99: 5 Best Practices to Supercharge Your Email Marketing With Sue Glenn

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Today my special guest is Sue Glenn. Sue is the Marketing Director of Diverse Marketing and Web Design. Her passion is helping entrepreneurs and small businesses up level with email marketing. She teaches proven strategies through workshops, online courses and one on one coaching and she also has an online course called Email with Ease. So thank you so much for joining me. I'm super excited to jump in with this with you. Today we're going to be talking about best practices for email marketing and email marketing is one of my favorite subjects. I think it's such an important your email list is such an important business asset in your business and it's often overlooked by small business owners. So super excited to dive in with this with you today and can you take a second and tell the audience a little bit more about you and your business yes.

First of all, thank you so much for having me. I'm also very excited to be here and talk about my favorite subject as well. So I help small businesses and businesses who are either just getting started or who need sort of like a restart with their marketing and specifically their email marketing efforts. A lot of companies, small companies put email by the wayside and they focus on social media. But I believe that they go hand in hand. And we're going to talk about some of the advantages of email as compared to social media.

Well, why don't we go ahead and jump right in and can you talk about your first best practices? I know that we kind of talked a little bit about this before we jumped on, but one of the things that you were talking about, you just hit it upon it now is building that email list and why it is so very important. Can you talk about some of the best practices related to that?

Yeah, absolutely. So first of all, there's basically five steps to harnessing the power of your inbox. And building a list would be number one to start with because it's really hard to send emails out when you don't have a list. It's not impossible though, because there are ways to work around it. But you need to be building your email list on a regular basis. It's not something that ends. You don't build it and then it's there, there's attrition, people will drop off and nobody should take that personally. And you know what, that's a lot of times people who do send emails, they, they get, they take it personally and they actually stop sending emails because they think that people don't want to hear from them. But it's really not true. I'll get into that a little bit later. So best practices with building email lists are, number one, do not purchase a list, okay? There's laws against the way that you get email subscribers and you have to be very careful and make sure that you're not, that you're obeying those laws. And some of them are included in the spam can laws. I'm not going to go into details on what that is, but you have to be mindful of that. So some of the ways that you can build a healthy email list that's compliant is by having an opt in. So creating a freebie or an incentive in exchange for someone's email address. And some of them could be like at an event, right? You have registration and people show up or on an online zoom, if you're having a webinar and People sign up. Those are all legitimate ways to collect email addresses. And those are some of the best practices. If you meet somebody in person, you don't want to collect their business cards and then just add them to the list the next day, you really need to have permission. And in some cases the email service provider, before you upload your list, they will ask you that question. It'll be one of the questions, do you have explicit consent from a subscriber? And you have to click yes or no. So hopefully you will click yes and do right by them.

So let me ask you this, the folks that are listening, they're service providers or freelancers, they're online course creators. And this is an area that is difficult, right? It's difficult for many of us to grow that email list, especially for not investing a lot in paid advertising. You mentioned about having that free lead magnet and we can have it up on our website, we can have it in our blog post or what are some other ways we can possibly grow that email list?

So on your website there's actually two ways that work very well. And you can use this idea Both in your WordPress, I'm sorry, in your website platform. But also there are third party companies that you can have that will integrate with your website. And the first way is to have a pop up form. Now a lot of people don't love pop ups, but they work. So it's important that you just try it, like try it on your website and see what works for you because it's a very valuable asset. And you don't have to have the pop up come up every five seconds. You can have it on a timer. You can have it so that it only pops up when somebody's about to exit your website. So there's ways to work with that pop up. And the other one is to have what's called an inline form, which is a static signup form on your website and it could be placed anywhere, most people put it at the bottom so it's sort of discreet. So you could have both. You can have the pop up that's sort of more in your face and then you can have the inline form that's sort of in the background. You can have them both be the same opt in or they can be different opt ins. But once you have that opt in then you have to start with the nurture sequence to get people through whatever the topic of your freebie is and then work them through that so that you build the know like and trust factor.

And the other thing I just Wanted to mention here because I know this is an area that a lot of people struggle with. One of the ways that I have found or one of the best ways I have found for growing my email list is collaborating with other business owners. Whether that's maybe speaking at a virtual summit. Right. Maybe that's participating in an industry bundle. Kind of like what we're doing with one of our hobby school brands where everybody gets together, puts together a digital bundle, and then they promote it. So if people are looking for ways to grow their list organically and ethically, as what sue mentioned here, that are, that is, you know, give you some ideas on how to do that.

Yeah, collaborations for sure. Even like podcasting, you know, using other people's audiences, getting in front of other people's audiences. That way, you know, you can collab at an event, you can do a takeover on Instagram. And now that there are links available to everybody, not just people who have 10,000 followers or more, you can really take advantage of that. And, and just wanted to mention that with Facebook, you can create a campaign to get email leads. So it's not that you're purchasing the leads outright. You're actually targeting people who are based in either your area or whatever parameters you want. And that is okay to do. It's not considered purchased in that way. But you can actually create a campaign of leads that generate new email addresses for you.

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All right, sue, let's move on to our next one. Can you talk a little bit about the next best email marketing practice?

So now we get into content and how, how do you create content? So one of the best practices is not to sell every single email that you send out. Some people only send out Promotional emails. A lot of retail companies do this, but for course creators and people who are smaller businesses and entrepreneurs, it works if you use the 8020 rule. So the 8020 rule is that you send emails that are educational, informational, entertaining or personal stories. And then the other 20% could be promotional, whether that's your course launch or a sale of a digital product or the virtual summit, something that you're going to sell in there. So you want to have also include your specific content pillar so that it keeps you on track. You need to have a plan. You know, obviously strategies is very important. So I like to say like most people will be, it'll be beneficial for them if they send one email a week. It's not feasible for many people. I send out a monthly email and it's more of like a digest. You know, I get content ideas and marketing ideas. So people can use that and call it a calendar. So there's a lot that they can pick from throughout the month. But some people, like I said, they'll choose to send out weekly emails. So you want to basically choose four things you'll be talking about regularly. And like the first, the first week of the month could be just a personal story about you. And this is to build that know like and trust factor. And then the second week and talk about like just to say you have a health and wellness business. So first week could be your story, you know, why you got started or things that happened to you that made you want to start the business. Right. And then the second week could be something about not selling the product, but talking about a product product or a way that was helpful to you to overcome something. And then the third week could be something educational like you can put in part of your blog post and then have people go from, from to read more onto your website. So you do want to have it have your material also go somewhere else. It could be to an article, anything that's informational for them to get closer to you. And then say the fourth week of every month could be your promotion, your sign up for this event or purchase this product or sign up for my course, something like that. So that would be considered best practice for including your content and how to create your content.

And I know this is an area that a lot of people struggle with, is trying to figure out what to say right in their emails that they're sending out to their audience. And you know, like you said, we don't always want to be selling and promoting our products and services. I know that like you mentioned, there's some retailers out there that that's all I get from them every single day. I feel like I'm getting 20, 20% off coupon for every day. So where can folks go if they're really struggling with trying to come up with an idea to email their list? Where would you point them to?

Well, first I would say point to themselves and brainstorm some ideas. You know, you know, what are you known for? What do people come to you for? Think about the frequently asked questions. Get content from your own website. You know the frequently asked questions. When you meet somebody, what's the first thing they ask you? Things that come up over and over and over again. That's one way content is. It's. There's so much content out there that you can pull from, you can curate content from other sources. And a lot of people actually abandon emails because they don't think they have enough content. And it's sad because think about all the things that you could teach somebody. You only need to you considered not an expert, but to know more than someone. I think the statistic is all you need is 10% edge on somebody else to consider yourself an expert on something. So if you just think about all the things that people ask you or even do some research on competitors and see what they're talking about or what people are asking them or other people's blog posts, you will have never ending content. And that would be like the main point that I would like to make.

And I like that. I like the point that you made about curating content from other people. I was reading an email I got on this email list here recently just because I was curious about something and got some of their emails that were coming through on the welcome sequence and they were doing a lot of content that was curated from other places. And I was like, you know what, this is ingenious because a lot of this content I'm interested in and it's not content that they actually produced, you know, it's content that was coming from someone else. And I'm like, oh, that's really cool. I really love the way they did that. So that's a great tip. So moving on, what is your next best practice that you want to talk about?

About how to create a campaign. So I'm a local, certified local expert for Constant Contact. It's an email service provider and they send out, you know, millions of emails. So based on their research, they found that there are seven elements to good design or things that you should have in an email. And I'm Going to go down that list quickly. I probably get one, but. So one of the first one is obviously who the email is coming from. Right. I still get emails from people who just show their first name and some of them I know and I've talked to them about it and oh yeah, I gotta change that. That's right. I mean, how would they know that it's me out of all the people in the world? Right. If you want to have people know exactly who it's coming from and there's no doubt about it, make sure that you have your first name, your last name and or your company name. If it's a product that you sell and people know you mostly for the product, you know, use the product name. But figure out how people know you the best or the majority of people, how they know you best. So that's where the two and from comes in your. When you're sending out an email, the second one is your subject line. There are best practices for best subject lines that get open the most and we found that a shorter subject line is better and it needs to be optimized for mobile because you're not going to get as many words on your phone as you will on desktop. Now most people for me in my reporting says that I get about 75% opening on desktop and only 25% on mobile. So I sort of optimize it more for people who are reading on the desktop. There's a little more real estate in there on the subject line. But basically, yeah, you do want to have make it short, like six to 10 words and have the most important part of your subject line be, you know, at the front. You want to definitely make sure that you're not using words or phrases that are in your own spam box. So if you want to know what not to do, look in your own spam email inbox and avoid those words like things like money, urgent, act now you've won a prize. You know, things like that, they don't go over so well and, and there is a possibility that it won't even, it'll get rejected and won't even land in someone's inbox. Another thing is don't use too many exclamation points, punctuation, anything like too many question marks and things like that. So avoid that as well. And the last quick tip I have is not to add so many emojis, but feel free to add at least one. They seem to stand out in somebody's inbox. So it could be seasonal. You know, if you're sending out something for Valentine's, obviously you put a heart so that would stand out as opposed to someone not having that. So every month or every maybe once a month, like I said, I do a monthly and I started adding emojis for the month. If you send them weekly, people might get tired of them. But if you decide to send it every fourth week to have your emoji or if it relates to your story, use one in your subject line. So that's subject line. Then there is the actual campaign design. So at the top of the email you should always have either your logo or if your logo is not a picture, your name. If it's your logo at the top and the middle so that it doesn't get cut off by your phone, you know, your smartphone and keep it at the top and then make sure it's clickable. Have it clickable to wherever you want somebody to take action to. Usually going to be your website. You don't want to wait for somebody to get all the way to the bottom where your contact information is to click on your website. Sometimes people want to do that right away. And then after that you're going to put in your headline and then content, you don't want to have too much content. Like 20 lines of text is sufficient. You can do, if you want to add like say you have three things you want to talk about. You know, you can have three small, small short, you know, headlines and then have just a little bit of text and then have a link to read more. Maybe, maybe it's to your blog or to an article or to an event. So you can do it that way. And then you want to have very strong calls to action and to highlight them. We create, I create buttons. So it'd be like a contrasting button. So your email should basically be a light colored background and then dark colored text. Definitely want to use your branding. So let's just say you have branding that's green, white and black, right? So if your text is going to be black and the background is going to be white, then use your green as your button and that will stand out from the rest of the email. And then make sure the wording in your button is stands out as well. Like you might say, get this now or sign up here or even read more so people can click on that. And then at the end, at the bottom you want to put in your contact information. So it's a way for somebody to get in touch with you. Phone number, an email address. Again, even though it's at the top. I mean, you can have your reply to be different than an email that you want people to connect with you on. So it could be different because you might have a team and you might have somebody else who replies to your emails. And then you want to have obviously your website again at the bottom. It could be just, you know, have the link there and then add in your social media sites. So you want to have the icons you have to Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, you know, whatever you have, you can put that at the bottom. So that's the sequence basically, so that you have all the bases covered for people to be able to reach out to you again, to contact you, to get all the information that you want them to receive and also the call to action. Because that's the main part of email, is what you want people to do with the information. You know, you're not just sending information. It's something that you always want them to do once they open up your email.

And I liked your tip about making sure that, number one, you. You have your name and who's actually sending the email, and then you make sure you have your contact information. I can't even tell you how many emails I have received over the years. And I had no idea who was sending the email. Like, yeah, right.

You want to have your name, you should have a signature at the bottom. Like it's, you know, like a signature. It's a little bit different maybe than the typeface in email. And even like a credential, like, you know, like what you're known for. Like online. I always have at the bottom, I have, you know, certified local expert and also, you know, digital marketing strategist. So you want to have that you know, as well.

All right, so moving on, what is your next email best practice?

Okay, so the next subject would be getting your emails open. So there are a few good things that you can do here and that would be back to the subject line. Working with different ways to get the. Get your emails open is to have an urgent subject line. Don't want to use that too often, so keep away from making it urgent every time. Do not use the. I think it's called switch and bait. You know, like, they do that with cars where they, you know, you make an offer if people come down or pull you up, and then they don't have that car available and try to sell you something else. So make sure that your subject line is in relation to the content that's in the email. You don't want to create a subject line that's very enticing just to get them to open it and then not have the information that you really want them to read. So that's a no. No. Also, you want to test, know, test your subject line. You may or may not have the feature in your email service provider, but there is AB testing and certain, certain emails that you should be doing so. And a way to do that is to create two different subject lines and we only send. Send one subject line to a group of people in your on your subscriber list and then create another email subject line that you think might be better or work in your favor and then choose a different amount of people on that list and send them both out and then see which one like wait, you have to wait like a couple days or a day. So make sure you do this in advance, especially if you're just starting to test, it could be even like a few hours later to see which one gets the most open and then send that subject line to the rest of the list. And you can do that over and over just so you can figure out like, you can get into a groove of like what's working as far as the subject lines you're using. Because a lot of times you'll get a similar subject line that's always going to work for you and you only have to tweak a couple of words, you know, in that. So the, the A B testing. You can also do like there was. There are headline analyzers and things that you can also get outside of your email service provider if they don't offer that. So you can do something with a third party and then make sure you're sending it during the time or day that your target market will be looking at it. So let's just say your target market might be, you know, moms and they have young kids, right? They will probably put their little ones to bed around 7 o' clock or 8 o'. Clock. So then a good time for them to get an email might be if you send it at 8 o' clock and they're looking at their emails, you know, later at night when they have some time to themselves. That's one option. So you have to be cognizant of your audience and when they might be opening emails. Okay, so that's, that's one way. And then the day of the week, there are actually certain days of the week that are better for certain industries. But overall a Thursday between like 10 and 2 has the most, most open rate. And a lot of people don't know that, and then Tuesday is the second best. And then Wednesday, Saturday is really not the best. But for certain industries, actually, Sunday mornings are good, too. So again, this is all about testing. You have to try, you know, send out your first few. Meet few emails or remember to see what's going to work best for you. And just keep following that, you know, don't keep mixing it up. Find out like, something that's working and then just keep doing that over and over.

I think that's some good tips. And going back to the A and B testing, there are some email service providers out there where you can just put in the A and B lines for your subject lines and they'll do all that testing for you, which that is. That's really cool. You know, and I've been testing kind of when to send out emails. And, you know, it's very strange. Like, I've sent out an email on a Sunday night that got crazy open rates and then, you know, testing one out in the middle of the week when you think everybody's working, maybe they're just too busy working and they're not opening emails.

So I guess you never know, right? Like, sometimes you think, oh, yeah, definitely, Thursday will be back. That's what they say. And then you put it on Thursday, but you find out your Sunday is better than that. What works for you. Don't do what everybody else is doing if it's not going to work for you. And then like, like you did, you tested it and figured it out. And you know, you see what's going to work. And also, it depends on the types of emails you're sending to. You know, if you have an event and it's coming up quickly and you have a certain day that has to go out, you know, you have no choice to send it. So you can't do every email. But again, that's. That's why you have testing.

All right, so let's move on to the next question.

Best practice. Okay, so the next best practice is paying attention to your analytics. A lot of people that I speak to never even look at the reports. But after every email that you send you, you get a report, it's usually like a day or two later. And it will give you all this great information that you don't have to do yourself, right? The percentage of people that opened your email, how many people clicked on the email, what were they looking at? There's heat maps for some companies where you can see where they're hovering their mouse. Again, you can compare your last few emails. If you want, you can compare a similar story email. Let's just say remember I talked earlier about on the first week of the month you can send out maybe a personal story, right? So you can check like the stories that worked and the ones that didn't. And then the whole point of report getting your analytics and studying them is seeing what works, what didn't and making better decisions going forward. But the most important, actually the most important analytic is your click throughs because that's where most of the action takes place. I mean people obviously have to open in order to click, but the click throughs are very important. And if you can segment your list and see what people are clicking on, then you can focus on the people who click. But maybe don't purchase and send them like a follow up email based on their behavior. Yeah, so don't, don't ignore those reports. You know, look at them every month at minimum.

And I'm assuming, I know in ConvertKit I don't know anything about constant content, but I know in ConvertKit it's very easy. I can just go in, look at my reports for a particular campaign. I've been looking at them all week because we just finished the scale your business summit. So I've been looking on all that and all the email analytics there.

So yeah, there's graphs, there's all sorts of things. There's percentages, then there's comparisons with graphs and also, you know, number of people, but also not just the number of people, but you can figure out like exactly who, who's the person who clicked on who opened my email, who clicked on it, who's been opening up my last five emails. And then there's there could be a chart also of who's your, you know, how many people are the most engaged, how many are the least engaged. And then you can send out emails to those two separate lists, you know, the most engaged, give them a special offer, you know, being the most engaged, you know, list the least engaged, give them sort of like a reinduct, reintroduction of yourself or your services to get them engaged again. There's all sorts of ways to use your analytics but you definitely, definitely need to use all those insights to help you be a better marketer.

So sue, thank you so much for sharing these email best practices with us. Can you tell the audience where they can find you if they want to learn a little bit more about email marketing?

Yes. So I have website diversemarketing.net and on social media I am can be reached at sue like Victory Glenn Suv Glenn with two n's and Yep, that's it. Those are the two main places that people can find me on the text.

And we'll make sure, sue, that those links are in the show notes for everybody. And thank you so much for joining me. I loved all of your email marketing tips and best practices, and I know that it's going to help a tremendous amount of people.

Excellent. Very happy. I'd love to talk about my passion helping small businesses and entrepreneurs, so I appreciate you having me.

Thank you, Sue.

You're welcome.

Thank you so much for joining us today. I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you love the show, we'd appreciate a review on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast platform and show us some love there. Have a great rest of your day and bye for now.