, very far with just the commerce feature, commerce feature that they have.
It is a subscriber based, not list based, meaning you only have to pay for each individual subscriber that you have. Whereas other platforms make you pay per list that you have. So if you, if the same person opts in for, you know, this freebie that you have, and then this other freebie that you have, they're on two separate lists.
You're paying for that person twice, which is bullshit, but it's a practice that's out there. And that's terrible, right? You only plan paying for the individual subscriber, right? The unique, the number of unique email addresses that you have. Lastly, there is a bit of a learning curve that just like there's for anything, but ultimately it is very simple to do things like create landing pages, which is a functionality that you need to have if you're going to look to actually acquire email lists. You want to be able to do these things on the fly and on your own. You don't want to like have to hire a coder or some shit like that. Like you can do this even if you don't have a website- which I recommend you having, but if you don't have a website, it's fine, you can still create landing pages so that people can put their name in and you can get their email addresses.
So, to me, it is ConvertKit or nothing. I am not going to go back and forth in the DMs with you, so do not DM me or text me, but, but why? I like this thing better. Than go fucking use that. Okay? I actually don't care. The thing that I am going to recommend is going to be ConvertKit, and yes, I have an affiliate link, we will drop it in the show notes.
Thank you, Courtney, and we'll drop it below if you're watching on YouTube. Thank you, Jojo. So back to what I was saying, hit the desk, back to what I was saying. Your email list is the most important asset that your online business, that your online business has. To that end, many folks seem to default to wanting to protect this asset. by doing whatever they can to keep people on it. All right. They think that protecting the asset means keeping people on the actual list. And the way that they look to keep people on the list is by not ever emailing them. A moment of silence for that line of thought, right? That's, that's incorrect. You keep people on your list by continuing to provide value, right? I want you to think about your own consumer habits, right? What keeps you going back to a store or company? It's not the fact that they never sell you anything. It's the fact that they sell you things that you actually want, right?
I know that as I'm saying this, people are immediately in their head jumping to the whole, but I don't want to be annoying.
I get it. But also how many emails do you have to receive before you unsubscribe from a company that you actually like their stuff, right? Not that you like bought some one off thing and you like somehow got subscribed to their list, like stuff that you actually want. How many people are still receiving emails from like Bed, Bath and Beyond?
Like, I don't know if they still send those 20, 20 percent off coupons in the mail. Maybe not. Cause I think they went out of business because of that, but actually I think they're still in business, but I know that people are still getting things to their inbox and you may not open it, but you're like, whatever.
Maybe one day I'm going to get a coupon that I actually want to use. Like how many emails do you have to receive before you actually unsubscribe? Typically quite a few, and I'm saying this kind of on the heels of Black Friday because this is typically when people start to actually, like, unsubscribe. But oftentimes they're going to unsubscribe from people's lists that they didn't even know they were a part of, or from lists that they, like, bought some, like, one off lotion one time, and they're like, I don't even want to fucking be a part of this thing, right?
I will also add a big caveat here is that you never signed up for those fucking emails in the first place for many, for many of these, you know, providers, many of these businesses. You bought something and then you were added to that list. If you are a personal brand, there is a good chance that everyone on your list willingly opted in.
So this is a completely different situation than, you know, they just got added to your list. From a legal perspective, this actually needs to be the case. I'm not going to go into that because that's not really what the point of this episode is about, but like, you can't just like, add people to your list without the, without the permission.
Like legally you cannot do that, right, as it relates to your, your email list. But my point being, you are currently subscribed to a bunch of shit that you don't want to be subscribed to and they email you things, right, I'm thinking about Best Buy. I probably never unsubscribe, I don't know, I just like, don't even care, right?
So, Unless it's something that I don't ever want anything from, I'm like, whatever, I'll just leave it. And that's what most people do as well. So if the immediate thing that you're going to is, I don't want to, I don't want to annoy people. One, think about your own consumer habits and like, you don't unsubscribe.
And two, these people opted in, they're choosing to be there, right? The way that you keep them there is by providing value. Not by never emailing them ever. So protecting your list by never writing to them is objectively the worst fucking advice I have ever heard. And that's basically what the article said that that woman sent to me, my legacy homie sent to me, right?
It was the article was kind of like giving suggestions or giving frequency suggestions based on list size. And I was like, this is so fucking stupid. It's so fucking stupid. Write as much as you want, and people will stay if they want to stay. And if they leave. That's on them. That's good. Autonomy is sexy.
You want people there that actually want to be there. As it relates to email, the most important and probably the only metric to be paying attention to is opening rate. If you have less than like 5, 000 subscribers, I want a 50 percent opening rate, right? That's going to show me how engaged this audience actually is.
What's the point of having a hundred thousand people on your list and a 0. 001 opening, excuse me, 0. 001 percent opening rate. No one's reading your shit, right? This is a vanity metric. The same as you see massive numbers on Instagram and they have zero engagement on that account. We want people to actually be reading stuff.
We want people to actually be engaged. The way that you keep that opening rate high is by providing value and you get people onto the list who actually want to be on the list, and you do so by promising them more value, right? If you have them on one platform and you're like, Hey, I do, I go deeper with this.
I answer questions. Whatever it is that you do, I do that on this email list. You don't get people onto the list by tricking them or, you know, buying the list or anything like that because they're not going to open the list. They're not going to open the emails. Got it. Okay.
So when starting an email list, even for many of you listeners, maybe you already have one.
So whether you're starting an email list or you have one, I want you to ask yourself, why do I want this email list? Why do I have it? If your answer is because Maestro said so, okay, love that. But also I want you to think about why do you, what is the purpose of this thing? Right? Why do you want to have it?
For me, it's to maintain communication. It's connect with people. It's to share ideas. That's a big one for me. It's to have a place to sell directly to people who want the thing that I'm selling. So just circling back real quickly, to share ideas and get them out of my head, that is a big reason that I, excuse me, that is a big reason that I have this email list, right?
I am a content creator through and through. I like to fucking talk, I have a lot of things to say, I want to get them out of my head. And so, sometimes writing is a bit easier for me. I can have a long, like a longer, I have more room, right? I flesh things out. So, that is the main reason that I have one. It's just like, Be able to write stuff.
Why do I have that instead of a blog? Because this then ties into the business side of things because it's a way to provide value in like a set way and a more like kind of intimate way, if you will. And then have that kind of back and forth, people can respond to me, which ultimately helps with building that trust, which down the road helps with selling things.
But the reason I have it is because I have something to say. So once you've established the purpose of this email list, then you lean into that in a way that fits you. I like to write. I'm good at writing. I will say it, it comes pretty easily. And so I don't have, excuse me, I don't mind having a frequency goal of once a week.
If it's hard for you to write, if you don't like writing, then write less. But remember, if your goal is connection with your audience, writing less could make it tough, not will, but it could make it tough, right? It's not impossible, but just think about this. Lean into whatever connection looks like for you. Frequency and connection- don't- they're not, you know, they don't go, they're not mutually exclusive there, or they're not synonyms, right? So you could still hit them people up once a quarter and that's fine. I just want you to be thinking about these things. That's all. If your goal with having this list is to sell, writing to people less frequently could honestly make it tougher to sell because people are like, Oh man, they, you know, Shante only slides into the inbox when she's got something to sell me.
Maybe that's your style and it works for you and it works for your audience. Maybe they don't like that. You, I just want you to be cognizant of these things. That's it. I'm not here to say this is the only way, this is the best way. I just want you asking yourself these questions and then leaning into a style, an approach that fits you.
From a tactical perspective, a very easy way to maintain consistency with your email is simply to do a monthly recap, right? So whether you do it the last day of the month or the first day of the month, I do one the last day of the month. You can choose it's something that I tell all of my clients, my business clients to do.
It's just, it's a very easy way and a month comes around very fast, right? So if you're like, I write once every never, cool, then let's commit to once a month and folks will be like, that's not enough. Well, right now you're writing literally zero. So this is a big increase, big improvement. As we're looking at frequency or as it relates to frequency, right?
More is not better. Less is not worse. I know this is the answer that you hate and you don't want to hear, but it is the truth. So I'm going to consider here as well is that people are busy and this doesn't mean don't write. It means don't expect people to read the email, write, read. Wow. That's going to tongue tie me there.
I should say. This doesn't mean don't write. It means don't expect them to read it when you write it. I'll just say that because otherwise I'm like, uh, it's gonna be tough for me. I've, and I've noticed this where I'll send an email and I'll get a response to that email a week later, two weeks later, three weeks later.
Like people are busy. I know, I know for a fact that they'll tell me. I saved this email to be able to, you know, read it at a time when I had time. So this may actually be, you know, justification for writing more frequently but saying the same thing because people aren't opening their emails because like they want to read it But they're busy so perhaps write more frequently but don't think you have to say radically new, different, radically new differently, radically new or different things every time.
At the end of the day I write to my list because I have something to say, not because I'm trying to get people to stay.
Autonomy is sexy AF. All right. So I'm just here to share my thoughts and my journey and my opinions, and I would love to have those people and you people, if you want to join. Speaking of, I actually didn't have this in the outline, but I probably should. Call to action here. If you're not on the Maestro mailing list and you want to be a part of it, we will link that in the show notes.
Like I said, I send emails out maybe once a week ish or so. And it's usually just musings. I do send a monthly recap, but um, if you sign up for the list, you will get an email that's automatically kicked out to you that says, hey, here's what to expect. And so you can see the things I send in there. Um. It's just, if you want more, you know, you want more Maestro in your life, you want more communication, you want to, you'd like to read things, and I do share different things there just cause some things are easier for me to record as a podcast, sometimes it's easier for me to write it out.
And so that's what the email list is for. So if you like reading stuff. I would love to have you as part of the Maestro Mail family, right? So how often should you email your list? The answer of course, is as often as you want. Get clear with your reasoning for having an email list and then lean into meeting those goals in a way that fits you.
If you want, I have an entire on demand webinar that I am cetain will answer the rest of the questions that you have as it relates to emailing and email list building and email marketing. I didn't talk about those things. Well, one, cause I have this whole entire webinar on demand webinar, but also because the whole goal of this episode was simply to answer the question, how often should you email your list?
All right. So we will link that on demand webinar in the show notes. If you use the coupon PODCASTHOMIE, H O M I E, all caps, PODCASTHOMIE, that will save you 20%. It's a 40 email marketing, excuse me, it's a 40 webinar. So, you know, it's not going to break the rank either way, but let's give you a little discount.
Because you are one of the podcast homies, right? So if you want to learn about how to start the list, how to grow the list, how to increase your opening rates, what to write, uh, and maybe you want the introduction to some of the more advanced tactics like tagging, like sequencing and automation, things like that, I go over all of that in the webinar.
So you can check that out. In the show notes, it'll be, I'll be there for you. Okay. Looking at the outline, that is all that I have for you today. I love talking about email marketing and I, again, I really do believe it is the most valuable asset of your online business. So if you don't have an email list, you're not behind.
You have simply identified your, all right. All right. for the Spotify shares. That shit is so dope. Thank you for the ratings, the reviews and. Especially, thank you Nyki for that dope, uh, new review. I know it takes time and y'all, y'all give me your time and your attention. I don't take it lightly. All right?
All right. That's all I got for you. As always, endlessly, endlessly appreciative for every single one of you. Until next time, friends, Maestro out.
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