How Ali Stafford Has Been Strategically Growing Her Email List | The Food Blogger Pro Podcast

How about on the opposite side? Like, what are the things that you are. Like, hey, this is what I do and I have found success with this and I'm going to go deep here.

Yeah. I mean, I think the things that I've focused on the past two years, again, as I already said, the SEO and then my newsletter, just being consistent with my newsletter. And I said this earlier, but I used two people that you featured here. I have to give them shout outs. Ali Dron, Ali Grommer. She helped me create my welcome and what she calls her nurture sequence. So when somebody signs up, they get an email three days in a row that just kind of gives you an overview of Alexandra's kitchen. And then they get an email every Wednesday for like 10 weeks. And I'm still. I want to, like, build, you know, build that out. And it's been so nice to have that happening in the background. I know that for new people coming, you know, they're getting an email from me like once a week, if not twice. And then Matt Mullen helped me create what he calls these start guides to help people, entice people to sign up for your newsletter. So for me, one was on yeast bread baking and one was on sourdough bread baking. And it really helped grow my email list. And he gives you like a. Like a framework that you can use again and again, which I. And I basically used it this spring. I did, like a Farm Share newsletter. So for people who sign up for CSAs, they. I just did this thing and I did it. I didn't. I did it like in real time. I didn't have it ahead of time, but every Tuesday, people got a farm share newsletter. So being consistent, like, really trying to show up and kind of on the. I don't do it exactly on the same day, but I try, like, either, like, they'll get my Wednesday newsletter and then I try to send a newsletter out either Saturday or Sunday morning. And I've just found that being. Really sticking to that, like, really being like, this is something you have to do. It helps if you don't. When you don't send an email for a long time. I feel like you get a lot of unsubscribes as soon as you send an email, because people are like, where have you been? You know, and they're like, you know, I don't need this. So, yeah, I just. I think email is really important. They do. I follow the guy from ConvertKit, Nathan Barry. I get his newsletter and he just posted something from. I forget the guy's name. But email is kind of the thing that's the most consistent. It's the thing you can control. You're not like at the whim of some algorithm change. You, you know, if you post consistently, if you get. Sorry, if you send consistently, if you get rid of the people who are not. I'm very good about dumping my cold subscribers. People who don't open up an email for whatever ConvertKit you know, says, I just, I just delete them. I don't. I think I know you can like re. Engage them, but I don't sure idea.

Being if somebody you know is not opening is not engaging, then you clean up your email list by removing them. Not only is it helpful because then you're not paying for these extra subscribers, but also your email address has a higher open rate. Like in general, it's a healthier list. It's just kind of like email list hygiene.

Yeah, totally. Exactly. And it does make a difference. I really find and resend, like I'll say if I send out a newsletter and you know, ConvertKit gives you that option to resend to unopened and it. And every time I send a newsletter, I get, I mean, you know, a ton of people unsubscribe and it's great. I've like changed my mentality with that too. Like it's, you know, you don't want the people. If they don't want to be there, there's no point in them being there.

So. So yeah, yeah, totally. One of the things that I love about some of these elements that you've talked about is, you know, at this point where you said, hey, you know what, I want to start thinking about this maybe more intentionally. Is that a fair way to assess it where you're like, hey, I want to think strategically about this or how can I grow it? That you started to think about a phrase that I've been thinking about a lot, which is who, not how. And so okay, great. You want to improve SEO and be strategic about that. One way to do that would be figuring out thinking like, how do I do this? And you're not a Google Analytics person and that's not what you like to do. And so you could bend your own self to fit in that box, or you could say, who's somebody that loves that? And how do you bring them in to partner with you? Maybe same thing with email. It's not figuring out how do I do this? What are the specific things I need to do? Going through a bunch of articles, whatever it might Be. You're saying, who. Who do I bring in to help with this? And it feels like those have unlocked some kind of cool things. Uh, what does the newsletter do for you? Like, what do you see as the return on that traffic engagement? Are you working with sponsors?

Yeah, I'm not working with sponsors. I do find that it always. Whenever I send out a newsletter, I get a bump in traffic. So even if I look at the numbers of how many people clicked through to the site, it's. It. It's a big, bigger. Much bigger jump for whatever reason. Maybe they click on two pages or something once they get there. But it. I always see a bump in traffic every time I send a newsletter. So that's. It's really just that. And for the purpose of staying consistent, I. There was a period when. I guess also, like, there was a period I was doing the virtual classes during, you know, the pandemic and so letting people know about a virtual class. But now I'm not doing those right now. So it's really just getting people to the blog.

Yeah. Were those classes that you would charge for? And what was that? What was that like?

Um, it was really fun. It was great. I. I loved it. It was more. I did charge them. It was all. I was donating most all of the money basically for. So it wasn't, like, part of, like, my. I wasn't doing it for the money. It was just to, like, kind of during the pandemic, to engage people and have something to do. It just got to be like, when the world opened up and I. I just. All of my kids were in activities. It was, like, so stressful trying to figure out. I'm like, I'm trying to teach a class. I'm like, how are my kids going to get to sports?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right? You can only do so much. How did you. What did you do that through? Was it through just, like, zoom or.

It was through air subs. You had Tomas on. Yeah, he was wonderful. It was. Yeah, it was. It was great. I would. I would like to do it again on, like, a more spontaneous basis. And that's how I actually started. It was a very spontaneous thing. Then it became very consistent twice a month, and then the world opened up and I was totally overwhelmed.

Yep. That makes sense. And that's a great example of why it's beneficial to have an email list is because if you are doing something like that, one of the greatest ways to get people to sign up for it would be by sending them an email. They know who you Are they're familiar, they've had touch points. We've noticed the same thing as we've been launching Clarity, which is the newest kind of startup that we've been working on. It's like, it's an email list. Like, that's what's been really helpful. Email us and podcast like, that's what we use to kind of build off of. So anything that you've learned on the. In regards to like building an email list, knowing that. That it seems like kind of the folks is if I'm able to pull them out, are like SEO optimizations, kind of best practices, proactive improvements for older content and email list building and consistency as kind of two themes. Anything that you'd be able to pull out from your experience in building your email list that's been really helpful that you'd advise other people to do as well?

Well, one thing I would say, like a couple things. So one thing I learned. Matt Mullen, he was so, he was really funny. He was like, people don't read anymore. So sure, you have to. You have to be like. He would structure. I would write something and then he would restructure it. Like, almost like a block. Like, almost like H2 is like kind of some, like some bigger text to kind of break up the email or use bullet points. And I. And it was very effective. I think there's a time and a place for it. Like, I like, I think on those, like quick start guys where it's like this red course, like that kind of writing is very effective. And then I would also say, though, every so often I'll write like a really personal sort of like post where it looks almost just like a blog post, but without any pictures, just maybe one picture at the top. And people really actually respond. Like, if you. When you put your heart into something, like, it really is amazing. People will write and respond in a heartfelt way. They appreciate it when it's not just so I think it's a time and a place, you know, depending on what you're doing. But I think kind of making that distinction and. And then structuring your post to, you know, you know, yeah, what's going.

There's something about stylistic writing and the type of writing it is. Like, if you're trying to communicate dry information, I think there's something to be said about structuring it in a way to most easily communicate it, which includes H2S bullet points. Short paragraph. To your point, if you're telling a really personal story, people are going to be engaged in that in a way where they're maybe not looking to, like, how do I get what I need as quickly as possible by breezing through this, but saying, like, how do I engage with this story? It's almost like, I almost see a difference in, like, story versus, like, CTA information, like, next steps, which I think I've never really thought about that until you pointed that out. But I think it's a really powerful point that writing and media can look different depending on what you're trying to communicate.

Totally. Yeah. And I think the other thing that's kind of nice about the newsletter format is that you don't have to worry about SEO. You know, you don't. You can just write your post or, sorry, your email newsletter how you want and you don't. You're not worried if it's like, you know, if you're getting the Yoast green light. I know you're not actually supposed to worry about, you know, think about that. But you're, you know, you're not worried about. You just. You just write it how you would want to write it. And people, you know, people are. They're either reading on their phone or they're reading, you know, in their inbox. And they don't care about SEO. You know, they're just. They just want. They want something nice to read. I mean, sometimes, again, sometimes they just want the information.

Right.

But it is. That is something I found that's nice about the newsletter. So I can kind of write something heartfelt, maybe there, and then push people to the, like, SEO written blog post.

Yeah, it's. It's interesting because I think it's not either. Or. And I think sometimes as creators, we think, oh, you either have to just focus on SEO and optimize and figure out Pinterest and social media, or you are, you know, in the camp of personal stories. And. That's.

Right.

You're including that. And I think it's both. And like, totally. Lindsay does on Pitch of Yum. She'll occasionally do like a coffee. She calls them coffee date posts.

Yeah.

But it's essentially just like, it's like an update on, like, here's what she's been up to or we've been up to. Um, and for a small subset of people, it's like, I'm really interested to hear what you've been up to.

Yeah.

Um, but it's not going to rank well. And it also probably wouldn't be great to put a ton of that information in a recipe post, but you can do both of those things, like. And I think it's important. Yeah. Point that you bring up and a good reminder that it doesn't have to be a hard line, which is great.

Yeah.